The Nearer Side of Richard the Ninth

           Many believe that Richard the Ninth was not born, but exploded into the gentle grasp of a waiting obstetrician who still had his first baseman's mitt from his days playing with the Emerald Hills Mustangs. After a thorough cleansing and several slaps to the backside, the baby immediately soiled himself merely out of post-natal spite and pre-adolescent angst. This angst lasted through the next thirty years until a chance meeting with a woman of more than usual amounts of spunk, frivolity, and chinchilla pelts taught Richard the Ninth the meaning of the word “pragmatomaton” and left him with a crooked grin tattooed on his chest. She left without a word shortly thereafter. It took poor Richard the Ninth twelve ponderous years before he deduced that she had made the word up on the spot, taken his wallet, and never intended to get a tattoo of her own to compliment his. The angst returned, the tattoo remained.

           One odd day of no significance, some time after his forty-third birthday, Richard the Ninth developed a strong attachment — some would say affection – for a pair of loafers. He found an entrancing beauty in them due to their lack of pennies, though later used this deficiency against them. He was heard proclaimed, to the groaning of millions, “They had no cents. They made no sense." From that day forward, Richard the Ninth went barefoot.

           Richard the Ninth never held a throne or a crown, much less a position of authority in life. However, he did appropriate the number Nine as his own, trademarked it, and removed it from the public domain to be kept under his indefatigable control. Baseball players seethed, never again seeing an end to their games. School children bristled at never again earning above eighty-eight percent or correctly identifying the sum of four and five. Astronomers roared in disapproval for though they had already nullified Pluto, they could no longer name any celestial body after Neptune a planet -- not even Leptidion. Yoko Ono never sang again. And Tommy Tune stayed forever in his freakishly long bed. "Richard the Ninth will pay," he tapped between his sheets.