Embouchure: Services Rendered, #1

EMBOUCHURE

Services Rendered, Volume 1

by

Archibald Fitz

––––––––

Published by Rook-Block Press, 2024.

Copyright

EMBOUCHURE

First edition. Rook-Block Press, December, 2024

Copyright © 2024 Archibald Fitz

ISBN: 9798227584595

——

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the written permission of the copyright owner except in brief quotations embodied in critical articles, reviews and other non-commercial uses allowed by copyright law.

——

Archibald Fitz asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

——

NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

——

Cover Design: SEQ

Bebas Neue Typeface by Dharma Type

Stalinist One Typeface by Jovanny Lemonad

Veteran Typewriter Typeface by Koczman Balint

Preface

In the wake of the inefficacious Bay of Pigs invasion, the brutality of the Phoenix Programme and public disillusionment following the Watergate Hotel break-in, Senator Frank F. Church III and Congressman Otis G. Pike oversaw two congressional investigations through 1975 and 1976 that published 14 reports exposing 'black operations' run by the US intelligence apparatus against both foreign targets of interest and American citizens arbitrarily suspected of espionage, organised crime and various political infidelities including and not limited to ‘cultural subversion’.

Across the border in Ottawa, the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Certain Activities of the RCMP, was chaired by Judge David Cargill McDonald between 1977 and 1981. It ended with three evidentiary reports documenting a secret history of domestic covert intelligence operations and extralegal activities carried out by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police/Security Service against suspected citizens, left-wing activists, organised crime figures and politicalised First Nations peoples.

As a result of these investigations, the reading public was made aware of what high-ranking politicians, career policemen and investigative journalists have always known, that common people—frequently unaware of the circumstances—are marked-out by intelligence agencies for use as ‘assets’ to conceal, support and carry through with specific operational goals and national policy objectives both domestically and abroad.

In practise, the recruitment of patriotic individuals, university students, bored housewives, professional criminals, international drug traffickers, opportunistic adventurers and other sufficiently motivated individuals as 'cut-outs' ensures for the official record—plausible deniability to intelligence officers, their parent agencies and the respective states (and private corporations) they are sworn to serve.

––––––––

— H.A. Fitz

Embouchure

||Em`bou`chure" (?), n. [F., fr. emboucher to put to the mouth; pref. em- (L. in) + bouche the mouth. Cf. Embouge, Debouch.]

1. The mouth of a river; also, the mouth of a cannon.

2. (Mus.) (a) The mouthpiece of a wind instrument. (b) The shaping of the lips to the mouthpiece; as, a flute player has a good embouchure.

––––––––

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, (1913)

VIKTOR

I don't care what anyone says. Six thousand le dollars is a lot of fucking money.

This is particularly true for me. As a writer of science-fiction and the occasional short story based on my own childhood, I've never earned more than eight hundred per annum. And that only happened once. Several years ago when I first started out.

1967 wasn't ending much better. It's December. And I haven't had a paying gig in more than three months. Right now I have four bucks left in my wallet; a few coins on the night-stand and an even fifty husbanding in the bank in case of emergency. Not exactly a comforting situation. Things have been rough. Despite this, I'm not grumbling. Not really. It's just an acknowledgement of the facts. I haven't much choice. But there are ups too.

For one thing, I own my loft in Avenue des Érables lock, stock and dammed barrel. That's important to me. Second, my 1959 Studebaker Lark VIII Regal might chafe the current standards of acceptable automotive fashion, but it's reliable. It is also paid for. The main issue I have is keeping it fuelled. Drawing portraits of tourists in the Place d’Armes on the weekends helps with that. As does another little sideline of mine. I'll talk about that later.

So I get by. It isn't that difficult. My lady-friend Monica and I live frugally by habit. Meaning: most of our gear is second-hand, dark-hued and the furniture came along with the flat. It also means that as long as flour, olive oil and garlic are affordable, she’ll see to it that we eat. And thanks to her habit of secreting spare change in a glass jar underneath her side of the bed, there is always wine, bread and butter on the table. Sometimes, she even produces a roll of hashish from the warmth of her bosom to go with the coffee.

Our life together is an admittedly embarrassing Bohémien cliché. But it works. And after five years, we still enjoy each other's company. So that's that.

Still...it's December. It is getting colder by the day and I'm still on the past-due list with Hydro-Québec and several other bill collectors as I struggle with the car in heavy snow on near-bald tyres. I'm also delinquent with my Authors Guild dues back in the states. On top of that our chubby, bright-orange tabby Burro the Magnificent is overdue for his annual trip to the vet. The worst of it? I'm painfully low on brandy.

If that wasn't enough there is the spectre of the holy season to cope with. Our dear Catholic friends—those who haven't lapsed yet—will expect presents, as they do every year. In spite of our repeated, joint expressions of rank atheism. Especially the children. With things being drum-tight this year, we decided to give or friends selected artwork we'd usually try to sell. I suspect this will earn winces from a few of the petite bourgeoisie and the greedy in our circle, but that's their problem. I've got other worries. Such as keeping the lights on and the cat fed. So Monica and I will bear it out as the price of friendship. Again.

I'm not joking. Earning enough to live on has always been a problem for me. Especially in Canada. Particularly in wintertime. With funds running on fumes, I needed to come up with a solution and soon. Especially since I've also exhausted all of the legitimate ways Montréalers can dodge the bill collectors without being dragged into the Cour du Québec. As a foreigner, I wished to avoid this. So out of sheer desperation I sought an agent for commercial voice-over work. Actually, it was Monica's idea. She thought I could do it because I'd done a spot of off-off-Broadway theatre back in my salad days. My terrible stammer ended that. Ashamed, I'd stand in front of a mirror and read Paul Dunbar's ‘Oak and Ivy’ aloud to myself. Later due to my mother's literary influences, I moved on to Chaucer, Kierkegaard, and Jean-Paul Sartre and learned how to employ standard English. When I choose to speak at all.

Over time it paid off. When I arrived in English-speaking Québec, I came across as urbane, conversational and well-read. It opened doors that otherwise would have been closed to me here. And given the circumstances, I stood a better chance of earning a living reading another writer's copy into a microphone than trying to sell my own.

As usual, Monica Michelangela was right on target. The agent I'd found in a newspaper advert did find work for me. As luck would have it, he reached me just before the telephone could be disconnected. That was back in August. A series of radio spots that will run all year long. It was great to be back to work. Though it only lasted for several days. And I have to admit, it was a tad embarrassing to report to Monica that I'd been selected to be the new voice of Purex toilet tissue over Québec radio.

Like a dear, she hugged me tight when I told her.