Barkley Bohner, Celebrity Philosopher

Chapter Seventeen

Of all things, Betsy the Resourceful reminds of my daughter Remi. No, not the gloriously ruthless part of Betsy – that would be more like my wife Trudy. We're talking about the preternaturally gifted part.

I have never seen music come so naturally to anyone. And coming from me – one who was still collecting royalties as Funk Barkley – that is saying quite a lot. But before I could get my girl into the studio, Trudy had her enrolled at Harvard Law at age 17, then Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at age 19. 

Along the way, she picked up a physics degree and a third-degree black belt in karate.

I don't know if kidnapping one's own daughter is the right word. Commandeering is more like it. No arguing with Trudy. In any case, I didn't object. My little girl was kicking serious ass, and I was one proud daddy.

One summer, though, she took up an internship at the Clearwater Institute, situated in a run-down building above a second-hand bookshop four blocks off DuPont Circle in Washington DC.

The Clearwater Institute is an obscure think tank that puts out position papers that feature a mandatory overreliance on the term "polity." The place is a burial ground for nerds not smart enough to be geeks, but Trudy hinted at boyfriend stuff, so I left it at that.

Next thing, Remi was on their payroll. A year later, she was still in the same place.

"She's a young woman finding her way," Trudy told me in a voice that said this conversation was over.

I took up the matter with my father-in-law. "What's the craziest answer that you can come up with?" he asked me over vanilla cheesesteak.

"That the Clearwater Institute is a front for a top secret CIA operation?" I ventured.

My father-in-law gnawed on his cheesesteak, then shook his head. "Plausible," he said, "but not crazy enough."

I ran the riddle through Douglas, my Improbability Drive. It came up with the proposition that Remi represented earth as a non-voting member of the Legislative Council of the Inter-Planetary Federation.

This was not exactly helpful, but it did fit the general criteria of two improbabilities feeding off of each other. In hindsight, the answer was a lot closer than anything I could have come up with on my own.

Soon after our conversation, Remi was working out of a three-story brick building in Georgetown, across the street from the townhouse JFK and Jackie once called home. Remi now had the title of Director, and Trudy hinted broadly of Clearwater's prestigious but highly confidential client list.

Not much later, I discovered the existence of the Secret Betsyhood. Talk about client list. Trudy would have to kill me, of course, but I would die happy knowing that daddy's little girl was kicking mega-ass as a Secret Betsy.

As it turned out, Trudy and her fellow Betsy's granted me a temporary lease on life. That lease abruptly terminated outside the White House kitchen. We turned the corner. There we were, the President and I, about to fix ourselves a sandwich. There they were, my daughter and the First Lady, arm-in-arm, yakking it up like two sorority sisters.

My God! I could only think. Michelle Obama – a Secret Betsy!

I chose not to stick around for the inevitable indoor hunting accident. As you recall:

In the beginning came Barkley Bohner number one, a certain Barq' le Titan, hero of the Battle of Hastings. Le Titan married Betsy the Cunning. Soon after, Titan died of a hunting accident in bed. Eleven months later, Betsy gave birth to his son, Barc'ylly the Squeaky.

Okay, this is new: Squeaky, also known as the One-Eyed, suffered from the lack of the manly touch. The locals sneered, the surrounding nobles bided their time. A mysterious disappearance followed. This coincided with the miraculous appearance of Elisabeth of Anjou, who would take over the running of the estate as Betsy Steward of Bohneur.

For a woman, this new Betsy displayed surprising skills in the manly arts. The locals sang high praises, the surrounding nobles backed off. Everyone also saw fit to comment on the new Betsy's one eye. New Betsy assumed the new title of Virgin Prefect of Bohneur following the miraculous birth of Betsy the Resourceful.

Resourceful Betsy, you remember, while in the Holy Land, ran a lance through her half-brother, Bark'lly of Questionable Temperament. Maybe she used a spit for roasting lamb.

We pick up on the action with Betsy the Resourceful returning home to a land filled with portents of great hardship and sorrow. This includes the birth of a two-headed calf, one head at each end. But ahead lay seven years of grace.

In no time, thanks to the Islamic brains trust that Resourceful Betsy brought back with her, she and her two fellow Betsy's – Virgin Betsy and Voluptuous Betsy – improve crop yields and build up their food and cash reserves. They also commence public works and fortifications and found England’s first institution of higher learning, Christ College of Bonheur.

Around the same time, the Vatican formalizes Credocian's sainthood and his status as the Patron Saint of Male Structural Readiness. In nothing flat, pilgrims are flocking to the new town of Bonheur-on-Gyrdd, and in the process give rise to an immensely profitable secondary industry.

Toward the end of the seven years, the two older Betsy's succumb to a routine pox, and Betsy the Resourceful assumes sole command under the appellation, Betsy Miraculusnata, a reference to her miraculous birth. 

Immediately, Betsy recruits the two most competent individuals in the land as her deputy Betsy's: Agnes the Unlikely, Prioress of Bonheur, and Sybil the Supple, skilled in the transformation of boys to men.

"How many men does it take to change a torch?" asks Betsy Miraculusnata.

Then the dreaded event everyone has been waiting to happen – happens. In the year 1135, Henry I, Lion of Justice, King of England by right of assassination, dies without leaving a male heir. This sets off a war of succession between daughter Matilda and nephew Stephen of Blois.

The surrounding lords choose sides, and waste no time in raising private armies to lay waste to each other's estates, accruing great honors in the process. Betsy, by contrast, remains neutral and accrues no honors. The nobility start referring to her as "The Foolish."

The war rages on. Armies slaughter armies. Roving bands prey upon innocents. Crops are put to the torch, monasteries sacked. Suffering is endemic, prayers go unanswered. Christ and his saints are asleep. 

Seasons pass. On the Bonheur estates, the wheat rises high, the cattle grow fat. Betsy proves very generous in lending to cash-strapped lords on both sides.

A reckoning is at hand. Sooner or later, Betsy will have to collect. She has all the paper. They have the all the armies.