Callahan's Place 07 - Callahan's Legacy (v5.0) by Spider Robinson Page A

subject?”
    “Word games?” Solace suggested at once.   “How about inversions?   A man with a fat head…”
    “—keeps his hat fed,” Long-Drink said, and guffawed.   “I get it.   Uh…‘He had a grizzled chin…and a chiseled grin.’”   That brought scattered applause.   “You try one, Jake.”
    “Well…whenever Ralph has puppies, Doc has to go visit the Von Wau Wau home with his needle.   Don’t want a—”
    “—rabies boom in the babies’ room,” Zoey and the Drink said along with me.   Fast crowd.
    “Yeah,” Tanya said, “and Michael Jackson keeps all his records in a hit shed.”
    That drew hoots of laughter, and of course a word game in Mary’s Place attracts people like flies; our circle expanded.   Tommy Janssen held up a joint, made a face, and said, “Bum doobie.   Got it from a—”
    “—dumb booby,” several people chorused.
    Well, believe it or not, from there it degenerated.   Zoey perpetrated some horror I’ve blocked out about drab Jews who jab Druze, and someone else who shall remain nameless explained the difference between a tribe of clever pygmies and a women’s track team—the pygmies are a cunning bunch of runts—(I hasten to add that this unnamed person was female; we weren’t allowing men to be sexist that week), and Doc Webster, who ought to take the rap for it, attempted a complicated atrocity that involved something called a Shick Brit-house, and one of us who had given up drinking when he found it causing impotence said that in his experience, a rum cooler was a cum ruler—we had lost all decency and decorum, in other words.   The laughter became ribald and rowdy enough to wake up Nagenneen, who added his memorable cackle to the merriment.   He also said something involving “baked noodles and naked poodles,” but he was laughing so hard we didn’t catch the set-up.  
    Well, from inversions it was a natural segué (exactly how much does a seg weigh?) to palindromes, words or sentences that are the same spelled backwards.   Mention of baked noodles reminded Doc Webster of one of his favorites: “Go hang a salami; I’m a lasagna hog.”  
    Thus challenged, Long-Drink produced the inspired, “Wonder if Sununu’s fired now?”  
    When the applause died away, Isham grinned and declaimed, “Lewd did I live; evil did I dwell.”  
    “I hear that ,”   Tanya responded, and poked him accurately in the ribs to more laughter and applause.  
    I felt inspired myself, and announced, “You know, a guy named Robert tried to get Solace to help him set up a bogus company, that would make nonexistent hot-dog rolls and fleece all the investors.”   A hush fell over the room.   “If the story ever gets out, the headline is going to be: mac snubs bob’s bun scam.”
    A blizzard of peanuts occurred in my vicinity.
    Suddenly Nikky made a dramatic gesture with his magic hands, confronted Solace directly, and bellowed, “I, madam, I made radio!   So I dared!   Am I mad?   Am I?”
    It wasn’t until she said, “Brilliant, Nikky—you’re the only man who ever lived who could have spoken that one,” that we all realized he had just made a palindrome.
    When the ovation had died away, Doc Webster cleared his throat and tried for the last word.   “Well, that was five,” he rumbled.   “And…a six is a six is a six is a six is a…”   He kept it up just long enough for everyone to realize it was another palindrome.
    Ralph Von Wau Wau awarded that one “Top spot.”  
    Which caused Tommy Janssen to say, “Go, dog!”
    Doc Webster glared ferociously at both of them, and they looked at each other, grinned, and said “Sue us!” together.   The Doc lost it and got the giggles, and from there I suppose things might well have escalated into a full-scale riot, but just then there was an earsplitting sound and an intolerable brilliance behind me, and when I spun around and got my eyes working again a large lady and a skinny giant were lying