The Misfortunes of Cedric Slyme

(Revised version of my 1992 story The Fortunes of Cedric Slyme, which featured in the 50th anniversary anthology of Nebraska's Doane College literary magazine, Xanadu, Fall 2006).

Business has been slow at Slyme's Cafe for some time now. Granted, the food is generally conducive to stomach ailments, while the coffee is really quite ghastly. In fact, I am not entirely certain why I persist in bestowing my presence upon the premises myself. I suppose it can only be the draw of peace and solitude, the buzzing of winged insects notwithstanding, that lures me through these doors, for an old man appreciates these things.

Of course, there was a time - albeit an exceedingly brief amount of time - in the not too distant past, when Slyme's Cafe held a place among the more popular cafes on the island. Yes, indeed. As I recall it, the current proprieter Mr. Cedric Slyme, had just then inherited the establishment from his great-uncle George.

I remember old George well enough. A stout wee chap with enormous white moustaches and not a hair to be seen on his freckled pate. He had served His Majesty in the Great War - with considerable distinction, apparently - before immigrating with his brother to these islands.

"Ought to change these jolly aboriginal street names," he was wont to announce, with some degree of regularity. "Mean to shay, impossible to pronounce the blighters. Wot's wrong with Royal Drive, or King's Way, for example?"

At this old George would grow glassy-eyed and reflective. "Egad, Cedric, when I was a lad you could look at a map and half the world would be pink! Jolly good show too, wot. But where is The Empire now, I ask you? Back in the hands of the jolly shavages!"

When old George Slyme passed into the next world, which in all probability he is attempting to claim for Her Majesty this moment, the family business tumbled into the hands of his sole surviving relative and heir, Cedric.

Bearing a distinctive resemblance to his great-uncle, though somewhat thinner and younger, Cedric's appearance is notable for an absence of height, an absence of hair from his shiny crown, and an absence of teeth from the front of his jaws.

This last characteristic, which occasions Cedric to whistle in speech now and again, is attributable, I am told, to an incident which occurred during his secondary school years. While pursuing a group of boys who were making off with his hair - which hair had been the last surviving remnants of his once proud locks - Cedric had sped into a doorway at the precise instant the door had sped into the ingress from the opposite direction. The upshot of this was that old George Slyme received a bill from the school for a new brass doorknob.

Though he had always seemed rather a timid young fellow, Cedric underwent a truly remarkable transformation upon acquiring proprietorship of the family cafe.

"I'll show them yet," he would declare now and again, gazing out the window, eyes aflame with determination. "Reject Cedric Slyme, would they? Make off with his hair, would they?! Yes, ha! ha! I'll show them all!"

However, as time went by and all Cedric's efforts to lure customers into the establishment failed dismally, his fiery determination was gradually doused by a state of sad despair.

As much as I cherish the serenity of an empty cafe, it troubled me to see the young man in such a condition, so I called him over to my window-side table one afternoon to offer him the benefit of whatever wisdom I may have acquired over the years.

"Cedric," I said. "What you need is a gimmick."

"A gimmick, Mr. Levi?"

"Yes, my good man. A lure. An attraction of sorts. Think, Cedric, what kind of people most commonly visit this region of the islands?"

"Tourists, I shuppose."

"Bravo, Cedric! Now, you must devise a gimmick to attract the attention of these tourists. Think on it, good fellow."

A few days later, en route to my customary table, I paused at the counter to see what, if anything, had sprung from the seed I had planted in the soil of my young friend's mind.

"Wait right there, Mr. Levi." With that he vanished beneath the counter, emerging again a moment later with a large sheet of paper in his hands.

"What the blazes?!" I gasped, for the sheet of paper was a poster design - advertising an upcoming 'Dwarf Throwing Competition' at Slyme's.

"You told me to come up with a gimmick." Cedric looked wounded.

"That's all very well, Cedric. But isn't this sort of thing a trifle degrading? I mean, you might see it on the beach. But is it appropriate here - in a cafe?"

"If it draws customers, it is," he replied, and for once I was unable to dispute the logic in the young man's words.

I was not in the habit of spending Saturday evenings at Slyme's Cafe, but from Cedric's animated account I learned the 'Dwarf Throwing Competition' had been a huge success and was to become a regular fixture.

"Mr. Levi!" he greeted me the Sunday after the second edition. "More than forty customers last night!"

Despite my reservations about the contests, I was forced to concede Cedric's scheme was a good one. "I am impressed, Cedric," I congratulated him. "I don't entirely agree with it, but I am pleased for you if business has improved."

"It has, Mr. Levi," he gaped, fingering the lapels of his yellow silk suit. "And this is just the beginning."

"The beginning? What on earth do you mean?"

"I intend making the competitions a nightly affair. Shlyme's is destined for greatness!" He jabbed a finger in the air. "I, Mr. Levi; I am destined for greatness."

A slyme, for all his faults and vices, remains a tolerable creature while in his natural condition of meagerness. But a Slyme high-and-mighty, which is precisely what Cedric had become, is quite another matter.

"Cedric," I said, rising from my table, steadying myself with one hand on the back of the chair and pointing my cane at him with the other, "I am not fond of the change which had overcome you. I therefore intend to work upon my memoirs at an alternative location in the future. Ergo, I bid you farewell." With this I collected up my pen, pad and newspaper, and departed.

Despite this resolution, in passing Slyme's Cafe one balmy morning some weeks later, my attention was drawn to the premises by a spectacle which aroused my curiosity to an irrepressible degree: an angry mob of dwarfs were holding a demonstation outside the front door.

Making my way to the entrance, amid jeers and abusive comments directed, if I am not mistaken, at me, I rapped on the door and was admitted a few moments later but a frail young chap with a remarkable head of wavy brown hair. About this assistant I detected something decidedly familiar, though what, exactly, I was prevented from determining by a pair of reflective sunglasses on the dear fellow's face.

"Excuse me," I asked him. "Is the proprietor available, by chance?"

"He's on vacation," the assistant mumbled back.

"I see. When is he due back?"

"In .... shix or sheven weeks."

"Wait a minute. Cedric, is that you?" I pulled down the glasses a touch. "Why, it is! What the blazes?!"

"Mr. Levi! I can explain. But please," he motioned toward the entrance, "Refrain, if you might, from pronouncing my name sho loudly."

Joining me at the window-side table where I had spent so many mornings previously (and at which I am writing these notes you are now reading), Cedric informed me that the demonstrators gathered outside objected to the 'Dwarf Throwing' competitions as degrading to their kind.

"Cedric," I said, "I wish you to accompany me outside, where we shall deal with this situation in the appropriate manner. But dispense, if you will, with that ridiculous wig."

The appearance of Cedric in the doorway drew a fresh onslaught of insults from the demonstrators, and I was obliged to spend some considerable time trying to calm them down.

"Ladies and gentlemen," I shouted. "Let us conduct ourselves in a civilized manner."

"Civilized?!" one yelled back. "You drag people into your premises to watch these degrading competitions, then accuse us of failing to act in a civilized manner?!"

"If you please!" I implored, waving down the ensuing abuse. "What if the proprietor were to agree to restrict these contests to, say, twice a week?"

"Once, no more!" the same dwarf cried, receiving a roar of support from his comrades.

I turned to Cedric, who had been standing beside me all this time with a ghostly expression of countenance. "Well, are you prepared to restrict the contests to once a week, Cedric?"

"N-Never!" he stammered, without removing his eyes from the outraged mob.

With that he dashed back inside and bolted the doors behind him, leaving me in a rather embarrassing predicament, from which I was only able to untangle myself by drawing on the absolute extent of my powers of diplomacy.

This chapter of my memoirs, devoted to the misfortunes of my young friend Cedric Slyme, I will conclude by relating the contents of an article which appeared in the local press several days later:

"Angry dwarfs demonstrated a 'Dwarf Throwing Competition' at Slyme's Cafe last night. Cafe proprietor Mr. Cedric Slyme (pictured in flight) claimed the dwarfs disrupted the contest, damaged his premises, and made off with his wig, specially imported from Italy. The demonstration organizers have denied responsibility for the disappearance of Slyme's wig. A severely shaken Mr. Slyme has agreed to discontinue the 'Dwarf Throwing' contests at his premises henceforth."

End