4 June 2020

Challenge to the Writers:

Choose a Nursery Rhyme and rewrite it in a modern idiom, bearing in mind the political and often gruesome origins of these “children’s” stories. Or choose a modern event and build a mythical story around it. Or update, for example, the Boston Tea Party.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men

couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again

Note 1: Humpty Dumpty was the name of a large cannon used by the forces of Charles I. It was used so much that the vibration destroyed the castle wall on which it was placed and fell to the ground in pieces and could not be repaired. This is thought to be the origin of the children’s rhyme

Note 2: The image of Humpty Dumpty as an egg and an ego was created by Lewis Carroll in an encounter with Alice in chapter 6 of Through the Looking Glass. Much of the dialogue with Alice in this story is taken directly from that source.

Note 3: Drumpf was the family name of Donald Trump’s grandfather from Germany when he emigrated to the USA. It was changed by his father

Gerald’s Story

Trumpty Drumpfty

It was the strangest thing I had ever seen. I was only seven years old at the time, but I never forgot it, or him. Actually now, in my 70s, it is of course impossible to ignore him. But at the time, I was amazed.

We were all gathered in Miss Foote’s second grade class at the Gotham School for Privileged Boys. I had been allowed to be there solely by reason of a distant deceased uncle’s generous donation to the school prior to my birth. The other’s in the class were all offspring of the strivers and social climbers who had emerged rich from the war. They were not of the old, establishment elite or moneyed class. The parents of these boys had not really served the country but thought how the country should serve them and their interests. It was all about looking out for old number one, meaning themselves and their families. Not that there is anything wrong with that I suppose, but in their offspring, it manifested in many ways of selfishness and disdain for any of “those” people who were not like them.

Anyway, Trumpty was one of the worst. He was a rounded little egg of a boy with stubby arms and legs hanging off awkwardly. He was always complaining that his heels hurt, so that he could avoid doing any of the exercises we were required to do before school started in the mornings. This particular day, he was telling a few boys about how he had been eating the best chocolate sweets given him by his mother while we were getting all sweaty. I had just sat down at my desk and was bending over tying a shoelace when Trumpty turned his body but still was looking at the boys miming putting chocolates in his mouth. And he walked right into me, tripped over me really, but instead of falling down, he fell up.

I’m serious. He seemed to literally float upwards as he righted himself before settling back down, next to me. He scowled. “It’s a good thing I have great genes, or you would have been in real trouble for tripping me.” He pushed me aside as he continued walking to his desk. “My dad told me about him.” he said pointing at me, “He’s a charity case. He shouldn’teven be here with us taking up space.” They all were amazed at him and they laughed and swarmed round him. For the rest of my time at that school, I was constantly being harassed by Trumpty and his cohort.. I wouldn’t call them his friends, he really didn’t have friends.

Everyone and everything with him was a transaction. He would say, “My dad taught me to always ask before doing anything, “What’s in it for me? If I don’t look out for Number One, who will?”.

He seemed to fall upwards in everything. By the time we were teenagers, his character was based on that premise that no matter what he did, he would come out better. He would demand my dessert if it was a chocolate one. If I complained to the teacher, the next time they had something chocolate, he would be given a double helping by the lunchroom lady andI would receive a shmushed half of one.

When we played baseball, he insisted on playing First Base or catcher because they did not have to run like the other positions. “It’s my heels” he would say. And he always denied ever being wrong. If he made an error or out, he would argue that it was the other players fault or the umpire got it wrong.

When a woman took over the school and became “Head Mistress”, Trumpty complained to hisfather that she was not of the “right” qualities and it would downgrade the stature of the school. The reality was she had admonished Trumpty for his behavior in class. So Mr Drumpfty, sent Trumpty away to a boarding school and that’s when I lost touch with him.

I did have some mates at the school who without Trumpty there, turned into almost decent chaps. Over the years they would tell me stories they heard from their parents or other kids about how Trumpty kept falling up. He would change from school to school whenever his welcome ran out and family money could not buy his continuance. But it was never Trumpty’s fault, no matter what the outrage. Mr Drumpfty always solved the problem for him.

Trumpty joined the family firm right out of university and he fell ever upward. When Mr Drumpfty was found guilty of discriminating against african americans or people of other than anglo saxon background, Trumpty was one of the main participants in the scheme. Mr Drumpfty paid the fine while Trumpty was neither admonished nor had his record blotted.

When old Mr Drumpfty died, it was Trumpty who took over what was a very successful firm. His father also left him a rather large fortune. Trumpty had now fallen very high. He splashed his money around trying to make a name for himself. He built the Pyrite Palace into a brand of hotels associated with his name. The deals always were structured to give him the benefit at the expense of everyone else. But he did not have his father’s discipline and the money and reputation began to fade. Always he would fall further up, blaming the workers or the economy or the government. And he had a cadre of lawyers working overtime to challenge anyone who questioned his practices or ability.

When much of his fortune had been lost, he turned to sources of funds that themselves were made from questionable transactions. Trumpty’s reputation was never damaged by his failures, he always managed to look out for number one. He became a celebrity with an image of success rather than by the actuality of his business acumen. That helped him to fall upwards even more.

Trumpty began to make contacts with world leaders known more for their dubious authoritarianism rather than their democratic tendencies. He especially curried favor with Russputin who provided him with friends who paid cash, outrageous amounts of cash, for places in the Pyrite Palaces. That money helped Trumpty fall upwards from his bad decisions and investments. And Russputin also began to counsel Trumpty on how to become king of his country. This had begun to enter into Trumpty’s mind after he attended a dinner with the old king.

The old King was smooth and articulate and cool, all the things Trumpty was not. Most important to Trumpty though, was that the old king was an other and did not deserve to be king. He was not one of the right people like Trumpty. And the old king had made fun of Trumpty at the dinner by pointing out how he far he had fallen up despite his failures. And Trumpty vowed revenge.

He turned to Russputin for help in becoming King. As Trumpty had never believed in anything other than himself, he aligned himself with forces that propped him up. These were the people Trumpty had known all his life, those who looked like him and cared only for their own interests at the expense of the others.

And so it happened that he had to come face to face with Alice Hillary in deciding who would become the new king. She said as she looked at him, “Well, it’s Trumpty Drumpfty, trying to sit up there on the highest wall of them all. He has a nose and a mouth but he is just a round egg after all. He is just a yolk of a man who will do anything to fall up if he can.”

Trumpty had his arms crossed and pretended not to listen. “I am the one who decides what I hear. You are only a girl. And besides what of my shape. It is the very best of shape I am.”

Alice Hillary thought for a moment, “ Why don’t you come and join with all the people. Why are you so all alone? It is so very easy to fall off the wall.”

“Well, that’s an easy question to answer. It is because nobody is with me. But once I sit on the wall, I will have all the king’s resources and all the king’s men to save me. They’d pick me up in a minute. But now I have a question. How long do you get to be King?”

Alice Hillary replied quickly. “Four years but maybe eight if you are a good king.”“

Wrong,” said Trumpty. Once you are king, it is for life.”

Being a polite girl, Alice Hillary tried to change the subject. “What a nice long tie you wear. Or maybe I mean your belt. “

“What a silly girl you are to not know the difference between a tie and a belt,” was Trumpty’s reply.

“Well, it is very difficult when you can’t tell between his neck and his waist, “ thought Alice Hillary to herself, but she said , “Well, it is a nice tie.”

“Yes it is. It was an unbirthday present.” Trumpty preened.

“There is no such thing as an “unbirthday”, A;oce tried to point out.

Trumpty huffed. “When I use a word, it means what I want it to mean.”

“But how can you make a word mean different things than what they are?”

“The answer is, who is to be the master. When you are the king, you can make it anything you want. And I am the master of words and can make them change whenever I want them to.” Then he added, “You are so like the other people. You can never be king.”

Well, you know what happened, Trumpty fell upwards one more time and became king. Just as with the famous cannon on the castle wall of King Charles I which kept firing continuously, Trumpty sat up on his White Wall and fired off words at all hours of the day and night. It distracted his enemies from important things, and inflamed his supporters into believing whatever he said the words meant, creating havoc everywhere.

However, as happened with King Charles’ cannon, after almost four years of blasting out words, the wall began to crumble around him causing Trumpty to crack and fall downward for the first time in his life. So now he has to count on Russputin and all the king’s resources and all the king’s men to keep him together as king again.

The end to the story is yet to be written. Will Trumpty fall up one more time or finally fall down? What I do know is that it is unlikely that anyone will live happily ever after.