The Tale of Dickie Jones, Part 2

If only we’d known. Twenty-twenty hindsight’s something, isn’t it?

The trouble, you see, was exactly that it was supposed to be the last Dickie Jones ad — and that the emcee was Sir Will. The first non-Welsh chairman of the St. David’s board.

So all these luminaries were on hand for the big event. Not me, of course. Always a background sort of guy. Hernox showed me a film of the whole thing once, though, because it was hard to believe it actually played out like they all said it did.

It took place at Sardi’s. Big private room full of corporate bigwigs from the importer, King & Co. — old Everlake King himself was there — and from the brewer itself, St. David’s. Lots of Sarras people of course. Advertising and TV executives. Dickie Jones is working the crowd before everybody sits down. He’s an old man by now but you can still see the spark in his eyes, even if he’s not standing up straight anymore, his tie’s crooked, his little porkpie hat backwards on his head. Cocky-Poo’s nowhere to be seen at first. The city Health Department didn’t want a giant weasel wandering around the tables in a restaurant for some reason, ha.

Eventually everybody sits down at their designated spots. Dickie Jones was on the dais, but at one end of the table, and a makeup girl was trying to fix him up for his turn at the mike. And while she was doing that Sir Will stood up at the podium thing they had there in the center of the table. And after greeting everybody cordially, thanking their hosts and so on, he launched straight into a monologue about English brewing, English beers and ales, the strong ties between the USA and England, England-English-England.

See?

If you watched the film and focused on Dickie Jones down there at the end, not on the speaker, then you’d see the first signs of trouble. The happy snaggle-toothed grin, that was gone. The makeup girl had called a hair person over, and the two of them had removed Dickie’s hat. Brushing the wisps of hair across. Dickie himself was staring at Sir Will, his face really sour by now, and then out at all the big shots in the room, and once — real brief — straight at the camera. Oh, Larry, the anger in that man’s eyes. The makeup people put his hat back on the right way, straightened his tie — all the activity hid him from view for a few seconds. When you could see him again, he looked almost normal again.

Meanwhile Sir Will was still going on and on:

His most recent audience with Her Highness.

Shaking the hand of the Prince of Wales.

Prospects for moving the brewery from Cardiff to Liverpool…

That was the trigger, it looked to me — moving the brewery. First, some people down at Dickie Jones’s end of the table laughed nervously, not at Sir Will but at something going on down there. You had to watch the film a couple times to see it happening, or rather hear it. Dickie himself looked completely innocent, apparently fascinated by whatever lordly memories Sir Will was sharing. But real faintly, you could hear it: honks, whistles, loud popping noises, bird calls, jungle sounds. Dickie’s mouth never seemed to move, but at the same time if you looked close you’d realize he wasn’t showing you the whole mouth at once. His head turned slightly, see?

All the while, Sir Will’s face got redder and redder. But he wouldn’t crack. He wouldn’t smile. And he would not look at Dickie Jones.

When he got to the end of his prepared little speech, you couldn’t tell who or what exactly everybody was clapping for: Dickie Jones’s running commentary, sympathy for Sir Will, themselves for having made it this far.

And then Sir Will told them they were very fortunate to be present at the filming of the last Dickie Jones commercial for Diwrnach Wyddel, emphasized last you see, invited Dickie to the center of the table, led the applause for the old fellow, and sat down. Folded his arms, stared straight ahead. Without shaking Dickie Jones’s hand or even looking at him.

A couple of underlings took the podium away, one of them set a big wooden box up on the table just left of center. The flagon went right in the middle of course. They rolled down a giant map of Wales on a screen behind the table. Put a lanyard mike around Dickie Jones’s neck, knocked his hat a little crooked in the process.

You could see the old pro showing through in Dickie’s face. He never once indicated that anything wasn’t what it should be. A smile. Crow’s-feet lines around his eyes. He looked around the room, even down at Sir Will, even put a hand on the old colonel’s shoulder.

And then with a glance at the camera, he launched into his routine. His last routine.

“Good evening, ladies and gents!” he said. “My name is Dickie Jones and this” — a pause while he opened the big wooden box — “this is Cocky-Poo!” Out came the polecat, which immediately set to its own routine. Picking up silverware in its mouth, running circles around the flagon, and sitting back on its haunches, wobbling a bit for balance, paws folded before it, which was the last bit Dickie and the trainers had taught it. Staring lovingly up at Dickie’s face like it was fascinated as the man rattled on about Diwrnach Wyddel and the other glories of Wales.

The audience seemed to relax, chuckling nervously at first but then more easily. Even Sir Will couldn’t help looking out the corners of his eyes at the silly animal, and the corners of his mouth turned up just a little.

But then things started to unravel.

First, Dickie Jones made some reference to “tiny Wales, ever a little speck on the English boot-heel.” This seemed to go over the heads of the audience, almost all Americans, but oh boy did Sir Will get it. His smile gone.

Understand now, Dickie’s own face never gave anything away. He seemed just as pleasant, just as slightly cracked as he ever did in the commercials. But he also wasn’t as scattered as he’d been during the most recent filmings. He seemed to have made up his mind to get this right on the first take.

With good reason, too, because he’d never get another.

Now his monologue had really started to go off the deep end, with a reference to the ale’s “rich dark brown, the color o’me Da’s lungs and the stuff he spit up.” Still smiling.

Even Cocky-Poo seemed surprised a moment later. Or maybe I should say especially Cocky-Poo. By then he’d maneuvered around behind the flagon and was standing up on his back legs to poke his nose inside. That’s when Dickie suddenly uttered the phrase, “strangling little Wales” — and grabbed the polecat by the throat. “Cocky-Poo! Cocky-Poo!” he started to shout, in this high singsong voice.

Now his face wasn’t the face of a charming old music-hall star. He looked like a crazy man. He flopped the polecat onto its back and leaned over. Its body kept trying to squirm away, paws scratching at Dickie’s arms, but it was pinned down at the head and neck and couldn’t get away. Finally Dickie shouted, one last time, “Cock, y, POO!” he said, and gave the poor thing one more squeeze. It went limp right away. But one of its eyes actually popped out of its head and jumped about six, seven feet in mid-air, landing right in the bosom of Mrs. Everlake King.

Somehow the cameraman managed to keep his cool the whole time. And the last shot of the film was almost like a real Diwrnach Wyddel commercial — a zoomed-in close-up of the last Cocky-Poo’s upside-down face, dead but grinning, a white foam of spit around its mouth.

Needless to say, the rest of the “celebration” didn’t go very far to make up for all that had happened to then. I don’t know if they even had a meal. And I don’t know what happened to Cocky-Poo’s eye.

Dickie Jones of course was finally restrained and I guess they separated him from the polecat at some point. Nobody pressed any sort of charges, not that they could have named a crime. He went back to Wales and I never heard another thing about him until I heard a few years ago that he’d died.

So that’s pretty much everything I know, Lar. Not a real happy story, is it? Hope the other things you’re finding out have more cheerful endings than this one; if anybody deserves to get some happiness out of life, it’s Al Castle. I’m with you on that score, for sure.

Again, Eleanor and I want to wish you and Elaine all the best. Don’t be strangers. Maybe we can do a dinner together, take in a show. Or who knows, visit the zoo and feed the weasels, ha ha.

Take care of yourself, friend.