Charlie's Trophy

About the Book

In the fall of 1952 Thomas Hope comes home on emergency leave from the Korean War to attend his mother’s funeral in the small Texas town of Huisache.  

A few weeks later he and three friends who have spent most of their waking adolescent lives in a beer joint run by an alcoholic, ex-carny Apache named Johnny Go Away, take him to the VA Hospital in Houston for his annual drying out.  The ensuing drunken twenty-four hour odyssey reveals the secret role that Hope’s father, Charlie, played in the bizarre, public  execution of an African elephant at the Katy railyard in Huisache. The elephant’s name is Sarah.  She played Madison Square Garden 1892 when Barnum introduced  Jumbo to the American people.  She was at St. Thomas, Ontario when Jumbo was struck by a locomotive and killed.

From Sarah’s POV the old sweet earth in in extremis.  She remarks its passing from her vantage point mounted on the south wall of Johnny’s Place, flanked by two twitching neon Lone Star beer signs:

Think of me as:

—An artist?

Yes.  You could have said artist.

—Sculptor?

—Cosmetician?

—Garbage collector?

Yes.  Think of me as a dumpster wearing ivory tusks mounted on the limestone wall at Johnny’s Place one mile due west of Huisache, Texas.

Think of me as a Confessor, an Archdeacon.  Think of me as a perpetual curate.

Now we’re getting someplace.

Think of me as a rural Perpetual Curate charged to watch over a country boy named Thomas Hope who in recompence spent his life fetching offerings and charms, condolences, depositions, clues, conundrums, riddles, major ironies and minor humilities.

—A witness?

Yes.  Think of me as the principal witness in his case.  Think of me as an idol, an icon, a talisman, a souvenir, a curio.  A trophy.  Think of me as Charlie’s Trophy.

—His father?

Yes.  Think of me a a valet in snow white livery sweeping away the shattered minutes, closing up, damping down, setting flashback on automatic.

I leave everything still to be corrected.

It is the least I can do.

About the Author

William Colville was born in 1928. He lives in Red Rock, Texas with his wife Michelle, two dogs, one cat and a groatsworth of wit bought with a million of repentance. He labors still at his original commission: What is it that the mind sends the body for? What is it that the body begs the mind to know?