Burning Issues of the Day

            Joey still engrossed in the tabloids.  “Y’know Murphy, says here, Truman ain’t a worthy successor to Roosevelt!”

            Murphy:  “Now which Roosevelt might that be:  FDR or Teddy?”

            “Hey -- enough with your TR fixation, Murph.  You know which one I mean.”

            Murphy, taking in the title of the tabloid:  “Yeh I do.  And I also know that that rag was for Hoover, and that it could hardly say the name of Roosevelt without spitting, long’s he was alive.  So when did they get religion?”

            Joey, genuinely hurt.  “Aw, c’mon, there, Murphy.  It’s me -- Joey, here.  I’m no Einstein but I’m trying to learn a thing or two, okay?”

            “Okay.”

            “Okay, so.  Just like I don’t diss your moose-head…”

            “You lay off of my--!  -- yeh, right, you don’t diss the moose-head.”

            “…and I don’t diss your pile of tires...”

            (Murphy gets a dreamy look:  the pile of tires…)

            “… so you don’t diss my tabloid, ‘kay?  Talkin’ Joey here.  They got short words and not too many of ‘em;  just right for Joey.”

            So Murphy considered the matter seriously.  “Well… Hard to say how well he’s doing -- best he can, I reckon, for what that’s worth -- and this ‘worthy successor’ stuff, I mean, what does that even mean?  No mama brings her son up to be a ‘worthy successor’.

            “But I can say this.   While Harry was the Veep -- that old bucket-of-warm-spit office -- FDR didn’t do a darn thing to groom him.  How you gonna be a worthy successor if the guy you gotta follow doesn’t even want you to succeed?   Guy dies and the generals and the scientists gotta say, Oh by the way Mr. Truman, Mr. newboy greenhorn tenderfoot cluelessassmister President, sir, there’s this thing you probably oughta know about now, thing called The Bomb.   -- So the way I see it -- worthy successor, couldn’t say;  but in that respect, old FDR -- though I voted for him four times -- was not a worthy predecessor.”

            Murphy fell silent;  and Joey was sad.

            “Yeh but” (Murphy said) “what’re we sittin’aroun’ judging Presidents here, for, you’n me… You’n me… too drunk to get up before noon… What’re we up to… sittina-roun…”

            “Yeh well, anyway” (Joey this time, and speaking from his deep pure heart)  “: God be with our President, anyhow;  needs all the help he can get.”

Murphy on Dual Citizenship

So, Mr. Murphy, the nation is curious.  What is your position on the issue of dual citizenship?

“Say what?”

Dual citizenship.  When a person is simultaneously a citizen of two different countries.

“I don’t get it.  How can that be.”

Well like for instance the al-Qaeda gentleman, Mr. Anwar al-`Awlaqi:  he holds full U.S. citizenship, with all the rights and privileges that accrue thereto, and simultaneously is a citizen of his country of actual residence, Yemen, where he has greater leisure to plan his terrorist attacks.  Or more recently, these gentlemen, whose nationality swings both ways.

“Dual…but... Isn’t that bigamy?”

Murphy Takes Up an Instrument

Murphy Takes Up an Instrument

A Fable for Triduum

            Ach, er läßt es gehen

            Alles, wie es will;

            Dreht -- doch seine Leier

            Steht ihm immer still.

                        -- old nursery rhyme

Der Leiermann (Anton Piek)

On the corner stands an organ-grinder, grinding his organ round and round.

All day he stands there grinding:  yet the organ makes no sound.

Back and forth the people pass;  and lo, they mock him not;

nor hear him -- for the organ’s silent;  him:  by all forgot.

His shabby cap before his feet, to catch the proferred pence.

It empty lies, the folk haste by, as would they spurn him thence.

Mute he stands, and still no sounds   come forth from organ-barrel.

All still:  but for one surly cur,  that bares its fangs to snarl.

*

And Murphy stood intently,   listening, all day long;

Until  as dusk fell down like snow -- forthwith burst into song:

            Wunderlicher Alter --  soll ich fuer dich gehn?

            Muss ich deinetwegen   deine Leier drehn ?!  ?!

Then Murphy takes the station, and the old man goes his way.

His eyes shut tight, with heaving sighs, he then begins to play.

The silence that then issued forth,  was like a mighty wind,

sweeping away the grief  of all   that ever wept and sinned.

Great gusts of soundlessness, like thunder, rolled like clouds on high:

Like Sampson dumb and blinded,   cracked  the pillars of the sky.

The welkin fell in fragments,  and crashed into the sea.

Yet still upon his corner, Murphy  did not cease to play.

O Thou who raised the skies, and loosed the birds upon the air:

Do Thou hear the music,  of the old man’s wordless prayer.

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/_CNJKPPviNY

[Update 25 Aug 2011:  The link above to Schubert's deep Lied, now seems to lead only to some Japanese sex ads.  Modern culture in a nutshell.
Here is an alternate version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTu_Jreo1SQ ]

Murphy at his Devotions

It is dark, it is late, just candles burning.  Murphy is alone in the church, kneeling in the last pew.  His hands are joined; his murmurs can barely be heard.

A well-dressed gentleman strides in off the street, rings on his fingers, inverted cross at his throat, and spats on his ostrich-leather boots.  His face is tanned like fake rawhide -- no, now it’s white as a bone; all depends on the tricks of the light. He’s got dust on his tux, from walking that way and back, inside and out, up and down in the earth. 

He looks around, seeing no-one; robs the poor-box; gives the font a wide berth;  and then spots Murphy, looking small and helpless there on his knees.  The man grins, baring his teeth.  He speaks in a loud voice.

“Well now ain’t -  that  -  special !  Telling Pappy about all the naughty thoughts that you had?  Or asking him for a Cadillac, or a Mercedes-Benz?”

“No.  Not really.”

“What -- just mouthing some formulaic mumbo-jumbo, in a language you don’t even understand?”

“Just praying for someone.  Someone I know.  Someone I know all too well.”

“Awww…Now ain’t that sweet.  Praying for your dear old grannie, that got sciatica?  Praying for some poor little boy in Nigeria that got cancer, what you heard about on the Internet?”

“No, actually, I was….praying for……...for the Devil.  Praying, that he might repent.

You see, actually, I was praying -- for you.”

Murphy Calls in a Specialist

"You don't seem quite to have made up you mind  whether it's a case for a policeman or a clergyman."
-- A. Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)



We read in Scripture, " “He that toucheth pitch, shall be defiled ..."
And so it proves for Murphy.
His massive powers of detection quickly penetrate to the heart of the case -- its dreadful truth --
but here, mere knowledge does not suffice.
Shaken, infected by what he most abhors... Murphy must call in a Professional.

Click to download this new Murphy Brothers story for Kindle, just 99 cents.

Murphy on the Trinity

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Murphy on the Wounds

“I -- -- ---

You -- --- -------

they …………………………………

..

.. ..

.. .. …

My lord and my God ………”