The Mystery Call Girls Riot: And Other Sad Events Relating to The Incarnation of Mystery Call

This is a tale told in Heaven about curious events on Earth. It is narrated by a thuggish handyman named Pistol who either has a disembodied soul who acts as his guardian angel, or he imagines that he does. Pistol believes this adventurous aerial spirit is a Heavenly bartender with diabolical and comedic ambitions; he is called Nectar, because of the drinks he serves. And it is Nectar who revisits William Shakespeare's "Merry Wives of Windsor" some 350 years after the Bard revived Falstaff (then 200 years departed) at the request of Queen Elizabeth I on a makeshift stage in a park near the River Thames. The wily spirit summons Falstaff to face the world anew, this time not as a knight of the realm (a dubiously aristocratic soldier), but as a scholarly impresario, who goes by the stage name of Mystery Call, although he was baptized Calvin Baker. The action takes place in Horn Valley in and around the small Western American town of Philo in 1949. Mystery Call is a creature of the theater, rebellious, independent and semi-blacklisted by the entertainment industry because of his publicized admiration for the Fabian Society in England. He is to scholarship what Falstaff was to knighthood. He fancies himself a choreographer and writes ballets (although he does not dance); he calls his troupe "The Mystery Call Girls," a title that offends people in town. Advertised everywhere, the troupe appears on a local stage. But it is a prominent rancher, Calvin's cousin, whose wife and children feel most threatened by Mystery Call. The fact is, 17 years earlier during the Great Depression, the impresario had been a jobless widower with an infant son he could not support. He had to leave his boy with his cousins, and they nurtured him with love and kindness. The boy became an important part of the ranch and by the time Mystery Call and his dancing girls arrive in Philo, the boy is preparing to graduate from high school and go on to college. The ranch family cannot understand why the show-biz character has returned to a place that never needed him. They feel threatened by his interest in visiting his son, a boy they took care of throughout his childhood and youth. They loved him when he was a little fellow during the tough Depression years and they saw him mature into a fine young man during the war years. The ranch family feels that a great danger was lifted from them, because the war ended before the youth could volunteer or be drafted. And the rancher's wife and son are especially aggressive in their efforts to protect the young fellow from his flamboyant father. That is when the local newspaper and a Philo pastor become involved and crowds gather to protest. Troubles brew. ...