The Loser, the
Flapper and Rugila, King of the Huns – Part
One
by Don Drewniak
Twenty-year-old
Mervin Molson was one of life’s perpetual
losers. He was slightly less than five pounds at
birth and was cursed with a large hook nose.
Mervin was the smallest kid in his kindergarten
class and one of the smallest boys throughout his
school days. This, combined with his appearance
and his name (he was often called Merv the Perv),
made him a ripe target for bullies until he
dropped out of high school the day he turned
sixteen.
An only child,
his mother deserted him when he was seven. His
father, who paid little attention to his son
except to curse him for his poor grades, blamed
Mervin for losing his wife. As a result, Mervin
was more often than not left to fend for himself
as the father, a good-looking, well-built man,
moved from one woman to another.
When Mervin
told his father that he left school, he was given
one hour to pack up his belongings and leave
their home. Tears filling his eyes, he dragged
two large and battered suitcases along sidewalks
and streets until he reached the home of the one
person who had been kind to him, his recently-widowed
grandmother, Phyllis Spaulding. She welcomed him
into the house when, still in tears, he told her
what had happened.
Grandma
Spaulding was his maternal grandmother who had
little use for her daughter after she deserted
Mervin and rarely spoke to her son-in-law.
“Mervin,
bring your suitcases into the spare bedroom,
unpack and take a hot shower. I’ll fix you a
nice hot supper.” She gave him a hug and
said, “Welcome to your new home.”
He wept until
not a tear was left to fall. His dinner of steak,
mashed potatoes and broccoli was the first hot
meal he had eaten in months. Meal finished,
Grandma Phyllis taught him how to play cribbage.
That took up most of the evening.
Grandma was a
librarian at the town library that was
conveniently located six blocks away from her
apartment. She worked five days a week on a
rotating schedule. Evenings were reserved for
cribbage, television and Netflix. Mervin
passed away most of Grandma’s days at work
by surfing the Web and playing games on her
laptop.
After three
wasted months, his conscience got the better of
him and he began to search for a job. He secured
a part-time one as a stock boy and floor sweeper
at a local supermarket. Mervin was fired five
weeks later for chronically arriving late to work.
Another three months passed before he became a
dishwasher and cleanup boy at a greasy-spoon
restaurant. From then on, he went through cycles
of spending months messing with the laptop and
finding a new menial job that never lasted more
than a few months.
Mervin ran out
of job prospects three months after turning
nineteen. He began walking to the library and
escorting Grandma home. Four months from his
twentieth birthday and on a walk home, she asked,
“Mervin, the next time you come to walk home
with me, why don’t you come a couple hours
early and go into the library? You could pick out
a good book and take it to the reading room.”
He had no
choice but to promise that he would do so. Three
days later, he chose Robert Heinlein’s 1961 Stranger
in a Strange Land. As to why, there was
something about the title that intrigued him and
caused him to speculate what it would be like to
start a new life in a new land. Little did he
know.
Days passed
into weeks and weeks into months until he
stumbled upon a computer page containing a photo
of a flapper taken in the 1920s. It was love at
first sight. Unfortunately for Mervin, there was
no accompanying name or any other information
relative to the photo.
Thus began his
search. He read a lengthy post about flappers on Wikipedia,
watched clip after clip about the “Roaring
20s” via YouTube and scanned the
internet looking for another photo of his
flapper.
Following
nearly a month of futility, he found her name
– Ruby Beatrice Corbyn. That was it. No
record of her birth. No record of her death.
Nothing.
His haunting
fascination with the phantom flapper carried over
into dreams – dreams in which he traveled
back to the 20s in a time machine. It was on the
last of these nights that he awoke as the first
rays of the morning sun filtered through his
bedroom windows. It was his twentieth birthday.
A voice, the
sweet voice of a young woman, beckoned him to
take a walk in the woods that began at the end of
the town’s main road a little over one mile
from Grandma’s apartment.
Possessed, he
dressed and quietly made his way to the woods
where he continued walking guided by that same
voice. Mervin came to an abrupt stop fifteen
minutes later. In the distance was what appeared
to be a small patch of fog. Cautiously
approaching it, he saw the outline of a black
cube that appeared to be a couple feet taller
than he was. His pulse quickened as he saw a
slightly-opened door. The voice urged him to
enter the cube. He did. The door closed behind
him.
Although he
was blanketed in near total darkness, he felt no
fear. He made his way to a small source of light
on the back wall. It was a rectangular ivory-colored
button no more than one inch high and six inches
wide. Printed on it was “R.B.C. - 1924.”
Mervin couldn't
contain his emotions. “A time machine! A
time machine! It's taking me to Ruby!”
He pressed the
button and next found himself standing in front
of a door in a dimly-lit hallway. It was the only
door in sight in a hallway that seemed to have no
end in either direction. Printed in large white
letters on the black door were the letters R.B.C.
Ruby!
He pulled open
the door and tentatively stepped into total
darkness as the door slammed shut and he heard
the faint click of a lock. His bravery faltered
as panic swept over him. Lights flashed on.
Blinded at first, his sight slowly returned. He
was in a room that looked to be about twenty-feet
wide and thirty-feet in length. The floor, the
ceiling and four sides were all black. Backed up
against the far wall were two king-size beds.
Sitting on the end of the bed to the left were
two of the heaviest women he had ever seen.
My god,
they must weigh four hundred pounds each!
Sitting on the
other bed was a woman who was even heavier.
Must be
five hundred pounds!
Mervin knew
they were older that he was, but he had no idea
if they were in their thirties, forties or
fifties. All three were wearing enormous white t-shirts
with two lines of black printing:
Ringling
Brothers
Circus
- 1924
Their only
other pieces of clothing were parachute-sized
black panties.
Minutes passed
as he seemed to be frozen in place as they stared
at him.
Finally, the
heaviest of the three spoke, “Here’s
our man, ladies. Get him!”
The Loser, the Flapper
and Rugila, King of the Huns – Part Two
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