How comforting is the embrace of Maiden Victory!

I wish I could describe the ardor of her bosom as I shake my face violently into it. Pillowy is an apt descriptor. And it is this pillowy sensation that tells me that the Bengali Tygers are a force with which to be reckont. Few considert the prospect of success against the Metallurgists of Pittsburgh or the Recidivist Murderers of Baltimore. But slain they both were by our efforts!

Oh, We did feast on pillows those nights.

Still: all is not sunshine and heaving Victory bosoms in Cincinnatus. The townsfolk do not fill the galleries to their capacity! I do not think it is the work of the vainglory to suppose that a team that has achieved as ours has would be a spectacle to behold. The traveling show of oddities and wonderments must be stationed nearby. Personally, such things do not capture my attention for long, but then I am not a native-born Cincinnatan.

What is more, the thriving play of Good Sir Palmer has compelled my haymakers to reside in mothballs. I need not tell you that is not the natural state for haymakers. They ache for satisfaction, but I cannot grant them indulgence. Each night at rest, dreams show me targets for the haymakers, but the mighty arms are manacled to the wall. For this, I sometimes fear sleep. Sensing my anxiety for activity, ownership bade me into the streets to gather the townsfolk into his makeshift “jungle” dwelling. Perhaps if they espied my keen sense of excitement and bulging musculature, the women would be brought to a point of hysterical arousal and would force their male associates to escort them to the “jungle”.

I askt the ownership whether I would be furnisht a mode of transport to move about the townsfolk. Dirty though it may be, Cincinnatus is a sizeable place. Yes, he exclaimed, you shall ride shank’s pony.

Such flippancy.

So my endeavor begins. Venture I must about Cincinnatus displaying the bulges that invite arousal in the muliebrities. First, there is the arm bulge. Observe its distinct slope and veiny articulation. This is usually enough to excite most maidens. When the arm bulges prove insufficient, the pectoral bounce. See the torso bulges bound and be astoundt. A snake charmer taught me this tactic in a foreign land and it has failt on only three occasions. It was on those three when I was forced to employ a special, secretive nether bulge.

Polite discourse does not allow me to speak of this one.

What news!

Ravagings were rendert to the throwing joint of the head quarterbacksman, leaving Good Sir Palmer rheumy about the oculars and with marked dryness about the vaginal lips. I spake to him as he lay upon to greensward, “Good Sir Palmer, do husband your strength. Your labors require potency in the throwing arm. Is it rubella? Your eyes have yet to roll behind their lids, there is still time. Maintain pressure on the joint until we can apply leaches and allow my haymakers to triumph in your wake.” His rejoinder to me came thusly: “Where are the trainers? Can someone get this incomprehensible mick off me?” Unappreciative lout, how I knit my brows at his person!

But where Crisis has befallen he, the divine mistress of Opportunity has belavisht me with her grace. Here, only when my mind was blackent and consumpt with ideas that the Lord had smote me through continuous potato famine and six wives all lost to complications of child birth, now I am tasked with leading the first team offense into the heat of preseasonal conflict.

Being a first team quartered back is a station of immense responsibility. Therefore, to saw that I am a Man of Distinction I bought my first comb and toothstring, so as to make my appearance less “gruesome” “grueful” and “marked by grue”. It seems some had taken note of mine efforts. Whilst cording my tattering pant string, I was approached by a toff representing a three-lettered entity he said was known to all and sundry as “HBO”. This “HBO”, he said, would make a projected story of our trainings by use of moving daguerrotype. I promised to make winner’s pose prior to each haymaker, for this the camera likes.

One practice was particularly eventful. I could feel the moving daguerrotype channel its attention on my visage. How the cigarette girls would swoon when next I came upon the boulevard! Feeling flush with vainglory, I removed my claddings in the locker quarters when I was approached by the Black of Assumed Spaniard Surname.

He spake things to me of indeterminate subject. So flummoxed was I that I feigned understanding rather than ask elucidation.

“Child Please,” he exclaimed.

“Begging your pardon. Do you address me in the manner of an unruly urchin?” I puzzled.

“Child Please,” he repeated, as if I had said nothing at all.

“Sir!” I thundered. “Though it is my sworn mission to deliver you footballs on the field of play, your manner in the dressing quarters strikes me as irksome! Cease this irksomeness!”

“Man, Child Please,” he said, defiantly.

As I reared back to deliver the mother of all haymakers to this senseless ruffian, I was restrained from behind by the steady arm of headmaster Lewis. With one look I knew I risked more than sourness in the haymaker hand if I followed through on my swing. The Fake Spaniard took advantage of the momentary stillness to chase after a thing emitting a shiny light, whereafter Headmaster Lewis drew me aside and assured me that if anyone would strike this man-child, it would be he.

It was the first time I’d seen him serious.

Swivet!

The turmoils of Cincinnatus are more numberous than The Cincinnatus Turmoils of Earlier Description. Indeed, these blights surpass the blights I was told to expect. Receivering men: tattered and bedeviled. Fellow quartered backs: possessing misshapen genitalia. Ownership: possibly voided entrails.

There are worse horrors still but I would fain not give utterance to them. Do not make me tell. Rest assured, the haymakers were barely enough to repel the hard-charging beasts. Look upon my face. Do you not see where it has been abrasied? Let that be story enough.

Fie!

Fine. Let me explain. Word was sent through postal dog to management that I did care for the unbecoming character of those with which I am aligned on this squad. Postal dog returnt a week later a limb lesser. This I tumbled as a presage of foul things in wait. Yes, there transpired several foul deeds enacted upon my person, often thrice in a row; five times if the perpetrators imbibet liquors of brownist tint, but the true terror never darkened my door. Quixotic was the word used by a man of proper book-learnting.

Instead, in the weeks since I have found the ownership most amenable to the demands of competition. Lofty words were spake. A grand initiative introducet. There, told to me through midway through a night of drink, is their solution.

First step is to for once have a draft class that does not elicit laughter from even the low-born blind syphilitic drunk gypsies. This they did.

And then:an elder safety is signt!

He is learned in the ways of the horse-led collar tackle. As I ambled in the direction of my bivouac, I asked him: in which ways would he apply this technique to yon ballcarrier, but by then I had already ventured past the expanse of his coverage area. This strikes me as a deficiency. But a friendly disposition nonetheless!

A Caucasiodal running back is acquiret through trade!

Finally a like-colored hand in the backfield that I know will take the ball with a hand that not recently ago held a shiv. This is no slight upon the Dark Man of Africa, but Gentleman Frank Gore once visited this very act on my non-throwing appendage and it predisposed me to distrust the race of Afromen. Perhaps one day this trust will be restoret, but doubt prevails.

The Scourge of Afromen aside, will these minor transactions suffice to build a great Bengal footballing empire? The vainglory swelling inside indicates yes. But it is wrong, in the main. I should endeavor to find out what the learnt man meant by quixotic. I feel this holds the key from turning vainglory into actual glory.

My servant Jew bruited to me the happening that my services has been rendered tranfert to the Bengali Tygers of Cincinnatus. Fortune smiles again on the sons and daughters of Eireland! Aye but, my job is to replace that of the headstrong Ryan of the Fitzpatrick clan. Press on, son. Your merit is to be seen in this coil or the next.

Cincinnatus is a place not much in accordance with Spanish St. Francis. For one, they eat a vraiment so named chili, for reasons not in evidence, that includes neither potato nor grog. Odd, though pleasing. In this conurbation, there exists very few stations for a man to make his living. Quarteredbacking, after all, is the prize of the privileged few. Ack! Careful O’Sullivan, lest you be stricken with the vainglory. Their plight of penury means only more time to skepticize my quarteredbacking. I shall not fail them.

(more…)

Not since the potato famine laid waste to my kith and kin have I espied the devastation similar to that seen on the greensward when my San Francisco Footballing Fourty-niners do battle in contests of footballing.

Perchance it was an affliction of the vainglory, but my prior-season cogitations were of a more auspicious nature than what has come to pass. Few times have my haymakers met their target square. I fear now we even lack the wherewithal to best the Seafaring-hawks in six days’ time.

Yesterday’s debacle against the New Amsterdam Giants served notice that the Fourty-niners are the same squadron of failabouts with or without the contributions of J.T. O’Sullivan. This epiphany gave way to much vexing. On four occasions did I commit fumblications and on two others had aerial exchanges countercepted by opposing footballers. The great quarteredbacking menace Justin Tuck reminds me of the terrors of darkest Africa.

The dolors cannot own us. We are in but Round 8 of a 16 Round scrape. I’ve yet to even festoon the barbed-wire on this bare knuckles. You will see how easy it is then to block the haymakers!

Ho!

At last, head fieldmaster “Gentleman” Mike Nolan has named me, J.T. of the family O’Sullivan, the starting quartered-back of the San Francisco Footballing Fourtyniners. No doubt that he was swayed by the best slugging arm this side of the Northwest Territory.

Top of the world, ma!

Blithely and skillfully did I upend the inimical roustabout Alex Smith from his prized station. Having weathered a few haymakers, some more pepperpots and the old calaboose did the lumbering giant go down, rendering him a pile of bustable materials. Back to the train yards with you, good sir.

Now quartered-backing is the bailiwick of J.T. O’Sullivan. I am proven suitable at commanding a squad of able-bodied marauders. Together we will sock our opponents in the area of their visage until such point that their verticality is compromised.

Ho!

My boisterous nature got the better of me, as it is wont to do. The scourge of vainglory is known to inflict men of great stature ever and anon, and inflict it has this great O’Sullivan. These bouts are often cured by beating myself about the face. In fact, let me quell this on the spot.

And… wait, whoa there!

You, halfbacking fellow, why do you appear beset by panic? What news this day?

The opposing teams have been permitted to wear masks of metal over their facial areas? How then are the haymakers to connect? This bedeviling product of flimflammery has thrown the proverbial pandawrench into the gears of the great footballing machine! This age of industry is not the great boon that the newspapers say.

No matter. Haymakers will be thrown. The scion of industry will be bested, along with the foes of the Fourtyniners. No obstacle will stop us from traversing long units of measurement en route to pummeling their offspring and womenfolk.

Ah, there is the vainglory again. We must remedy this at once!

And one aaand -

Ouf.

Aaaaaahhhhhhh