It’s not my fault. I’m leading a quiet existence. I got my castle in the clouds. I got my bags of gold. My talking harp. And the hen that lays the golden eggs. Every now and then I grinds up an Englishman’s bones to make my daily bread. So what’s one less Englishman? Is it my fault their bones make such delicious bread?
And this Jack. I never heard of a guy who lucks out like he does. His mother — a sweetheart of a woman, by all accounts — trusts Jack to sell their cow to get money to start a business — and the idiot exchanges it for a handful of beans. It’s just his dumb luck and my bad luck them’s magic beans and they grow a stalk clear up to the clouds. Where I live.
I’m out doing some charity work and the missus is home making supper when Jack knocks on the door and begs the missus to let him in. He’s exhausted from his climb up the beanstalk. He hasn’t had any breakfast. Could she spare a glass of water and a crust of bread? The missus knows full well my views on talking to strangers. If I’ve told her once, I’ve told her a thousand times: “Don’t talk to strangers!” But she feels sorry for him all the same — I think it’s because they’re both the same size— and makes him a meal of wheat cakes and honey and milk and a dish of strawberries. And then I come home. And she hides him in the cellar. Well, right away I suspect someone is there. I could smell fresh meat. I go into my “Fee-fi-fo-fum! I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he live, or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.”
I had recently bought a new grinder and was dying to try it out. Oh, if only I had searched the castle then. What misfortune I could have avoided. But the missus says what I smells is the goat she’s got cooking and puts a couple of platters in front of me and I’m famished and I eats and falls asleep at the table. And the missus tells Jack to get lost, but not before he tucks a couple of bags of my gold coins under his shirt.
When next I count my bags of gold, I’m two bags short. But the missus says I must’ve thought I had more than I did. So maybe she was right. So I let it go.
It’s a month later and I’m at a meeting with the community improvement committee when this Jack shows up again. He’s picked up some flowers along the way for the missus and again he gives her the big hard-luck story of how he’s tired and hungry, so she makes him a four-egg omelette with a bottle of wine and they’re having a merry old time of it and forget the hour and I come home. She hides him in the cellar.
As soon as I come in. As soon as. I smell fresh meat, and I give it the old “Fee-fi-fo-fum.” And I ask the missus, “Who’s been here?” but she says it’s only the lamb stew she’s cooking with all the spices and feeds me a huge bowl of the stew and I falls asleep and she lets Jack out. Only this time, not content with stealing my two bags of gold, he runs off with my hen that lays the golden eggs.
In the morning I go to collect the golden eggs and sure enough the hen isn’t there. I confront the missus but she says I must have forgot to lock the door of the shed where I keeps the hen and it flew away and maybe it is so.
Another month passes and I’m playing my ukulele at the Giant Old Folks’ Home to entertain the elderly Giants who are past their prime. And this Jack shows up at my castle yet again. He doesn’t go into his song and dance this time about how exhausted he is. But the missus lets him in and makes him a rabbit rarebit with a few glasses of schnapps on the side and they forget the hour and I come home. And she hides him in the cellar.
And I rant and rave this time. The smell is so strong. “I smell fresh meat! I tell you!” I shout at the missus. “Fee-fi-fo-fum,” I start off, but the missus interrupts me and says, “Yes, yes, don’t be silly, Horatio, it’s only the calf I slaughtered as a special treat for you,” and she serves me a huge platter of calf with flagons of beer and I falls asleep at the table.
And the missus runs to let Jack out of the cellar. And this time he’s stealing my golden harp!
But no sooner does Jack leave the castle, the harp starts playing, “Master! Master! Save me! Save me! I’ve been kidnapped! Save me!”
And I hear the harp and I grabs my axe and starts running after Jack.
Jack’s got a good head start on me but I’m faster. I’m getting close to the miserable bum. I see him tearing towards the beanstalk and he reaches it and starts down. And the harp is crying, “Master! Save me!”
And I gets to the beanstalk and hurls myself on it, climbing down as fast as I can. And I looks below and I see Jack has reached the bottom and he’s flailing away at the beanstalk with a hatchet trying to chop it down. With me in it. I try to go faster but I’m carrying the axe and it doesn’t help. I almost makes it, but then the beanstalk quivers and sways and there’s this terrible crashing sound as the beanstalk splits at the bottom and I go tumbling down and land on my head. And the beanstalk lands on me.
It knocks me unconscious and what’s more, my whole body is twisted this way and that with the way I landed and the beanstalk falling on me. And with the beanstalk gone, there’s no way I can get back up into the clouds — and even if I could, would I want to? All twisted out of shape as I am — I would have all the other giants laughing at me.
Once I had a castle, and bags of gold coins, and a hen that laid golden eggs, and a golden harp that talked. Now you find me with a travelling circus as the “Pretzel Strongman.” Now you tell me, who’s the victim here?
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