Oh alright.
Promote anything you want in the comments below all day Saturday…
…and you don’t have to swear fealty to the Mighty Potentate at all.
Just don’t tell him I said that. I don’t want to be vaporized.
(Those who do hail the Mighty Potentate will get a promotional tweet as well though.)
ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY POTENTATE!
Gee whiz, asking your 3.5 readers to pledge allegiance to an alien overlord goes over like a lead balloon around here.
Attention Pitiful Humans,
Know ye, Earth creatures, that I, the Mighty Potentate, declare the following:
BUT – THE CATCH…
At the end of your comment, you must swear fealty to the Mighty Potentate.
A simple, “ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY POTENTATE!” shall suffice, but feel free to get creative.
ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY POTENTATE!
For those 3.5 readers just tuning in, the Mighty Potentate is the Supreme and Unquestionable Ruler of A Planet the Name of Which is None of Your Beeswax.
He of Great Potentostitude is the boss of Alien Jones, author of “Ask the Alien.” The MP has declared Bookshelf Q. Battler to be the chosen one, the individual whose exceptional fiction writing skills will surely prevent reality television from sweeping across the universe.
Boy howdy, does the Mighty Potentate hate Reality TV. Don’t even get him started.
Thus, the MP has assigned AJ to aid BQB in the promotion of his blog. Alien Jones cannot rest until Bookshelf Q. Battler is a famous writer.
So go forth, promote your stuff in the comments below, and remember, you have to say, “All Hail the Mighty Potentate” or some reasonable facsimile thereof.
Remember, a column that plugs you as an author and your books and blogs is possible if you ask Alien Jones a question.
Image courtesy of openclipart.org
PREVIOUSLY ON POP CULTURE MYSTERIES…
AND NOW THE POP CULTURE MYSTERIES CONTINUE…
“Daddy!”
Hettie threw herself at her father, his brittle bones barely able to resist the collision, but the smile on his face showed he didn’t mind at all.
“Are you mad?”
“What? Oh, no no, Hettie May, you know better than that.”
“Hello Jeb,” Pa said to the new arrival.
“Gus. I suppose you’ve tried to talk these youngsters out of this expedition already?”
“To no avail.”
“Let me give it a go, then,” Jeb said to Pa and then to Hettie, “I’m gonna’ borrow your beau for a minute, darlin’.'”
The Good Reverend Jebediah Blodgett. Many a Sunday Hettie dragged me to listen to his sermons and to his credit, he was the liveliest speaker I’d ever seen, able to make you feel good about yourself and yet fearful of eternal hellfire and damnation all at the same time.
That’s a gift.
He didn’t much care for me. I didn’t take it personally. Like most fathers, he was convinced there wasn’t a man alive that was good enough for his daughter.
In retrospect, he wasn’t wrong.
Jeb and I walked a few feet down the platform. He grabbed me by both my shoulders. For a doddering codger, he had a good grip.
“Son, I’m going to guess this was your damn fool idea, takin’ an old man’s only daughter into the belly of the beast without so much as a how do you do?”
I looked down at my shoes, afraid to look Jeb in the eye. “Yes.”
He let me go.
“I see,” he said. I could tell he was going somewhere with this.
“So then, when I’m all alone on my deathbed, I can thank you for stealing away my last living relative, the only one I’ve got to take care of me?”
“Jeeze,” I said. “When you put it like that…”
“How else am I supposed to put it?”
I looked up with renewed vigor. I had an angle to play.
“Your daughter sings like a songbird from heaven,” I said.
“I know,” Jeb said. “And I know she won’t be happy here neither.”
I felt the sting of a boney finger poking into my chest.
“But YOU’RE the one who decided to drag her off to Los Angeles behind my back. She’d never try such a dumbfounded notion on her own. Boy, do you know that city is nothin’ but a steaming cauldron of sex, drugs, prostitution and a bunch of felonious perverts who wouldn’t know what to do with a bible if you threw one at their damn heads?”
“I’ve heard rumors, yes.”
“You gotta’ protect her now, Jake.”
“I will.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
Suddenly, there was a slight, playful slap on my cheek.
“That’s a good boy,” Jeb said. “And you know, it ‘aint easy to tell you this but…”
“It’s ok,” I said. “I know we’ve got your blessing, Reverend Blodgett.”
Jeb’s face scrunched up like he’d just sucked on a lemon.
“BLESSING? You think I drove my ass all the way to the train station to give you my blessing to live in sin with my baby girl?”
Boy, was I in for it.
“Son, what I’m tryin’ to tell you is this. If I EVER catch wind that so much as a hair gets misplaced on my baby’s head so help me, Jake Hatcher, the last thing I will do on God’s green Earth is drive all the way out to LA and turn your face into a pile of raw hamburger with my shotgun.”
He probably didn’t mean it.
“Oh, I mean it, boy,” Jeb said. “I’m old. I’ve lived my life. I’ve done every single last thing I ever wanted to do in this world. And if I’ve got to spend the last year or two I’ve got left wasting in away in a jail cell to avenge my baby’s honor then so help me, I’ll do it!”
I swallowed a gulp hard.
“Duly noted.”
“All right, then.”
Jeb quickly returned to the sweet old man routine. He walked back to his truck and returned with a black, leather bound book and a cardboard box.
“Hettie, look at you,” Jeb said. “Lookin’ more and more like your mama every day, God rest her soul. I figure this train ride will be so long that you’ll get hungry so I brought you a peach pie. I made it the other day with her recipe, but my stomach’s been doing so many backflips I don’t have the gumption to eat it.”
I got a death threat. Hettie got a pie. Hardly seemed fair.
The waterworks started, and how.
“Oh Daddy.”
“Now I know it won’t taste half as good as your mama’s but I hope you’ll make one for yourself when you get where you’re goin’ and think about how mama’s smilin’ down on you from Heaven when you do.”
Jeb handed me the book.
“And Jake, this is for you, some reading to keep you busy.”
On the cover? “Holy Bible. If lost, return to Ophelia Blodgett.”
“Make sure you see Hettie gets that when you’re done. It was her mama’s.”
“I will.”
“And make sure you pay close attention to the pages I marked, especially the ones that spell out how fornicating before marriage will earn you a spot at the devil’s side and so on…”
“Daddy!” Hettie said.
The piercing sound of a train whistle interrupted our goodbyes. The cross-country express arrived, passengers started boarding, and a portly, bespectacled conductor hopped out to make an announcement.
“Now boarding the six a.m…
“At 7:30,” I thought.
“…train, westward bound with stops to include New York City, Cleveland, Chicago, Omaha, Salt Lake City, and Los Angeles, end of the line! ALL ABOARD!”
Copyright Bookshelf Q. Battler. All Rights Reserved.
Image courtesy of a shutterstock.com license.
PREVIOUSLY ON POP CULTURE MYSTERIES…
AND NOW THE POP CULTURE MYSTERIES CONTINUE…
June 15th, 1938
Bayonne, New Jersey
Two crazy kids sat on a bench, holding hands and waiting for a train that would whisk them away to a city they’d dreamed about all their young lives.
Fame. It was an obsession that began brewing in their hearts ten years earlier, when they would swipe their parents’ pocket change and spend all day long at the movie house taking in the likes of Greta Garbo, Eddie Cantor, and the Marx Brothers, just to name a few.
The girl could sing. The flock at her father’s church who gave her a standing ovation every Sunday was proof positive of that.
The boy thought he could act. Overly polite townsfolk who gave him a pat on the back after his school plays just because they didn’t want to be rude filled him with a whole lot of undeserved hope.
After years of sitting out under the stars, talking about the lives they’d have one day as a Hollywood power couple – the houses they’d buy, the fancy cars they’d drive, the high class folk they’d hob knob with, they decided to make a go of it as soon as they came of age.
Needless to say, they did so against the advice of all of the adults in their lives.
The girl was Henrietta “Hettie” May Blodgett, though if any of you 3.5 readers happen to be a Jazz fan, you definitely know her by a different name.
The boy was yours truly, Jacob R. Hatcher. You know me as a private dick for a blog with 3.5 readers.
Hard not to point out that Hettie walked away with the long end of the stick in this plan, but that’s a story for another time.
Perhaps “boy” and “girl” are the wrong words to use. We were both eighteen. Legally, I was a man though looking back on it now, I don’t believe I came anywhere close to understanding what that meant back then.
We were in our Sunday best, me in a moth eaten hand me down suit from my father, Hettie in the same black and white polka dotted dress that she wore to church. Back then, people used to dress up all the time. It’s not like today where people walk around all day long in their pajamas and nobody cares. Whether you were going to the movies, the drug store, or clear across the country, people gussied up.
“It’s late,” Hettie said.
“Sure is,” I said as I checked my pocket watch. “Should of been here over an hour ago. That whole ‘We’re Always On Time’ slogan they’ve got is a bunch of malarkey if you ask me.”
“We should have said goodbye,” Hettie said.
“They’d of just tried to stop us.”
“Can you blame them?”
“I wouldn’t blame your pops, doll,” I said. “You’re surely something worth hanging onto. Me? I’m doing the old folks a favor.”
“I need to write Daddy a nice long letter as soon as we get there,” Hettie said.
“I left my folks a note,” I said. “They’ll clue old Jed in.”
“Yeah,” Hettie said. “‘Gone to LA.’ You’re a real poet, Jake.”
“Short. Sweet. To the point. It works,” I said. “Hell, had I known our train was going to take a detour to Waikiki, I’d of nixed it. If it doesn’t get here soon they’re liable to…”
Speak of the devil. My old man pulled up in his studebaker. Pa, Ma, and my little brother Roscoe, 5 years my junior. It was a veritable Hatcher family reunion before there was even a parting of the ways.
Pa was in his oil soaked overalls, stains fresh from the filling station he owned. He was a serious man with a weary face, one that looked like it’d seen too much and was ready for a rest.
Ma was a bit of a hefty gal, though she had a sweet face and old family photos indicated to me she once was a real head turner until Roscoe and I folded up her insides worse than an origami swan.
Roscoe, that little twerp, he was my spitting image. One look at him and I saw my former thirteen year old self staring back at me.
Thirteen. Such a lousy age. You want to be grownup before the world will let you, but your mind still gravitates sometimes to childish things like toys and comics and all sorts of stuff that adults will remind you you’re too big for. Utter confusion all around.
“Hettie,” Pa said.
“Mr. Hatcher.”
“Son,” my father said as he put his arm around me and walked me back to the car. “Let’s have a word.”
“Nothin’ doin!” I protested loudly. What a jerk I was. “I’m a man, see? And a man’s gotta’ make his own decisions and this one is mine!”
“I know,” Pa said. “We’re not here to talk you out of it. We’re just here to say goodbye.”
“A family that monologues together stays together.”
That was an expression my father used to say. I wish it was true. I wish we had stayed together. But if there’s one thing I inherited from the Hatcher clan, it’s my penchant for speaking in long, drawn out monologues rife with overly exaggerated similes, metaphors, and other assorted comparisons.
Don’t even get me started on the cliches.
“Son,” Pa said. “They say that the grass is greener on the other side but I’ll tell you I saw a lot of this world in the Great War and no matter where I went, it was just as green as ever. I’ve seen brown grass and less green grass but I’ve never seen grass more beautiful than what’s growing on the ground right here in Bayonne.”
I checked my watch. This was going to be a long one.
“You love the moving pictures,” Pa continued. “Of course you do. I love them too. They’re a good distraction from the real world but that’s all they are. A distraction. There’s nothing real to them and the people who want to be in them? Why, there’s nothing real to them either. Each and every wannabe actor out there will step over you and gut their own mother if it would bring them closer to earning a part in one of those pictures and that, my boy, is what you’re going to be competing with.”
“I can hold my own.”
“I’m sure you can,” Pa said. “But for the life of me I don’t understand why you’d want to try. Jake, I’m no fortune teller. I don’t have a crystal ball. I know I’m your father and I don’t wish you any ill will. When that train comes, if you step on it, I hope it will be the start of a course of events that ends with you starring in the best Hollywood picture there ever was. You know your mother and I will be there on opening day with our ticket stubs in hand to cheer you on.”
Mother of God. Is that what I sound like? You can thank Pa Hatcher for that, 3.5 readers.
“But son, I’m a man of reason. I’m a careful, calculating man. I don’t like to play the odds. ‘Slow and steady wins the race,’ I always say. And I wouldn’t be much of a father if I didn’t point out to you that the odds aren’t in your favor here. Yes, I hope the name, ‘Jacob Roscoe Hatcher’ goes down in history as the greatest actor there ever was, but I fear the odds are more likely that the Sodom and Gomorrah of the West Coast better known as ‘Los Angeles’ will chew you up, spit you out, and leave you a bitter, angry, shell of your former self.”
What’s that phrase people say now? “Spoiler Alert?”
“I can’t talk you out of this,” Pa said. “I know that. If I try to get in the way of your dream, you’ll despise me the rest of your life and always sit around and sulk, wondering what could have been. Kids are like baby birds and sooner or later they have to be allowed to fly out of the nest and if they fly too soon and land on their head, well, there’s nothing Ma and Pa bird can do but be there to pick the little guy up and dust off his feathers. And that’s all I want you to take away from this, son. If this LA foolishness of yours doesn’t work out, you’re always welcome to come straight back home to your mother and I and you’ll never once hear us utter so much as an ‘I told you so.’ We’re your family, no matter what.”
Would that I could hop in a time machine and tell my past self to hug that man. Instead, I just gave him a paltry handshake.
It was Ma’s turn.
Unlike Pa, Ma didn’t let me go without a hug. She squeezed the ever loving giblets out of me.
And of course, there was another monologue. I wonder if all hardboiled private detectives have a family like mine? Maybe that’s why we all sound the same.
“Son, to tell you life in the big city isn’t easy would be the understatement of the century,” Ma said. “Now, I know there are a lot of folks out there who are ignorant. Pa and I love Hettie. We think she’s a real sweetheart. And lord knows we know that life is so short that if you meet someone you love who loves you back then it makes less sense than a three-legged dog on a ferris wheel to not be together just because you’re two different shades of people that God put on this Earth to share and share alike with one another in the first place.”
Ma spit into a handkerchief and wiped a smudge off my face. I hated when she did that.
She made a motion for Hettie to come over and join us.
“Now, I know Bayonne isn’t some kind of den of forward thinkers, but here, you’ve got your family and friends. There are at least some people who accept you two being together. True, there’s plenty of not-so-nice folk here that will try to keep you apart but at least you’ve got people here that will stick up for you. Once you get on that train, it will be you two against the world with no one to rely on but each other. You need to promise me that you’re going to look out for each other, or else I’ll sleep less than an insomniac squirrel with a coffee addiction.”
I’m just going to confess, right here and right now. Most of the time, we Hatchers just pull these oddball comparisons out of our backsides.
Hettie and I promised and it all degenerated into a three-way hug/blubber fast. Not me. Of course not me. Just the women folk.
It was little Roscoe’s turn for a speech.
“Brother,” he said. “I want you to know that what you’re doing here stinks worse than a rotten egg in a skunk farm.”
Ma was none too pleased.
“Roscoe!”
“No, Ma,” Roscoe said. “Jake, you and I are brothers and last time I checked, that’s supposed to mean something. We’re meant to be the bridge that will carry this family into the the future, only now you’re being selfish and leaving me behind. So now I don’t even have a future.”
Hate to admit, but I hadn’t even considered how Roscoe would fare without me. I should have.
“You’ve got dreams?” Roscoe asked. “Bully for you. Run off to the land of sun and beauty while you leave me to take care of Ma and Pa all by my lonesome. They aren’t getting any younger you know. While you’re out west being a pathetic phony, I’ll be stuck back here filling cars with more gas than a flatulent door to door salesmen and rubbing a pair of old geezers’ bunions until I’m old and gray myself.”
“Roscoe,” I said. “It’s not going to be all that bad. As soon as I hit the big time, I’ll send for you and you and Ma and Pa can all live in my mansion. Why, I’m gonna’ buy the biggest spread around and…”
“Ahh, stuff your dreams in a sack, toss ’em in the river and see if they float,” Roscoe said. “Either way, you’re all wet.”
I attempted to shake Roscoe’s hand but he pulled his away, stormed back to the car and slammed the door.
“Roscoe Jacob you get back here right now and apologize to your brother!” Ma commanded.
“Nothin’ doin’!”
“Roscoe, you don’t want your last words to be unkind…”
“It’s ok, Ma,” I said. “He’s stubborn. Probably gets it from me.”
To clarify, I should explain to you 3.5 readers that Ma’s father was Roscoe, and Pa’s father was Jacob. Both grandfathers were so revered by my parents that they named both their boys after them. Twice. I’m Jacob Roscoe. My brother’s Roscoe Jacob.
Maybe we Hatchers skimp on creativity when it comes to baby names because we’re saving our imaginations for our monologues instead.
“Mrs. Hatcher,” Hettie said to my mother. “Can you tell my father where I am? I don’t want him to worry.”
With perfect timing, a rickety, rust bucket of a pick-up truck pulled up and an old-timer wearing a pair of suspenders stepped out.
“I already did, dear.”
Copyright (c) Bookshelf Q. Battler 2015. All Rights Reserved.
Image courtesy of a shutterstock.com license.
Pitiful Humans!
The Mighty Potentate, always so happy.
The Mighty Potentate here, commanding you to address your inquiries to my emissary, Alien Jones!
“What’s in it for me?”
Ah yes! The first thing any human asks! Right after, “Can I take a selfie?”
Ask the Alien a question, and if he likes it, he’ll plug your books and blogs in his answer on this most irreverent of sites, bookshelfbattle.com
BQB will tweet it with his @bookshelfbattle handle and on his Google Plus page.
18 authors assisted so far.
Will you be next?
Do not allow the vile forces of reality television to win! Help Bookshelf Q. Battler push his and your fiction to keep all of our collective televisions free of absurdly produced, low quality unscripted programming such as:
1. Tuba Wars – Have you got what it takes to be the best tuba player in the world?
2. Falafel Truck Nightmares – A leading falafel vendor helps others bring their falafel businesses up to speed.
3. Narwhal Makeover – The ugliest half-whale/half-unicorns (they really exist!) consult with beauty experts.
4. Who Wants to Be a Chicken Wrangler? – Self explanatory.
5. Cooking with Preppers – Have you ever wondered if it’s possible to make a stew out of a boot? Find out.
Don’t be shy, lowly humans. Ask the Alien a question today and Bookshelf Q. Battler’s 3.5 readers can be yours!
Image courtesy of openclipart.org
The authors of zombie books or “zombie authors” are starting to express interest.
As you recall, this October, Bookshelf Battle will briefly become “Spookyshelf Battle” and if all goes to plan, 31 authors of zombie books will provide me with daily advice on how to escape the zombie apocalypse that will descend upon East Randomtown due to a Dr. Hugo Von Science experiment gone awry.
What questions do you have for our esteemed zombie author guests, oh wise 3.5 readers?
BEHOLD! THE FACE OF THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE:
Guten Tag, Herr 3.5 Readers!
Calling all zombie authors! (Humans who’ve written a book about zombies even better!) Bookshelf Q. Battler needs your help this October to survive the Zombie Apocalypse!
Answer his questions about zombie survival, entertain his 3.5 readers, and plug your books and blogs!
Happy Thursday, 3.5 Readers.
Egads! A zombie outbreak in East Random Town!
Is it too early to start talking about Halloween?
Not when you’re as big a fan of that holiday as I am.
And not when you’ve got a big idea in mind.
Today, my main squeeze Video Game Rack Fighter and I took a walk, did some shopping, and we stopped by a fortune teller who’d set up shop and was predicting futures at five bucks a pop.
VGRF talked me into it and, much to my shock, this mysterious gypsy lady with a kiosk next to the Orange Julius stand at the East Random Town Mall prognosticated the following:
That on October 1 of this year:
View original post 1,912 more words
Previously on Pop Culture Mysteries…
And now the Pop Culture Mysteries continue…
It was a full moon and like a werewolf, I was ready to howl.
Ms. Minaj’s Anaconda featured a bevy of bodacious booty, so much so that I couldn’t tell if it was a music video or a proctology doctor’s highlight reel.
“Do pick up your jaw, Mr. Hatcher,” Delilah scolded. “I dare say you run the risk of drooling into your ice water.”
Like an adorable blonde bunny rabbit, Delilah munched on a salad. It must be hard to be a dame like that, barely eating anything just to keep a trim figure.
I skipped lunch and asked for a glass of H20. I was hungrier than a bear after hibernation, but I had fifteen smackers in my pocket earned by solving three cases for Mr. Battler and my manly pride mandated that I not allow Ms. Donnelly to pick up the check this time.
I handed Ms. Donnelly’s phone back to her.
“I have no idea how to work these damn beep boop machines. Play it again, will you?”
Delilah scoffed, seized the phone, and tucked it into her designer handbag.
“You’ve already watched it seventeen times, Mr. Hatcher.”
“I’m nothing if not a thorough investigator, Ms. Donnelly,” I said. “There’s a clue hiding amidst all those hineys. I’m sure of it!”
“You’ll have to review it on your own time. I won’t allow my mobile device to be used for your perversions any longer.”
Delilah passed me a manilla envelope. I opened it. A letter from Mr. Battler.
Hatcher,
The Video Music Awards. They’re a yearly opportunity for ridiculously wealthy superstar musicians who get paid insane gobs of cash to sing songs and prance around in absurd outfits to pat each other on the back for their accomplishments made over the past year.
Naturally, pop culture junkies like myself gobble the spectacle up like rocky road ice cream.
But there’s trouble in paradise.
Pop-rapper Nicki Minaj, whose videos, what with their vivid colors, imaginative premises, and, well, yes, butts, butts, and more butts, was shunned. Forgotten. Cast aside.
Some might even say, “snubbed.”
Nicki was none too pleased and took to Twitter with her complaints, charging racism and body type-ism.
Not to be left out of the spotlight, songstresses Katy Perry and Taylor Swift stuck their schnozolas into the mix as well.
Review the tweets, conduct copious research and above all else, inform my 3.5 readers whether or not Nicki Minaj’s snub complaint is valid.
Sincerely,
Bookshelf Q. Battler
Blogger-in-Chief of the Bookshelf Battle Blog
I folded up the note and tucked it into my pocket.
“What on God’s green Earth is a Twitter?”
“It’s a social media website…”
Ms. Donnelly stopped, noticed the dumbfounded expression on my mug, and took an alternative tack.
“People like to talk a lot on their ‘beep boop machines’ as you call them. They share virtually every last mundane detail of their lives with one another.”
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“Very much so,” Delilah said as she pulled out her phone and snapped a photo of her lunch.
“I can’t believe that,” I said.
“Yes, just one of the things you’ll have to get used to I suppose.”
Delilah’s dainty fingers typed something on her phone. Under her breath, I heard her mutter, “Hashtag Worst Salad Ever.”
BQB EDITORIAL NOTE: Have you eaten a salad worse than Ms. Donnelly’s? Share it on #WorstSaladEver.
“People have gotten lame if you ask me,” I said.
“I did not.”
“Sharing a bunch of photos of nonsense,” I said. “I’ve never heard of anything more boring.”
“To each their own,” Delilah said.
“Hell, it used to be if a yahoo tried to show you his photo album, you’d run out of the room like your feet were on fire.”
“Times,” Delilah said with perfect diction. “They are a-changing.”
The waitress dropped off the bill. Delilah reached for it.
“Nothin’ doin,” I said as I forked over my three fivers.
“Oh honestly, Mr. Hatcher,” Delilah said. “I don’t mean to be a braggart but I make so much more money than you. You parting with the meager compensation provided to you by Mr. Battler is the last thing I want.”
Dames making more than men. You know what I’m going to say, 3.5 readers.
I’m not against the idea. I’m just not used to it.
“I won’t hear of it, Ms. Donnelly,” I said and then to the waitress, “Keep the change, dollface.”
“Hooray,” the waitress said as she twirled a finger around in the air as if she were throwing a sarcastic party. “A whole quarter.”
$14.75 for a lousy salad and a glass of wine. What a racket.
Ms. Donnelly dropped a fiver of her own on the table.
“I said I’ve got it.”
“It would be tres blaise to leave such a pathetic tip, Mr. Hatcher,” Delilah said as she stood up. “You may not care about your reputation but I have built a proper one that I must guard zealously.”
We walked outside the restaurant and stood there for a moment. I waited for Delilah to unlock the door to the ’55 Caddy but instead, she got on her beep boop machine and did some beep booping.
“Ringing your gentleman caller?” I asked.
“Not that that would be any of your concern but no,” Delilah said. “I’m calling an Uber.”
“A what-er?”
“An Internet based car service,” Delilah explained. “A company that retains the services of drivers who are treated like independent contractors, thus rendering the need to pay for worker benefits unnecessary.”
“I think I just heard Jimmy Hoffa roll over in his unmarked grave.”
Yeah, I know Hoffa didn’t disappear until the 1980s but what can I say? I’d been visiting old Agnes the librarian a lot, utilizing her books to bone up on everything I’d missed while I was pulling a Rip Van Winkle.
“Why call a cab when you’ve got wheels?” I asked.
“I don’t,” Ms. Donnelly said. “You do.”
The debutante tossed me the keys and I caught them without a hitch.
“I don’t get it.”
“A gift from Mr. Battler. He figured that if you’re going to solve one-hundred pop culture mysteries for him, you’re going to need a reliable means of transportation.”
Like a cat in a canary cage, I was overjoyed.
“I thought you said the nerd doesn’t have much moolah.”
“He doesn’t,” Delilah said. “And though notoriously stingy with his own funds, Mr. Battler and his magic bookshelf do have a certain rare ability to…make things happen when they need to.”
“Magic bookshelf my eye,” I said. “I still say our boss is nuttier than a fruitcake.”
“You’re free to think whatever you wish, Mr. Hatcher.”
“I think I’m not going to look a gift horse as sweet as this one in the mouth,” I said as I opened up the driver’s side door. “Cancel your car, Ms. Donnelly, I’ll gladly give you a lift home.”
“That’s quite all right.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Huh. Another piece to the Delilah puzzle. She obviously didn’t want me to see her digs and I was overcome with a desire to find out why.
But I knew if I pressed the issue, she’d snap up tighter than a Chinese finger trap.
So I did the only thing a gentleman could do. I waited until her Uber picked her up and then tooled all over town with my fancy new set of wheels.
I used to have one just like it and was touched that Mr. Battler went through the trouble to find a replica.
Maybe my boss wasn’t such a dope after all.
Copyright (C) 2015 Bookshelf Q. Battler. All Rights Reserved.
Bookshelf Battle 