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Blue Moon 7.5

by Donna Lamb

In a black limo on the road to Hell, Sophie glared at Ted who glared back.

"One of yours?" they both asked.

"Iynx, vos debeo mihi una ampulla de Coca," said Bill.

* * *

Richard and Jo both scrambled out of the car after the rap on the roof.

An enormous black man standing on the sidewalk in a fashionable London business suit (that must have cost more than the limo) looked down at Jo. He grinned through a mass of pockmarks and tribal scars and peered at her out of coke-bottle thick glasses. Not just tall or fat, he stood close to seven feet tall and probably weighed over five hundred pounds. He also carried two massive, ivory tipped canes, one of which he had just withdrawn from using to rap the limo roof.

"I am the delight of being to greet you, Miss Paragon," said the black man. "It is to have the graceful pleasure of naming me Rightly Revered Dar Gmunro. Service to you. To be venturing I am from my country home yclept Dnuro, a state of nation island by the Hornishness of Africa." He made a motion that looked a bit like a bow made by someone who did not bend in the middle.

Behind the oversize fare stood two redcaps, pushing a cart laden with black leather suitcases, brass appurtenanced trunks and odd-shaped containers without names. The air porters rolled their eyes and grinned wide enough to nearly match the expression of their patron. "Wanna help us put this junk inna trunk, Paragon?" one of them asked.

"Sure," said Richard, starting around the rear of the limo. "Jo, get the door for Mr. Monroe, will you?"

"Yes, sir," said Jo, a tiny bit awed by the size and majesty of their fare and confused by his syntactical gyrations. She moved to open both of the doors to the rear compartment, figuring the massive man would need the room.

"Gmunro," said the giant, looking at Richard. Then to Jo, "It is thou art naming to be called that Joe?"

"Uh, it's M-melody Jo, actually." She stood aside and Gmunro bent slightly to try to peer inside. No wonder they said they'd need the bus for this guy, Jo thought.

"Ah," he said after inspecting the space. "M-melody. A naming of beauty to be meeting music. Delightful am I to acquaint me unto thyself." Everything he said came out with such a rotund profundity that it took Jo a moment or more to work out the sense of it from the fractured syntax. "Verily and forsooth, art thou not a M-melody of Angels in a civitation of angels?" He waggled curly black eyebrows at her.

She shook her head, giggling and squeaking in embarrassment like some obscure British dessert. Mr. Gmunro beamed even wider as he attempted to negotiate the task of inserting his bulk into the backseat of the limo. The problem seemed to be that the limo sat on the tarmac some six inches below the level of the sidewalk and this height differential required an inconsiderate amount of bending by the man-mammoth.

"Oh, dear," said Jo.

"To be regretted I am, should have I not engorged to be fed myself on a troop of monkeys," said Mr. Gmuno. He said this in a sad and lugubrious tone, as if officiating at a state funeral.

Jo couldn't work that one out at all, not being sure whether Mr. Gmunro desired to damn himself to be eaten by simians or regretted having devoured an entire troop of little beasts at his last meal. She stood transfixed by the contemplation of sheer unbending girth, trying not to giggle. Did they bring him here in a cargo plane? Jo wondered. Maybe we need a derrick to get him in and out?

Dar Gmunro, Rightly Revered, leaned on his canes with an air of fatalism, as if this sort of indignity were his usual lot and things would eventually work out. "Miss M-Melody Jo Paragon, to have thy contentment may be greater pleasingness to this Gmunro at lunch?"

"Uh," said Jo.

"Not the cuisine's nativeness unto my spaceful abandon, endeavor to be introduced in my person to own thy liking," he said.

"You w-want to eat local f-food? Sir?" Jo guessed.

He nodded like a mountain casting a benediction. "In its various entirety, to the great orifice of one poor ensample, to wit, this carcase before thy beauteous envelope."

Jo had great difficulty suppressing an explosion of mirth while blushing. "Hamburgers, p-pizza, b-burritos?"

"Bring the plethoras, those ravening fishes, my peckishness has not to be situated since engrossing the South Atlantic River," said the huge man. His enormous belly growled an agreement.

"Oh, dear," said Jo. That almost made sense. "Richard, M-mr. G'm-munro says he hasn't eaten in hours."

Richard, who'd been involved in stowing the luggage looked up, surprised to see the huge African gentleman still standing beside the limo. Well, at least he hasn't turned the car over trying to get in.

One of the porters mumbled, "Careful he don't eat that blonde."

"I will, if he don't want her," offered the other. They traded porterish leers.

Glaring, Richard dismissed them after giving each a tip for helping load the trunk. "What's the problem?" he asked Jo, stepping around to the passenger side of the big vehicle. Guh-gug guh-jub! I didn't know they had walruses in Africa! He tried not to stare but up close the guy was overwhelming.

"Must I be to chastise and Atkinsize to the insertion of the estimable?" asked Gmunro.

Jo made little cappuchino machine noises while Richard took in his fare's great girth and the immobility implied by the two canes. He'd driven a limo for five years and he'd seen a lot but never anyone with Mr. Gmunro's set of problems. At least, he seems to understand English, even if you couldn't really say he's speaking it. "I can move the car, so you don't have so far to bend over to get in, sir," he said after a bit.

"To the devotion of sanctified raisins, Mr. Paragon. Thanks be," said Mr. Gmunro. He stepped backward, using his canes to steady himself. People on the walkway went wide around him, though several stopped to stare at a respectful distance. He beamed at the crowd with the same ferocious good cheer he'd shown to Jo. One child, his hand tightly clasped in his mother's burst into tears and the little family hurried away, their retreat guarded by the apprehensive father. "Ah, splendiferous Bank of the River Bur, where encounters to one might such Angels," he said beaming at Jo.

Shaking her head and grinning, she helped Richard close the passenger side doors. "I'll w-wait with Mr. G'm-munro," she said.

"Okay," said Richard dashing around to the driver's side. By backing and filling, he would be able to move the limo away from the curb to give the giant more maneuvering room.

"It'll just be a m-minute, sir," said Jo as Mr. Gmunro moved forward to stand beside her.

He nodded, looking down at her with an avuncular kindness. "In which gleeful propinquity dost thou to contemplate thy third wish?" he asked.