OTHELLO
MOOR OR LESS

Suddenly, one of the sisters turned to Iago and shouted: "Hail Iago, Thane of Glamis", followed quickly by the second sister's "Hail, Thane of Corridor" and concluded by the third sister who muttered almost inaudibly: "Hail Iago, he will be President some day!" Iago and Roderigo looked at each other, both surprised to find that it was hailing, but , considering that they had both independently concluded that these women were off the wall, their glances conveyed an unspoken agreement to leave this madhouse forthwith. But they were both starving and the aroma of the Irish Stew glued them to their chairs.

Although this would create a problem when they got up to leave, they asked if they could have some of the stew. The first sister informed them that it was not ready and that if they would be patient, it would be ready in time. Iago looked at his watch and then at his companion and observed:

"If it is done, when it is done, then it would be well if it is done quickly."

This didn't make much sense to Roderigo and he decided to leave. But as he struggled to unglue himself from the chair, he turned to Iago and asked:

"What's a thane?"

"Be damned if I know," returned he, "but whatever it is, I am a Glamis of it."

"You mean that you were! Now you are one of those things of the Corridor."

Iago thought a minute or two and with a stroke of logic which would not visit him again in this narrative, he declared:

"If Othello calls himself 'O-tell-o,' and not 'O-thell-o', wouldn't I be a 'Tane' instead of a 'Thane'?" Roderigo conceded that this made some sense, but, perceiving the possible onset of one of Iago's endless discourses on absolutely nothing, he sagaciously elected to change the subject to something else---anything else.

One thing was certain: neither of them knew what they were talking about. As Iago strove to stand up, he heard his trousers ripping, but ignoring that situation for the time being, he addressed his companion:

"President? She said that I would be President. I would like that. President Iago. That sounds pretty good to me and it would be easy to put on a ballot. But what about President Othello? His term is nowhere near expiring and how could I be President so long as Othello is around? Hmmm. Methinks I had better think on't"2

"Hey! What about me?" yelled Roderigo to the three sisters. "What am I? Chopped liver?"

The sisters looked at one another and it was plain that they were beginning to be concerned that they had gotten inextricably entangled with these two oddballs. Nevertheless, an answer was clearly required.

"You," exclaimed the first sister, "You will never be the President (Thank God), but you will beget Presidents."

"Did she say 'beget' or 'forget'?" queried Roderigo.

"I'm not sure, but I think that she said that you can forget being President," said Iago as his thoughts began to drift toward eliminating Roderigo as a rival and removing Othello as a stumbling block.

As they were talking, Othello and his entourage walked in. Othello sniffed the air and, turning to one of his attendants, asked: "Is that Irish Stew that I smell?"

"Yes, m'Lord, 'tis"3 responded the attendant.

"I cannot abide that smell", said Othello, "let's get out of here and eat and lodge elsewhere."

"How about at my place?" suggested Iago. "My mistress wouldn't mind."

"Perhaps not," replied Othello, "but what about your wife?"

"They are one and the same. My mistress is my wife and my wife is my mistress."

"An odd arrangement that, at best" mused Othello, "but that is no affair---oops!---no business of mine. Nevertheless, it would be intriguing to see the system in operation. I wonder how he knows one from the other when they are...well, never mind."

Without further delay, Iago and Roderigo mounted their horses and made for Iago's castle, followed hard on by Othello and his train. Just why he used a horse if he had a train has never been made clear. Iago's horse, however, developed a flat and he (Iago, not the horse) and Roderigo were delayed a couple of hours, enabling the President and his retinue to arrive before Iago, much to the surprise of Mrs. Iago. Once the ride was resumed, Iago hatched a plan for murdering Othello so that he, Iago, would become President. When he arrived at his castle, he found a fuming and enraged Mrs. Iago who was not expecting company that evening and an embarrassed Othello. Once inside the castle, Iago grabbed his wife by the hand and, apologizing to the Presidential party for being late, dragged her off to the bedroom.

"What took you so long?" demanded Mrs. Iago.

"Never mind that now. I'm going to rub out the President tonight !" whispered Iago.

"Splendid idea" exclaimed Mrs. Iago. "Tell me just how you're going to do it with all of the Secret Service men around him, two of whom will be sleeping in the same bedroom as Othello because we don't have enough beds for the whole crowd. If you had called me and let me know that they were coming, you oaf, I could have rented some cots."

"I can't be bothered about that right now; I've got to come up with an idea quickly while the opportunity is still here. By the way, do you have any good, sharp kitchen knives?"

"You're not going to use my good knives," she said.

" Wait a minute," said she. "I'm getting an idea. I'll make it simple for you. I've noticed that those Secret Service guys who dog Othello's footsteps can't resist hitting the bottle now and then and I suspect that they would gratefully accept a modest drink before bed time. But those drinks will have a potent kick because I will put drugs in them which will flatten those bozos until at least early afternoon. Then, to make sure that they don't remember about the drinks when they wake up and spill their guts and point suspicion to you, you'll slit their throats and tell everybody that when you discovered the body of Othello in the morning and saw the drunken bodyguards with blood all over them, you lost your cool and in your rage, you avenged Othello's murder. Got it?"

"You are clever, wife. Let's do it."

A half an hour later, Iago again cornered his wife and said:

"Othello is under my roof as my guest and he is also my kinsman, whatever that is. I should be the first one to protect him, not to murder him myself. Besides, Othello has conducted himself so meekly and agreeably to the people that his murder would inflame them and set the whole populace against me. I wouldn't like that at all. I'm out of here."

"Coward!" spat Mrs. Iago. "You're no man; you're a wimp. I'll do it myself."

"No! No! I'll do it. If I don't, I'll never hear the end of it. It will be nag, nag, nag, to the end of my days."

Iago snatched the good roast beef knife from the knife rack and stalked out of the room. An hour later,

he returned to the kitchen where Mrs. Iago waited and he announced that the deed was done, and the two Secret Service men had been "offed", but Iago still held the bloody knife in his blood-soaked hand.

"Idiot!" screamed Mrs. Iago. "Why did you bring the knife back with you? You were supposed to leave it next to the two guards so that it would look like they did it. You are a sad excuse for a murderer." "Oh, sorry", said Iago, surrendering the bloody instrument to his gentle wife, "I can't be expected to keep every little detail of these things in my mind." She stalked out of the kitchen muttering below her breath about nurds and wimps and repeating to herself, "His mind? He left his mind behind." She slunk away in the darkness and

returned 15 minutes later, reporting that she had left the knife next to the two Secret Service men and had rubbed blood on their faces.

The next morning, the bodies were "discovered" by Iago who announced that when he found Othello's body and saw the sleeping blood-spattered guards, he had become so incensed at the murder that he, in blind fury, had killed the two guards. At that moment, the family dog walked in, but only Mrs. Iago noticed that it had blood on its paws. She wanted, above all, to arouse no curiosity by the appearance of anything extraordinary. Turning to the dog, she said, in a low but stern voice, "Out! Out, damned Spot."

With the body count beginning to mount, you may be sure that Othello's two sons and just about everybody else got pretty upset and concerned for their own lives as heirs apparent. Iago was on a roll and to make sure that nothing stood in the path of his ascendancy to the White Palace, he hired three killers to murder Roderigo and his son, Brabantio. In the meanwhile, the members of the Cabinet scattered in a mad rush to neighboring countries, fearing for their lives. Only Roderigo suspected the truth. For lack of any other qualified successor, Iago became President, fulfilling the prophecy of the three old hags who ran the restaurant.

Overseas, however, vengeful forces were being raised for the purpose of overthrowing Iago. Iago did not approve of this development, being a peace-loving man. Unknown to Iago at this time, however, was the fact that the three murderers that he had hired to kill Roderigo and Brabantio fell upon the two and they succeeded in slaying Roderigo, but Brabantio escaped. This would not be welcome news to Iago. Furthermore, as the President was seated at a banquet table, the ghost of Roderigo appeared to him giving him a rather uncomfortable sensation and ruining his appetite. In the meanwhile, more and more evidence was pointing to Iago as the culprit.

Do you remember the three old hags who had been running the restaurant and whose prophecies to Iago and Roderigo had, to everyone's misfortune, come true? Well, they showed up again and were confronted by Iago who demanded new prophecies from them. Suddenly, there was a peal of thunder4 and an apparition (an armed head) appeared:

"Iago! Iago! Iago! Beware of Cassio, beware the Thane of Fife!" The Thane again! Iago determined to find out what a Thane was and whether that was good or bad for him. A second peal of thunder disclosed an apparition of a bloody child:

"Iago! Iago! Iago! Fear not. None born of woman shall harm thee!" The third roll of thunder was accompanied by the apparition of a crowned child holding a tree:

"Iago shall never be defeated until Burn 'em Wood comes to Dunsinane."

Well! Since it was obviously impossible for a forest to move from one location to another and because Iago need fear no human being who had ever been born, he felt pretty secure. In the meanwhile, however, Othello's son Gratiano and Cassio were raising an army to go against him. When Iago learned that Cassio had fled the country and was preparing to return with an army, he became furious. He considered this to be unsportsmanlike conduct which required the imposition of a penalty. In typical villainous fashion, Iago led his army against Cassio's castle and, breaching the virtually undefended walls, the bloodthirsty Iago destroyed the castle and slaughtered Cassio's wife and children. As you can imagine, when this news reached Cassio, he was rather put out, real estate prices being what they were, and, together with Gratiano, decided that it was time to deploy his forces against Iago, planning to assemble for the attack at the forest called Burn 'em Wood.

Gratiano and Cassio devised a clever scheme to conceal from Iago, then ensconced in his fortified castle, called Dunsinane, the size of their army. Cassio ordered every soldier in Burn 'em Wood to cut branches from the trees and, as they advanced against the castle, to hold the branches in front of them so that Iago could not determine their strength. They must have felt rather silly, not to speak of the effect on the environment and the probable angry reaction of Cassio's own Department of the Environment. When a messenger reported to Iago that he had seen the forest moving to Dunsinane, Iago recalled the prophecy and was consumed with rage over the deception of the apparitions. Naturally, Iago promptly slew the messenger which was quite in harmony with the practices of the day and besides, it made him feel much better about things, although it didn't do much for the messenger.

"Well, they made a fool of me this time, but I don't have to worry. No person born of woman can harm me. So, what's to worry? But, Damn! I'd like to get my hands on that apparition!"

The combined allied forces assaulted Dunsinane and, after furious fighting, the castle fell to Cassio and Gratiano. As one might expect, Cassio eventually encountered Iago, but just prior to this confrontation, Iago learned that Mrs. Iago was dead. Now the stage was set for a real quarrel with the antagonists each motivated by the desire for revenge against the other. Iago, of course, regretted the loss of his wife, but, at the moment, his hands were full with Cassio. The incensed Cassio was, indeed, a force to be reckonded with. But Iago had a trump in his hand which he felt would now be most effectively played.

As the two squared off to fight, Iago smugly taunted Cassio that Cassio was wasting his energy in trying to kill him because he, Iago, bore a charmed life. Specifically, he told Cassio, he could not be harmed by any person who had been born of woman and since that presumably included all human beings, he was invulnerable to Cassio's attack.

"Don't be so sure, buddy boy, because your day has come!" exclaimed Cassio.

"I know that you have had consultations with those old hags who run the Restaurant de Witches, but, as you have already learned, it is best not to put your faith in them. After all, when you look at their pronouncements, they really did not lie to you; what they told you was the literal truth. You simply drew the wrong conclusions from what they said. It also just happens that they were in my employ as my
Cassio Intelligence Agency spies. You see, old chum, I was untimely snatched from my mother's womb which, of course, means that I was not born."

Now one might well take philosophic exception to this assertion and it might be vulnerable to medical challenge, but for the purposes of our story, it was convincing enough to scare the hell out of Iago. His first inclination was to curse the apparitions which had deceived him by their cryptic warnings, but he really was too busy at that moment to pursue the matter of who was to blame for the predicament in which he now found himself.

After inviting Cassio to "lay on", the two engaged in furious combat with each fully cognizant that this would be the end for one or the other of them. The fighting carried the two combatants out of the room and although one could hear the sound and fury, it signified nothing. But be that as it may, the din soon abated and eventually ceased altogether. Cassio returned to the room triumphantly carrying the severed head (ugh!) of the dead Iago which was, of course, how it had to be. In those days, a victor took great care to assure that the vanquished would remain permanently vanquished and Cassio had chosen a foolproof way to achieve that result.

Our story ends with the proclamation of Gratiano as President and everyone---at least all of the survivors---was invited to the inaugural ball.

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