Dear ______,
Last week you asked me to send this letter to you on a "need to know" basis and I hope you will treat the contents in confidence.
Like Oliver Hardy, I sometimes ask my other self, Stan Laurel, "Why don't we ever get things right?" (Did you know that they were devised as two facets of the same persona? See postscript.) "All around there are people who are developing new careers and expanding their horizons. Why don't I ever do something?"
I decided that I must broaden my perspectives by seeking a new career. Recently, I saw a job vacancy notice in the Evening Standard for a "Food Prep Asst in Animal Restaurant". I was intrigued, and set out on a trail that would end in horror.
I attended my initial interview at a job agency in Oxford Street. In no time at all I was called forward to a small cubicle where a small, pale, dark-haired young woman was waiting to interrogate me. She was hostile from the outset, scowling at me vengefully.
She opened by waving my application under my nose. "This you?" she demanded. I nodded my head, yet she seemed disappointed. "You'd be surprised the tricks they get up to – sending their friends and relations in to hide their physical deformities. You've got to check everything." I suggested that deformed applicants could easily persuade their relatives to pretend authorship of the applications. Her response was hostile and scathing.
"You are not here to audit our security arrangements. You are here to get a job. Hands?" In view of what had been said about deformities, I raised my hnads and said "Two". Enraged, she grabbed one. "It's personal hygiene," she cried. "I need to inspect your personal cleanliness. Now your mouth. Open wide!" Finally, she checked my numeracy and ability to use kitchen equipment.
Then she sent me off for my full job interview. I was not surprised to find that it was to be at London Zoo. There, I discovered that, due to some breach of security in the Insect House, there was a sudden shortage of staff in Food Prep.
Accordingly, I successfully completed my interview in ten minutes and was directed to the kitchens. My guide said "They're very hungry. Best not to keep them waiting!"
In the kitchens I met the sous chef. He pointed at a great heap of bananas. "Peel that lot and put 'em on the entrée dishes," he ordered. I was genuinely bewildered. "Can't they peel their own?" I asked. His riposte was instant. "What kind of a dump have you been working in? This is a top-class five-star grade animal restaurant. We work to standards – and watch out for insects! If anything moves in that pile of bananas, hit it!"
After skinning completion, I was told to take a plate of bananas over to the experimental block, where I was told that Cheetah, a chimpanzee, was collaborating on some tests.
In the lab I saw Cheetah sitting in an armchair. His head and body were festooned with electronic tabs. These were connected to one of those new Translator devices which can analyse the animals thought patterns and convert them into human speech. Before I could identify how it worked, Cheetah appeared to speak using a metallic, American accent.
"Ah good, tea!" he appeared to say. "Please put the plate close so that I can get at it. Thank you." I was astonished, but decided to test his comprehension further. "Will you be requiring anything else for tea?" I asked. "Yes, two things," replied Cheetah. "Later, I'd like my usual pot of Darjeeling tea. And second, please stop testing my comprehension." I withdrew.
Back in the kitchen there was chaos. Food had been thrown all over the place and squashed into the floor. The sous chef cried "It's them bleedin' elephants been at the bananas again. But yew better get on wiv 'is lordship's tea. If yer late he'l report you. An' don't forget – no cups!"
I took back the tea. Cheetah indicated a side table for the teapot. "I notice you avoid using my name," he said lightly. "It may surprise you to learn that not only have I the same name as the chimpanzees in the Tarzan films, but they were my ancestors."
"But how did . . . ?" I stammered.
Cheetah took up the teapot and took a long drink through the spout. "Spout drinking's a family tradition," he explained. "The first Cheetah was actually chosen by Johnny Weissmuller, the original Tarzan, and it's been downhill ever since. No 1 Tarzan was a real gentleman. There was no scene stealing with him.
"But some of the Tarzans my family have had to deal with were just jumped-up 'beauty boys', barely able to swing on a rope. The whole thing has become a cinematic disgrace."
He took another swig and continued. "Take that 'yell' Tarzan gives when he's trapezing through the jungle. All started by accident when the first Tarzan backed into a shrieky thorn bush. And that bitch Jane – you know how in reel seven the tribesmen always go on the warpath and capture Jane to tie her against a post? She's behind the whole thing, causing trouble. That's to increase her part. As for that weirdo, 'Boy', he even embarrassed the baboons!
"Still," Cheetah continued, "we've had some good times together, back home on the RKO ranch in the San Carlo valley. We introduce each new generation to Tarzanian folklore and practices. I'm over here to prepare for a new picture – improving my elocution . . ."
Suddenly, he hissed: "Don't argue! Jump up on the cupboard!"
I immediately obeyed, but looked at Cheetah for explanation. With a lissom bound he joined me and whispered "Listen!" I could hear a slithering, scraping sound. "That's Marjorie and she's coming this way. She's taking Translator training, but unfortunately she's made only limited progress. Here she is now!" He pointed to the doorway.
In the doorway, there gradually appeared the head and then the body of an enormous Nile crocodile. This was Marjorie. There was the natural paradox of the cold rheumy eyes behind her broad, toothy grin. Her appearance was made even more grotesque by the fact of her wearing a blue silk bonnet. Marjorie waddled over to the cupboard and looked at us.
"Listen," said Cheetah. "Marjorie is in a bad mood. I can tell. She's missed her tea and she's hungry. You can't talk to her when she's like this. She's left the language laboratory, so that communication is limited. We can calm her only by singing out loud her theme song. Better be quick or she'll knock the cupboard over."
In times like this, we mammals have got to stick together. So we both struck up with "Getting to know you! Getting to know all about you . . . my cup of tea!" Marjorie finally stopped thrashing about and scampered back to her laboratory.
By now I was distraught. I felt I must escape. As I left, Cheetah called "Watch out for Mordant [the boa constrictor]. He and Marjorie usually break out together and then operate as a team."
I fled to the kitchen. Again, the bad-tempered sous chef still operated in a climate of constant crisis. "I've got no time to listen to your little niggles," he shouted. "Someone's been feeding marihuana to the rhinos!" I left.
I rushed across Regent's Park in a state of mental derangement. As I did so, I fell over Marjorie lying in the grass. Immediately an instinct for self-preservation caused me to break into song. "Getting to know you . . ."
Shortly afterwards the police found me with my foot caught in a fallen log, singing my head off!
Why don't I ever get things right?
Conrad
PS If you think that Laurel and Hardy are two facets of the same persona, you're more in need of help than I am – or the sous chef, if it comes to that!
