Elaine and the Chancellor: A Love Story in Three Acts - I: Blitzkrieg
I occasionally do work for an octogenarian woman named Elaine. She seems reclusive and lives alone but for a decrepit bloodhound named Chance (or “Chancellor” as he likes to be called) who, like his name suggests, must surely be the exact counterpoint in stature and wretchedness to his mistress. From the threshold of the foyer, one's olfaction is blitzed by wafts of cigarettes and stale urea. Miscellaneous hulks of long forgotten chassis lay rusted and strewn about the yard, and a lone dilapidated barn stands impossibly defiant against the strain of time as though the next snowflake would be too great a burden for it to bear.
Elaine says very little, but I’ve been able to deduce many important details about her history through her voice, which is like a cross between Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Harvey Fierstein heavily sedated on Pall Malls and Old Crow: 1.) She is a widower, and her husband’s name was Marty. Marty died many years ago of colon cancer, but Elaine talks to him frequently as if he were still there. 2.) Theirs was an extremely passionate matrimony characterized by incendiary disagreements and rapturous reconciliation. Marty of course can no longer defend his honor, but she invariably takes it into consideration anyway. 3.) She was a flapper in her youth and enjoyed considerable fame locally in every podunk jazz lounge in Mariposa County prior to World War II, a war of which Marty was a veteran. 4.) Martin flew a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress for the United States Army Air Corps and received an honorable discharge when wounded by a fuselage malfunction during a training accident on the last day of active service. 5.) Through a series of unfortunate complications, it was this wound which was ascertained to have indirectly caused his cancer, killing him at the tender age of 25 just shortly after the birth of his only child and successor. 6.) Elaine lived more years waiting for Marty during the war than she lived with him after it. Her days as an aspiring lounge singer were cut short, at which point she rolled up her sleeves and went to work in a factory making fuselages for American B-17 bombers. 7.) It was in the factory that she got her big break modeling for cartoon ads of Rosie the Riveter that ran in newspapers delivered throughout the San Fernando Valley. There she was discovered by a talent agent who helped her launch a lucrative if not long-lived career in short films bundled with features at talkies. 8.) The unequivocal zenith of her career was the infamous Mr. B Natural preceding the film War of the Colossal Beast, both of which quickly faded into the annals of film obscurity amidst numerous tepid reviews. 9.) Having tired with the volatility and superficiality of the west coast bourgeois, Elaine used her earnings to purchase a farmstead in the Midwest, the place where she now still resides. Here she spent the rest of her days happily farming rutabaga and alpacas for their ruffage and fur respectively. 10.) Many generations of neighborhood debutantes have gossiped about Elaine, though few have ever spoken to her directly. The only story anyone has really heard was of a time many years ago, when being a gregarious neighbor was still fashionable, three women from the local knitting circle brought Elaine a pie on Veteran’s Day as a token gesture for her husband’s service. She quickly turned them away at the door so she could return to her ablutions, thanking them politely but declining the confection on account of her late husband’s diabetes.
Elaine says very little, but I’ve been able to deduce many important details about her history through her voice, which is like a cross between Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Harvey Fierstein heavily sedated on Pall Malls and Old Crow: 1.) She is a widower, and her husband’s name was Marty. Marty died many years ago of colon cancer, but Elaine talks to him frequently as if he were still there. 2.) Theirs was an extremely passionate matrimony characterized by incendiary disagreements and rapturous reconciliation. Marty of course can no longer defend his honor, but she invariably takes it into consideration anyway. 3.) She was a flapper in her youth and enjoyed considerable fame locally in every podunk jazz lounge in Mariposa County prior to World War II, a war of which Marty was a veteran. 4.) Martin flew a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress for the United States Army Air Corps and received an honorable discharge when wounded by a fuselage malfunction during a training accident on the last day of active service. 5.) Through a series of unfortunate complications, it was this wound which was ascertained to have indirectly caused his cancer, killing him at the tender age of 25 just shortly after the birth of his only child and successor. 6.) Elaine lived more years waiting for Marty during the war than she lived with him after it. Her days as an aspiring lounge singer were cut short, at which point she rolled up her sleeves and went to work in a factory making fuselages for American B-17 bombers. 7.) It was in the factory that she got her big break modeling for cartoon ads of Rosie the Riveter that ran in newspapers delivered throughout the San Fernando Valley. There she was discovered by a talent agent who helped her launch a lucrative if not long-lived career in short films bundled with features at talkies. 8.) The unequivocal zenith of her career was the infamous Mr. B Natural preceding the film War of the Colossal Beast, both of which quickly faded into the annals of film obscurity amidst numerous tepid reviews. 9.) Having tired with the volatility and superficiality of the west coast bourgeois, Elaine used her earnings to purchase a farmstead in the Midwest, the place where she now still resides. Here she spent the rest of her days happily farming rutabaga and alpacas for their ruffage and fur respectively. 10.) Many generations of neighborhood debutantes have gossiped about Elaine, though few have ever spoken to her directly. The only story anyone has really heard was of a time many years ago, when being a gregarious neighbor was still fashionable, three women from the local knitting circle brought Elaine a pie on Veteran’s Day as a token gesture for her husband’s service. She quickly turned them away at the door so she could return to her ablutions, thanking them politely but declining the confection on account of her late husband’s diabetes.