Edgewise

Edgewise

Mark A Davis

288

Grandpa Anarchy, world's oldest hero, strode into the center of the Parkway Central Library of Philadelphia.  He looked around at the rows and rows of books.

"Literate Lemur!" he yelled.  "I know you're in here!  Come out, and let's get this show on the road!"

For several long moments the library was quiet, save for the hum of air recyclers and overhead lights -- all of the people had long since fled.  Grandpa Anarchy wore his usual outfit -- a rumpled gray suit with an anarchy symbol stitched in silver over the left breast.  Today he wore a sea-green tie.  Trailing behind him was a young, dark-skinned woman dressed in red spandex, with bleach blonde hair held back by a red hair band.  She was tall and lanky and wore a deerstalker cap and a double-breasted Ulster overcoat.  On her chest was the astrological symbol for Venus.

"By Librarium!  If it isn't my old nemesis, Grandpa Anarchy!" a voice called out from an upper floor.  The Literate Lemur appeared on a balcony, balancing on the rail.  He was a somewhat portly man in a black and white striped costume with a long, striped tail, a masked face and eyes that reflected light.  "As Shannon L. Adler herself once said, 'If you want to discover the true character of a person, you have only to observe what they are passionate about!'  Thus you find me in a library, wherein lies my greatest passion:  books!"

"Plus, the clues lead us to..." Grandpa's sidekick began.

"And what a fantastic library it is!" the Lemur continued.  "The jewel of the entire Free Library of Philadelphia!  In the planning stages since 1911 and first opened in 1927, the Parkway Central Library is the centerpiece of the 13th largest public library system in the United States, and unique in that it is neither a city agency nor a nonprofit organization...."

"We don't need a history lesson, thanks," Grandpa interrupted, cracking his knuckles.  He walk purposefully towards the stairs to the upper level.

The lemur frowned.  "Well, aren't we the rude one?"  After a moment he added, "And who is your lovely sidekick this fine evening?"

"I am the Cisgender Slueth!" the woman exclaimed.

"Ah," said the Lemur.  "A  nicely alliterate name -- something even the least literate of heroes can appreciate  But that's an interesting word, cisgender."

"It means..." the sidekick began.

"Oh, my dear girl, I know what it means," said the Literate Lemur.  "Do not test me on words if you hope to win!  Do you know how the word came about, I wonder?  Coined in the 1990's as a word meaning the opposite of transgender, itself a word only coined twenty years earlier -- the origins of the words are clear.  From the Latin, trans means on the other side of, and cis means on the same side of."

"Yes," said the sidekick.  "I thought...."

"But the public is not very aware of the prefix cis," the Lemur continued.  "It appears in very few English words.  Some don't understand the word, some consider the word a kind of slur.  It's an open debate among linguists as to whether the word is useful enough, and user-friendly enough, to become a permanent part of our great language."

"Enough talk!" Grandpa Anarchy exclaimed, having reached the top of the stairs.  "I'm here to arrest you, Literate Lemur, on the charge of attempted theft of rare books, and when I do I'm gonna toss your literate ass in the hoosegow!"

Grandpa Anarchy charged at top speed towards the villain.

"Ah, yes.  Hoosegow.  Also an interesting word," said the Lemur, as he dodged Grandpa's punch.  "This is 19th century American slang, most likely a mispronunciation of the Spanish word for tribunal or court, juzgao, which is from the root word juzgar, to judge."

The two trade blows.  "That's nice," Grandpa snarled.  He delivered a rare roundhouse kick, which missed as the Lemur leaped to the top of a bookshelf.  "But the point...."

"Compare also jusgado, Spanish for prison, which might also be the origin of the phrase," said the Lemur, leaping from bookshelf to bookshelf.  "All this is from Latin of course -- Spanish is a Romance language after all! -- judicare, to judge, derived from judex -- a judge."

The Literate Lemur fired a grappling hook, which caught on a lamp high above.  He swung across the room, the upper balcony on one side to the other.  The Cisgender Sleuth met him there, gun drawn.  He did a back flip over the balcony and to the lower floor below.  Meanwhile Grandpa Anarchy had leaped to top of the bookshelves on the lower floor.  He hopped down and punched the Lemur.  The two exchanged a flurry of blows.

"Ah, fisticuffs!" said the Lemur.  "The noble art!  As Elbert Hubbard once said, 'War is the sure result of the existence of armed men... The man who prides himself on fisticuffs is going, some day, to meet a man who considers himself the better man, and they will test the issue.'  Well have at thee, Sir!"

"You're a good one for fancy speech," said Grandpa Anarchy as he dodged and weaved, "but if you expect to beat me in a boxing match, then you've got another think coming."

The Lemur landed a punch to the face, and Grandpa Anarchy stumbled back.  "What was it Churchill said?" asked the Lemur.  "Ah yes -- 'The object of Parliament is to substitute argument for fisticuffs."  I must admit, I enjoy doing both at once.  What you and I are engaged in, Mr. Anarchy, is not just a physical battle, but a battle over words."

"No we're not...." Grandpa began.

"That, my friend, is known as a logomancy," the Lemur continued.  "I'll just bet you weren't aware there was such a word!  It springs from logos, the Greek root which means word or speech, and machesthai, also Greek of course, meaning to fight."

Grandpa said, "That's nice, but I...."

"In fact the second definition is simply a controversy marked by verbiage.  A quite liberal interpretation of this definition might, in fact, cover all of our battles, since we are always fighting, and there is always verbiage.  Indeed, our battles often include discussions about language itself, unlike any other opponent you face."

"Actually," said Grandpa Anarchy, "Hairsplitter Man often comments on...."

"And our battles often take place in temples of learning -- libraries, bookstores -- places dedicated to the written word!" said the Lemur.

"Yes, but that's because you're always stealing...."

"In point of fact," said the Lemur, "I sometimes fancy myself a kind of modern logomancer -- one who divinates from words.  Not that I literally divinate, mind you, but...."

"Logomancy this!" Grandpa exclaimed, delivering an uppercut that lifted the Literate Lemur completely off the ground for one brief moment.

"Only one talking about words is you," Grandpa stated, as the book thief collapsed to the tiled floor.  "Can't get a word in edgewise."


Later, as the Lemur was loaded into a police van, he mumbled, "An interesting idiom, get a word in edgewise.  In use since the 1700's, For me the phrase conjures images of spoken words as if they were on a printed page with an edge... so very apropos!  Indeed, one might even say that...."

The doors closed, and the rest of he had to say was lost.

"Does he always talk that much?" asked the Cisgender Sleuth.

"Always," Grandpa Anarchy replied.

FINI