Bookshelf Battle

October 25, 2015 – Midnight

The air was stale – cheap food, booze and leftovers.  I wasn’t helping the situation with my cigar.  My head was reeling from the evening’s festivities.

Upstairs, there was a couch in my office with my name on it.

But I needed to find out what the hell Battler wanted.

I slit open the manilla envelope, procured the piece of paper inside and read:

Hatcher,

A group of teenagers in peril.  A vicious psychopath wants them dead.  One by one he picks them off until the last one or two, depending on how gracious the film’s screenwriter was feeling at the time.

Somehow, our hero manages to get the upper hand.  He shoots, stabs, maims, or even runs the killer over with a car.  Alas, thinking the madman to be dead, the protagonist celebrates too early.  To the audience’s dismay, the killer gets up and starts chasing our hero around again.

Jason.  Freddy.  Leatherface.  Happens all the time.

Why, Hatcher?  Why, oh why do heroes in slasher flicks refuse to double-tap?

I’d heard that phone books had become a thing of the past and that it was possible to get a person’s number by dialing 411.  I tried it.

“Hello, thank you for dialing 411, how may I direct your call?”

“Uhh, yeah, hiya Toots,”  I said.  “Do you know Agnes?”

“Who?”  the operator asked.

“Agnes the Librarian.”

“You want the number for the public library, sir?”  the operator asked.

“Jeepers H. Crowe, dollface,”  I said.  “What kind of a question is that?”

“Excuse me?”

“Well I doubt the library is open at this ungodly hour, don’t you?”  I asked.

“I have no idea what you want me to do, sir.”

“Agnes,”  I replied.  “Get that old broad on the line and make it snappy.  I’m a busy man, see?”

“Do you have her last name?”  the operator asked.

I slapped my forehead.

“Oh for the love of Edward G. Robinson’s sneer,”  I said.  “What was it again?  Aloysius?  Anchorage?  Alabaster?  No…ABERNATHY!  Yes.  That’s the ticket.  One Agnes Abernathy please.”

“I have one listing for Herbert and Agnes Abernathy,” the operator said.

“That’s it.  Put me through sweetheart.”

All of a sudden there was a robot talking to me.

“The number you have requested can be dialed for an additional charge of thirty-five cents by pressing the number one…”

Thirty-five cents.  Highway robbery if you asked me.  “Aw screw it,”  I thought as I hit the number one.  “I’ll just send an invoice to Battler for it.”

“Hello?”  came an old lady’s voice.

“Agnes!”  I shouted.

“Yes?”

“Listen, I’m sorry to bother you at home but I’ve got quite a caper transpiring here…”

“Who is this?”  Agnes asked.

“Jacob R. Hatcher, Pop Culture Detective,”  I answered.

“Oh for the love of…”

There was a long trail of unlady like obscenities I won’t bother to offend the ears of you fine 3.5 readers with.

“Jake, are you nuts?  You can’t bother me at home!  This is very inappropriate for you to be calling my home this late.  How did you get this number?”

“Information,”  I replied.

“Are you some kind of weirdo sex pervert?”  Agnes asked.  “Are you stalking me?”

I laughed.

“No offense old gal, but I wouldn’t touch you with Herb’s business,” I said.  “Say Agnes, now that you’ve got all that out of your system, what’s a fella gotta do to find a monster movie around here?”

“A what?”

“A mons…Jumpin Jehosaphat, Agnes, are you deaf?  MONSTER….MOVIE!”

“Jake, I’m not in the mood for your nonsense,”  Agnes said.  “Herb’s been up all night throwing up in the bathroom and I’m exhausted.”

“Yikes,”  I said.  “Sorry to hear that.  You should tell him to lay off the bottle.  That’s why I do when I start praying to the porcelain god.”

I could hear the disdain in Agnes’ voice.

“HE HAS CANCER YOU JACK ASS!”

“Oh,”  I replied.  “Even worse.  Tell him I’m pulling for him.  So howsabout that monster movie?”

“It’s Halloween time,”  Agnes said.

“What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China?”  I inquired.

“Put on your TV and there will be one on every channel.  Were you dropped on your head as a child?”

“I doubt it,”  I said.  “Ma Hatcher was a world class baby rearer.”

I grabbed the remote control and turned on the TV Ms. Tsang had mounted on one of the side walls of the restaurant floor to entertain the customers.

The old gal was right.  Every channel I flipped through had images that were gorier than the last.

“Thanks Ag,”  I said.  “I’ll let you go.”

Silence.  An exasperate sigh.  Loud heaving sounds in the background.

“What the hell,”  Agnes said.  “I’m going to be up for awhile.  Tell me what channel you’re putting on and I’ll watch it with you.”