Lizard World

Other books by the author:

Goldsmith’s Return

Lizard

World

Terry Richard Bazes

Livingston Press

The University of West Alabama

Copyright © 2011 Terry Richard Bazes

All rights reserved, including electronic text

isbn 13: 978-1-60489-076-1 library binding

isbn 13: 978-1-60489-077-8 trade paper

Library of Congress Control Number 2011931225

Printed on acid-free paper.

Printed in the United States of America,

United Graphics

Hardcover binding by: Heckman Bindery

Typesetting and page layout: Joe Taylor

Cover layout: Joe Taylor

Cover design and art: Louis Netter

Proofreading: Connie James, Stephanie Camille Murray

Joe Taylor, Tricia Taylor, Jenna Wenbourne

Acknowledgments

This book has two godfathers -- Ben Cheever and Tom Maresca

-- to whom I am more grateful than I can say.

I also want to thank Ian Kleinert, Joe Taylor, Mary Bisbee-Beek, Richard Cohon, Marilyn Johnson, Esmeralda Santiago, and -- for taking in a stranger on a cold day -- Barney & Astrid Rosset.

The first chapter of this novel was previously published in

The Evergreen Review.

This is a work of fiction.

Any resemblance

 
to persons living or dead is coincidental.

Livingston Press is part of The University of West Alabama,

and thereby has non-profit status.

Donations are tax-deductible:

brothers and sisters, we need ’em.

first edition

6 5 4 3 2 1

For Deborah

הלכ יתחא
 
ינתבבל

Lizard

World

Dramatis Personæ

Moderns

MAX NATHAN SMEDLOW, a well-respected dentist in general practice

AGNES SMEDLOW, Wife to Dr. Smedlow

BRUCE J. SILVER, a personal-injury attorney, in the employ of Agnes Smedlow

WENDELL SKAGGS, ESQ., Claims department counsel to Bedrock Casualty Company

LEMUEL LEE FROBEY, a troubled artiste and aficionado of reptiles

BEELZEBUB, a python

LIGEIA FROBEY, Aunt to Lemuel Lee Frobey

EARL FROBEY, a veterinary surgeon of genius, uncle to
   

  
Lemuel Lee Frobey and brother to Ligeia Frobey

TAFFY CLAPP, Inamorata to Lemuel Lee Frobey and, subsequently, wife to Floyd Ambrose Fusco

OLD HATTIE, an ancient resident of a Florida swamp

VERGIL, a handyman

MOSHER POE, a monster, kin both to Edgar Allen Poe and the Frobey family

DARRELL BUTZ, a journalist imprisoned by the Frobey family

BLITZ, a German shepherd and faithful companion to Lemuel Lee Frobey

ANNABEL LEVY GRISWOLD, Wife to the ancient Earl of Griswold

OCTAVIA BLYNN, an important editor

MAGDA KRETCH, assistant to Octavia Blynn

DUMPLING, a Yorkshire terrier, companion to Mrs. Smedlow an
d Inamorata
to Blitz

FLOYD AMBROSE FUSCO, a soldier in the Army of Anubis, husband to Taffy Clapp Fusco and mentor

      
to Lemuel Lee Frobey

FLOYD AMBROSE FUSCO JR., a ten-year-old boy, son to Taffy Clapp Fusco and to the late Floyd

      
Ambrose Fusco & Alligators, lawyers, snakes, cops, cabbies, circus freaks, rats, horseflies etc.

Ancients

THE ENGLISH FELLA, His Immortal Lordship, the Earl of Griswold, also known as Rufus Wilmot

      
Griswold

SELWYN HERBERT, LORD FAWNCEY, a Restoration Poet, Cousin to his Lordship the Earl of Griswold

      
 
and brother to the late, lamented Belinda

BARNABY, a bookseller, friend to Lord Fawncey

JOSIAH FLUDD M.D. , a poor, ambitious young surgeon

MEISTER GERHARD FROBIN, an old barber-surgeon in the employ of the Earl of Griswold; an ancestor

      
to the Frobey family

THE CYCLOPS, daughter to Meister Frobin

BROMLEY, an inferior footman

SIMKYN POTTER, a rogue in the employ of the Earl of Griswold

SATCHUNK, an Indian wench

BESSIE STUBBS, a poor, pretty English wench with very good teeth

VISCOUNT CHOMMELEY, gaming companion to the Earl of Griswold

LADY CHOMMELEY, wife to the Viscount Chommeley

LENORE, COUNTESS OF WOLVERTON, the Grey-eyed Lady. Beloved of the Earl of Griswold, niece to

      
 
the Viscount and Viscountess Chommeley

MISTRESS FELSHAM, an old bawd, a confederate to the Earl of Griswold

CHARITY FLOWER, a young harlot, tormentor to Dr. Fludd and supposed friend to the Lady Lenore

SMYTHE AND SQUIBB, a brace of cut-throats in the employ of the Earl of Griswold

MILLICENT, a pious Marchioness, sister-in-law to the Earl of Griswold &Crokadells, salvages, peers,

      
 
serving-women, constables, corpses, flyes, harlots, monstrosities etc.

House of Frobey
                

       
Meister Gerhard Frobin = Bechte Oppmann

          
    
        
1624-1702
             
1641-1693

        
½

                 
Polyphema Frobin
  
=
 
Josiah Fludd M.D.

        
(the Cyclops) 1660-1720
        
1670-1763

                                               
½

      
 
Sula Mae Clemm
  
=
 
Jedediah Frobin, bastard

           
   
1768-1821
           
1690-1798

 
½

Hezekiah Frobey = Rosalie Poe

       
1795-1871
       
1810-1874

               
         
½

           
¾
       
¾

          
½
          
   
½

    
Mosher Poe =
 
Madeline Frobey
      
Roderick Frobey = Hepzibah Clemm

          
1812-
        
1824-1867
                    
1824-1866
        
1821-1902

               
        
½
                          
  
        
   
½
                

     
Hannibal Lee Poe =
 
Ida Lemuel
              
Tamerlane Frobey = Eulalie Clemm
 

         
1838-1878
     
1836-1867
                      
1837-1885
               
   
1836-1926
       

                               
½
                                 
      
½
  

                     
Hannah Lee Poe
       
=
                                
Israfel Frobey

                        
1850-1913
                                                    
1852-1951

                                               
½

                        
Arthur Gordon Frobey
       
=
          
Hetty Lemuel

                               
 
1865-1904
           
½

           
 
¾
      

          
½
      
½

     
Bessie Lemuel = Abner Frobey
   
Jacob (“Big Jake”) Frobey
 
=
 
Virginia Lemuel

       
1950-
                
1888-1984
      
1877-1959
                                      
1893-1939

  
            
         
½
                                                  
½

           
 
¾
                                          
¾
       
¾
       
¾
       

          
½
      
½
                                  
                             
 
½
          
½
      
½

 
Jeb Frobey
 
Ida Frobey
 
Bunny Clapp =
 
Valdemar Frobey
 
Earl Frobey
 
Ligeia Frobey

   
1980-
      
1983-
             
1964-1978
          
1912-96
                  
1912-
        
1908-
    
                                      
 

                         
                     
  
Lemuel Lee Frobey

                               
 
                     
          
1978 -

From The Memoirs of Josiah Fludd, M.D.

(Caleb Pedlar: Paternoster Row, London, 1742)

Once
I found a shilling
in a dead milliner’s pocket and this exceed-

ing treasure sufficed to buy me Suffolk cheese and small beer for a week. At this miserable period of my youth these pittances seemed luxuries enough. Nor would I have then believed that I would one day dress in silks, administer glysters to duchesses, and be vouchsafed admittance to the Grand Arcanum -- the high mysteries of the scalpel and the dark secrets of the Elixir of Eternal Life. To me alone this was given -- the secrets of the immortal potion for which Paracelsus sought in vain and the Spaniard Ponce de Leon gave his life.

      
This shilling, then, was but the first-fruit of my labours. For I being then in my nineteenth year and little more than a beggar -- intent, by hook or by crook, to become a chirurgeon and yet utterly without means to feed and clothe my body (much less to learn the merest rudiments of my profession) -- I at length had found a way both to earn my bread and pursue my studies by undertaking to perform a service -- a wholly necessary and harmless service -- albeit one from which my more prosperous school-mates turned away with horror and revulsion. So it was that I got my sustenance and was suffered to sit with all the paying scholars -- provided it was in the very backermost row -- and watch whilst our professor probed the deepest mysteries of a fresh cadaver.