But above all be prepared for the shock you’ll get on your morning departure for work one day. Which will leave you stunned witnessing. Having, as you’ve just done, rushed back after breakfast for a forgotten squash racket, and the ungrateful bare arsed son of a bitch is in your own Jermyn Street shirt tails indulging to the hilt his beggardly audacity of trying something funny with the wife. Which, on top of it, the wife, hardly with a stitch on at all, is squealingly enjoying. Insurmountably bored as she now briefly is with the furs, jewels, estates, dogs, limousine and transatlantic trips you have lavished on her, not to mention the ocean going motor launch she ran permanently aground last year. Although she could now be even more of a problem than the bootless and unhorsed, it is de rigueur to remain urbane and don’t let the whole god damn thing with its crushing vileness beat you to a frazzle. Because it’s quite natural for ladies to think, while getting their hair done, that really lower bracketed folk can supply high jinks she’s been missing with all the god damn luxury smothering her life.
Mercifully, there’s another type of bootless and unhorsed you can meet. And another approach entirely must be considered. This is the guy who thinks he’s going great but whom in fact you have left so far far behind that the whole spectacle of your confrontation is cruel to observe. With this type you could really have some after lunch fun with his wife Diane and not only would she thrillingly squeal and groaningly mew but, while your eyeballs revolved like windmills in a gale, she’d make lightning strike between your eardrums. To spare this chap’s feelings, wait till he speaks first before plastering him with your fancy vowels. But should your intimidating presence awe him into a gasping silence, you’ve got then to make the first overture which is best done in the old sporty manner you used as kids.
‘Gee hi Bill good to see you.’
‘Why hey, it’s you, Al, the real you.’
Right away note how this guy is a fighter. Pretending to put you at your ease and nearly taking up the offensive with those three latter brazen unforgettable words. Very nervy that and a nice little thing to remember later during a particularly sweaty crescendo while rogering his snake legged wife. But if his succeeding bulletins continue to hint of further blatant camaraderie, only contemplation of a wine soaked non stop harvest scented weekend with Diane’s gymnastic body is worth tolerating that kind of pain.
‘Why you old reckless son of a bitch, how’s it going, hey your accent Al is sure something for a start, where did you get it.’
For old times sake go right along with Bill. Even though you’ve had enough of that ‘where did you get that accent’ stuff. Diane, the wife, if she has any social upward mobile tendencies at all, will adore it. But the real situation, only of course you both pretend not to know it, is that he wants to eliminate as quickly as possible the barriers of elegance that have arisen between you just as fast as you want now to impenetrably impose them. Which thank god, keep his ilk out of your celebrity riddled ken. Where his wife Diane would thrill to frolic.
‘Hey come on Al, you can level with me. What happened, did you went to a charm culture school maybe.’
As Bill expectantly waits, smile frozen, make like you’re your usual kind of easy going nonchalant guy just facing the unvarnished facts as they sometimes unpleasantly explode, instead of the ruthless bloodcurdling social upstart you are, putting on the dog at every socially superior hydrant, and now biding your moment for the slamming of Bill’s squaw with a variety of leverages as would flabbergast major bridge building engineers.
‘Well Bill, I kind of picked the accent up as I went along upward taking tea and cocktails and having picnics by the lake shore with a better class of people.’
Bill is bound to be alarmed by your candour and will now pursue a glorified description of his two bit corporate position and the bunch of really swell guys back at the office where he has, with malice aforethought, been indentured for the past four years straight. If you value your chances of putting your proud perpendicular anywhere profound in the lovely Diane, the tune to adopt here is one of incredible interest best shown by merely knitting the brows together and drawing your mouth lines straight as if resisting jealousy. But please, as you listen to him, take note, exaggeration of this expression could offend your old pal deeply.
‘Gee Al, well what do you know, that’s exactly what Diane keeps telling me, that I should acquaint with a better class of people. I mean my activities are already pretty diversified. The outfit I’m with is really moving along.’
‘Are they going up hill, Bill, I mean really heading helter skelter for the summit.’
‘Why, Al, I’m glad you brought that up and said that the way you did. You bet they are. And Diane thinks so too.’
Now Bill, because of his genuine nice guy attitude, might make it some day, but keep your eyes on him as he departs. It may be as little as thirty yards further on down the street that he will fold his shoulders forward like a bird plummeting to death and just become convulsed with sobs. If you don’t want to let your psyche get caught in that kind of anguished whirlpool and end up with a jittery case of permanent paranoid tendency, hail a taxi and head pronto over to the lovely Diane and give her in the Australian manner a quick squirt. She may for a moment shed tears of remorse but in the end she’ll be glad. Because poor old Bill will hardly be able to get it up for quite awhile and if he does he’ll think it’s his conscience pricking him.
After witnessing what happened to Bill, you will immediately wonder which one of the boys back at the office, if not the whole god damn bunch, has it in for you. And you’ll be further wondering if the bootless and unhorsed instead of giving you your kicks weren’t aiming these a substantial distance up your arse. So if you and the ravishing Diane have now ceased hungrily eating each other without salt on the kitchen floor, you are doing yourself no favour by frequenting the bootless and unhorsed further, unless it is to take Diane in one last unforgettable canter, when you can both decide that you don’t want to be back down there footling around in the jackass latitudes even as cheerleader.
Knowing When You Have Reached the Top
Upon a chosen clement day, exercise a sartorial master stroke of impeccable taste. Don a neatly laundered and sharply pressed pair of flannel cricket trousers, white buckskin shoes, white moleskin hacking jacket with a red carnation in the lapel, silk shirt and purple tweed tie. In your summery stylish regalia, and really looking nice, poise on the sixth floor room balcony of a goodish old fashioned downtown hotel. When everyone is suitably assembled to watch you jump off to break your head, commence peeing. If no one tries to rush the hell out of the way of your pissing all over them, you have reached the top.
Failing this above public recognition of your most haughty particularity, with everyone fast putting up umbrellas, you may be forced to rely upon evidence demonstrated by various signs and portents. Such as the phenomenon of attractive ladies at outdoor sporting events being unable to tear their eyes off you. There also should be an appreciative rise in welcoming smiles received in lobbies and vestibules, even while swaggering in your chosen outfit. And a dramatic drop in the usual sidewalk insults and smart remarks from street corner cowboys.
‘Hey you in the white cloud, are you raining yet.’
On very rare occasions you will still, especially when least expecting it, have the odd pissoir attendant, doorman and taxi driver giving you vile lip. But the difference is now that you saunter past thinking that the person perpetrating the distressing lip not only has his flies undone but is jabbering without a nuance of rhyme or reason. And needs be you simply deposit him in your busy wake with maybe such a dose of unrequited rage that his testicles are left clacking like castanets.
Much will depend upon just how large your social circle is. If it includes only you as the real bee’s knees, such exclusivity could result in a lot of wrist straining masturbation. However, the more folk there are poised with you up there on the pinnacle the easier it is for you to be pushed off. But if the distance you fa
ll is really a hell of a lot further than the distance you had to climb to get up there in the first place, then as you crash on your social arse you can assume you were at the top.
But the real day of triumphal acknowledgement is the day upon which you enter your drawing room attired once more in your summit regalia, a reputable medium sherry in hand, and you refer your eyes to your chimney piece attached to a wall up through which smoke is ascending. And there heart warmingly view the engraved invitation cards edge to edge spanning the entire length of this social altar. If you do not have a chimney piece, four upended and adjoined orange crates covered by a priceless tapestry will do.
But don’t jump to a conclusion. Alas, to qualify you for top drawer ranking, two thirds of these as yet unfulfilled engagements and invitations should come from at least three of the following categories listed in their order of importance.
Owners of more than two hundred acres of prime grazing
Irish Chieftains or Knights
Anyone in Larousse
Listees in The International Who’s Who
Listees with more than seven lines in Who’s Who
Wine merchants established over forty years
Nobles of the rank of Baronet and above
Socially registered persons
Engraved invitations to funerals rank socially above all others but, because of the infrequent singularity of the occurrence, this may be used as a lifetime indication of rank. And it is the highest of compliments to folk to extend an invite to one’s obsequies.
But do not abandon hope. If you can get three unengraved invitations from persons occupying the same house, flat or apartment for three generations or more, these will qualify as one engraved invitation from one person in the category on the list. Or nine privately telephoned or thirteen pay telephoned invites from the bootless and unhorsed. Invitations from folk in any category who have unceremoniously clanked a grandparent into an institution, without so much as a box of reasonable quality chocolates to go with him, do not qualify. And, as you can imagine, the detective work this calls for could mean you’d go out of your mind not only with invitations but with the heart breaking horror of the dirty covering up tricks people are prepared to pull to stay in the social swim.
But again don’t leap to a conclusion. To be on top you must have declined four fifths or more of the invitations spanning your mantel. And then you really are just about as hot shit as you can get. However, this is not a time to let the rising steam blind you. Because you really want to be enjoying the clarity as you revisit the scene of a major slight and stand there supreme in your haughty particularity with the vile perpetrator bending over backwards in an arched bridge of hands and feet to kiss your ass which, by leisurely perambulation, you have recently removed from a sensually invigorating massage, sauna and swim. Now all you have to do is be prepared for the insolence you may encounter with speak your weight machines. And these are easily busted by being pushed over and kicked.
Extinctions & Mortalities
The Final Resting Place
It should in all cases be free of dampness. After a lifetime of social climbing you want to end up somewhere dry. If you do not have your own private cemetery select a good public one where the management have a sense of dignity, beauty and splendour. An hour or two with one of these gentlemen will really make your day. Choose your site at your earliest opportunity, as it lends a feeling of contentment to the intending deceased not only while dead but all the remaining days you live.
Any reputable architect will be thrilled with his commission to build you a really handsome mausoleum. And, if you’ve got that kind of money, will instantly inundate you with designs. Don’t skimp. There is nothing worse than seeing a brand new tomb suffering a dilapidation which reflects unstylishly upon both the living and the perished. And at all costs avoid cheap ostentation or attempts at inscribed graveyard profundities. It’s enough said if you’re dead. Although variations of the following mildly chastising comment are permissible.
I AM GONE BUT NOT FORGIVEN
There is nothing more mind soothing than of a Tuesday three o’clock afternoon to motor by chauffeur or stroll by walking stick to where you will someday permanently rest in peace. And there stand accoutred in sporty attire having a pre death chuckle over your epitaph or casting an appreciative eye upon the linear elevations of an elegant spanking new memorial with your name prominently displayed. Throughout life everyone is trying to make your name smaller, and here finally is an opportunity to really get it big because no one else wants theirs there instead.
When your happy architect has completed your mausoleum, you of course can indulge not only the added comfort of beseating yourself to meditate in solitude sheltered from inclemencies but also to have a really nice time inciting any horny necrophiliac tendencies. But of course in the matter of this latter, passing snoopers, many themselves jealous necroes, might try to get you caught and arrested. Therefore, to provide for your grave or tomb in the confines of your own private cemetery is to be preferred. This may also cater for those having deep rural interests, who may obtain comfort from the fore knowledge of farm stock ultimately grazing one’s grass, which is the very height of haughty particularity.
‘Gee Steve, what you got all those cattle grazing all over your cemetery for.’
‘Well Bob, as a really deeply committed environmentalist I want in the ultimate putrefaction to be part of somebody’s T bone steak one day.’
‘Holy cow.’
Upon Being Told the Fatal News That You Have Only So Long to Live and That It Is Not Long
Of course this news may enrage you so much that you start throwing things, blaming and accusing everyone and generally behaving in a hostile manner. Of course this kind of antic only shows you should have been dead long ago.
If you are the nice kind of average person, moisture in the eyes is permissible but do not burst into floods of tears. This alarms others into acute apprehension concerning the moment when their turn comes. Unless death has whispered I am here, make a reasonable effort to keep going. This is often a bleak period unless you have large assets and people around you who will benefit thereby and which prospect keeps them cheerful beyond belief. However, take strong objection to any dancing joy at your sinking. Your final will and a pen handy, plus a couple of witnesses hostile to your heirs, should make the merry take heed.
Death has the remarkable aspect of looking as if it’s only happening to you. Although a sad time, it does leave more room for others. This is of course no comfort if it’s you it’s after. Stalking your shadow down the shrinking days. The accumulative devastation this can have upon the spirit is horrendous. But life now will begin to look so good that just living seems for the first time better than money. That is if you already have money.
Although you’d much rather be doing something else than dying, you can at least now decide to die like a man or live a wee bit longer like one. The more finances you have for this purpose, the better. But do not rush out to a night club or the latest celebrity joint and scare hell out of everybody. You’ve had your chance, now let somebody else enjoy. Instead, gainfully occupy yourself at this time with your funeral’s invitation list, the floral displays, coffin design and music. And no small satisfaction will be yours in the timely provision of your monstrous mausoleum with its splendid acoustics.
The higher your social plateau the faster news of your impending demise will travel. And reports of your final departure may come back before you’ve been tucked in. But even in the face of such callousness it is not chic to complain. However, in broaching the subject the more sensitive of friends will use cowboy parlance reminiscent of the rough out of doors in deference to the fighting spirit they think you want them to think you have.
‘Gee Jack, I hear you’re heading for the last roundup.’
It is a pleasant gesture and a reminder of your heyday haughty particularity if you can respond in a like manner.
‘Well Steve, with my shootin
g iron indisposed and my jewels hanging pretty low, I kinda guess an easy trot to the old corral is the way I’m gonna go.’
But if Steve’s jaw drops with what he thinks is a gruesomely sickly effort to keep a stiff upper lip he may attempt to soothe you with facts you know already.
‘I guess it’s no consolation to you that I’m going to die too Jack.’
‘Well thanks Steve, yes it is a bit.’
‘Well I really am, I’m with you all the way, maybe not to the grave but I mean I could get killed in the next ten minutes by accident.’
‘Steve, thanks for saying that.’
‘Well I really mean it, Jack. I mean look, punch me. Injure me. I could be dead if not maybe buried before you.’
Even though Jack’s muscle fibre may be shot to hell, if you are Steve, the conversation should be terminated here as it could lead to your murder. Dying folk like company. And there are still those diehards who keep a gun under the pillow.
Dying
This is most stylishly done in your own lace covered bed, in your own beige walled room, in your own multi gabled house, on your own extensive lands during late autumn when the leaves are falling.
Dismiss from your mind as an asshole anyone who tells you you can have a happy death. When father time leaves his calling card and puts his big rough hand hauntingly up your rear end, he don’t know the meaning of contentment I’m telling you.