Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

“It’s junk,” one of the bandits cried, after sifting through the cart. “Ide beads and a heap of rocks!”

The leader, Hart, looked at Jacob and Virgina. “What kinda pea-brained, lily-livered Prosperity Falls asshole puts four guards on a cart full of rock and Ide art projects?” he cried.

“The same kind of pea-brained, lily-livered asshole who’d attack a cart guarded by Rangers, I’d reckon,” Jacob said.

Hart flicked his revolver at one of his men–finger still on the trigger. “Go on up.” The second flick pulled the trigger back enough to fire, and the bandit Hart had been pointing at emerged with a hole through his slouch hat.

“How are you still alive, if that’s how you handle your shooting irons?” scoffed Jacob. “I swear, I’m beset by utter morons at every turn.”

“Take their horses,” Hart said to his lieutenant with the still-smoking headpiece.

Virgina’s hand crept around to the Remington nestled safely in her duster. “You need a new recruit there, Mister Hart?” she said. “Maybe somebody with no fingers so they can’t accidentally shoot you in the ass?”

“For riding,” Hart said. “Back to the camp, at least. Then we’ll have ourselves a nice feast.”

Virginia saw Jacob’s hand tighten on the mare’s leg in his hip holster. “You’d go to all the trouble of robbing the Prosperity Rangers just to end up eating a pair of $50 horses?” he laughed. “You’re about as good a rustler as you are a shootist.”

His name was Sidney, but everybody called him Sid Viscous on account of his weight. On those rare occasions when we saw him walking the halls, he roiled and bobbed like the high seas in a storm. It’s anyone’s guess how he made it in and out of the building, since he always seemed to be there before everyone else, few ever saw him leave, and the car in his spot was a compact.

The best description of his place in the department would be “sage.” He never taught, but ran the independent study program like a personal fiefdom and knew the university’s bureaucracy in and out. If you needed to squeeze out one more credit hour, tiptoe around a rule or two, deal with a troublemaker off the books, or something like that, Sid Viscous was your man.

He demanded a price, of course. Sometimes it was as easy as owing him a favor; the vast network of favors owed him probably went a long way toward explaining why his workload was so light. Other times the price was more dear; Sid was a collector of everything from 80’s hair metal on vinyl to anime figures only available as pachinko prizes. More than one ABD supplicant had come to hm only to be sent away looking for a trinket like a first edition copy of a Franco-Belgian comic book in exchange for Sid’s largesse.

“You have to be careful,” Frank said, taking a pull from his filterless government-issue cigarette. “Not just about teaching your ‘assistants’ so much that the bosses fire you in favor of sixteen young turks from Canton.”

“I’m a black box,” Hil assured him. She stirred her tea, shielding it from the dust kicked up by Beijing passersby with one hand. “Money in the form of malt liquor or narcotics goes in one end, and spaghetti code comes out the other.”

“Don’t put too much effort into what you do, either. Dale Johnston did just that when he designed a spambot to override CAPTCHAs. Military-grade code, experimental chess-AI algorithms, natural language simulator to embed spam in realistic-seeming comments, the works.”

“So?”

“Damn thing went rogue, started impersonating a user in newsgroups and gathering personal information from dating sites. By the time Dale pulled the plug, it had marriage offers on three continents.”

Hil could never quite tell when Frank was shitting her outright or just salting the truth with liberal amounts of bullshit for kicks and grins. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Why do you think I asked you here?” Franks said, stonefaced. “That’s why we need to talk about your e-boyfriend from ‘Portland.'”

They led me into the back, away from the music and the neon. Strasser was set up in what looked like a storeroom, surrounded by things rich white dilettantes want but the SMCPD didn’t want them to have.

“This is Eric Cummings,” the bouncer said. “He’s asking questions about Œ.” Rather than saying Œ, or using the “Childlike Empress” appellation that I’d introduced, he formed the letters with his hands.

“Eric Cummings, huh?” Strasser said. He looked about my age, and there was a definite glimmer of intelligence in his otherwise Australopithecan features. “Yeah, I’ve read your column. Always got one hand wrapped around your dick and the other jammed up your ass…like you don’t know if you’re Cumming or going.”

Now that particular dirty joke, if not that particular derivation, had been hurled at me pretty regularly ever since the kids at school reached their quota on sex words (right around third grade). I’ve always found blistering sarcasm to be the best response (well, other than total silence).

“Oh wow,” I said. “You know, I’ve been a Cummings for 24 years and in all that time I never realized that my name could be twisted into a crude sexual pun. Thank you, sir, for being absolutely the first person to think of that.”

I was feeling petty smug about it until Strasser decided that his rebuttal would be to punch me in the gut.

“I’m afraid that I won’t be able to make it to tomorrow’s meeting,” Whittaker said. “I’ve got a funeral to go to. It’s at the Catholic church on 5th downtown if you need to look it up.”

“Oh, I believe you,” Markson said. “But I’m afraid that’s no excuse.”

“No excuse?” Whittaker reddened. “Why not? What’s wrong with wanting to give my great uncle a proper burial?”

“My dear, if you want to cling to your silly and superstitious rituals in the hope that some imaginary great bearded man in the sky will give your distant relative better treatment, that’s your problem. But this is a business; if you indulge in private superstition, you must be prepared to deal with the consequences.”

“I…” Whittaker stammered.

Markson checked a nearby wall clock. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a feng shui appointment with my geomancer. We’re going to rearrange my office to generate the maximum positive chi.”

“Go to this address,” Gane had said, sliding a handwritten card across the table. “The firm of Washdry & Fold handles all my important business, and they’ll take care of you.”

Mina had taken the card with quite a bit of suspicion, but Gane seemed forthright enough. When the people at that number didn’t pick up, she had gone down to see them personally.

When she arrived, though, Mina was greeted by a bright orange awning over a storefront that buzzed with neon:

THE FIRM Dry Cleaners
Since 1988
Wash Dry & Fold

Mina crumpled the card, flung it into the gutter, and raised a fist to the heavens.

“Gaaaannnneeee!”

“My men are brave, and they will fight,’ Sirik said. “But they are outnumbered, and under no illusions that they can reverse the tide of history.”

“I’m not sure what you’re saying,” replied Ames.

“I am saying that there is a chance we may make it downriver despite the mines and the gunfire and the rockets. And I am saying that, each time we stop, you should expect several of the men who go ashore to forage not to return.”

Ames bit his lip. “I understand,” he said. “Money and abstract things like loyalty can only go so far.”

Sirik nodded. “I am also saying that you should be prepared to operate the boat alone, Mr. John. I can show you a few things before we depart.”

“Newslak, the official outlet of the government, announced the election statistics this morning,” Calvin read. He resisted the urge to use “mouthpiece” instead of “outlet.” Keep it professional.

“President Tsocorw Easelk, in office since 1961, was reelected with 101% of the vote.” The dictator’s name was a tongue-twister, but the hours of practice last night hadn’t been for nothing. In Calvin’s opinion, reading a ludicrous figure like that with a straight face should qualify him for the Nobel Prize.

He continued, keeping in mind that nobody on the radio could see his expression and that it was okay to smile so long as it didn’t develop into a guffaw. “Officials report that the inflated figure is due to ballots cast from overseas and patriotic citizens insisting on voting more than once for their beloved leader.”

This post is part of the January 2012 Blog Chain at Absolute Write. This month’s challenge is a “winter nightmare.”

Making good time despite a late start from my brother’s, I was thinking about what I was going to post for New Year’s on Facebook and LiveJournal. I was thinking how much I’d miss my brother and his crazy kids after spending a week with them. I was even thinking about my priorities at work this coming week.

The one thing I wasn’t even remotely considering was a massive doe jumping directly in front of me.

All I can remember is a flash of brown in the headlights, a terrific crunch, and being showered with shredded glass as the driver’s side window shattered. I must have had the presence of mind to immediately pull over onto the shoulder and park the car, since that’s where I found myself.

I sat there, staring at the broken glass and what I could see of the mangled fender, listening to hooves on asphalt somewhere behind me. I actually had to take a deep breath, look at myself in the rearview mirror, and say–as calmly as I could muster–“That just happened.”

All those previous concerns were wiped away, replaced with just two notions: “I’m lucky to be alive” and “What am I going to do now?”

The 911 dispatcher might have been surprised at how calm I sounded, but I think that was just shock talking. While waiting for the police, I found myself focused on the glass. It was everywhere, in bite-sized yet razor-sharp chunks: on my seat, in my clothes, in my shoes, in half-a-dozen tiny cuts on my hands and back. Methodically, I picked the stray pieces up with my gloves and threw them out the window.

Guess I really needed something to focus on, something that I could control in a situation that was otherwise pure chaos.

The night guy at the Knights Inn was bemused but sympathetic when he saw a mangled Honda dragging bits of bumper pull in escorted by a county sheriff’s car. I had to keep telling myself that I could handle this, that I was an adult, that this was just another kind of reference question and as a librarian I had to do was find an answer.

I returned to the Honda and managed to cut away most of the really mangled portions of the bumper and wheel well, which was easier than it sounds due to the car being mostly plastic. Duct tape and a garbage bag served to keep out the wind and the dew until the next morning.

Not knowing how the day would turn out, I went to the motel office for their “continental breakfast”: a loaf of bread and a toaster, a rack of Little Debbie cinnamon buns, two boxes of cereal, and one pitcher each of milk and orange juice in a minifridge–all tucked away in a dark corner of the motel lobby. I took two of everything, and sat in a rickety chair pulled up to a cheap pressboard table, watching the sun rise out the window and friends post jubilant New Year’s photos on Facebook.

It’s been a long time since I felt that pathetic, or that alone.

Lord knows what those people must have thought, seeing me hacking away at a clear plastic storage tub lid with a hacksaw and shears in the Wal-Mart parking lot the next morning at 9am. It took me an hour to get the plastic cut to size and taped in place. It seemed to hold well enough, and the car seemed to run all right.

Then the window came off entirely a few miles down the road.

I was able to grab it in time to hold it on and pull over to the shoulder, but three-quarters of the tape had come off, and freeway traffic was whizzing by at 70-80mph, to say nothing of the chill wind and light rain. Made sitting in the motel lobby seem like paradise, to be honest. Desperately, I reattached the window with latticed strips of duct tape, one over another, and damn if that roadside patch job on I-70 didn’t see me through to Memphis.

I skipped lunch, skipped dinner, and drove the entire ten hours with nothing but snacks, cinnamon rolls, and Red Bull. The stereo still worked; perhaps in the spirit of danger and adventure I keyed in the complete Indiana Jones series to see me home.

Almost kissed the pavement at home when I finally limped in.

Fired up my old Escort to serve as a stopgap, went for a few quick essentials at the store…only to find as I pulled out that the Escort’s brake pedal had gone completely slack. Worse, the emergency brake, which hasn’t worked well for some time, completely failed too.

Luckily traffic was light on the way back, and I was able to coast home at low speed. I refilled the reservoir with fresh brake fluid, only to find that there was still no pressure and that the fluid was leaking out of the line. I immediately set out for the tire and brake place across the street–carefully, using park, my hazard blinkers, and what little braking power there was judiciously.

The mechanic said the problem was irreparable. My Escort’s brake line has rusted through, and with the car now eighteen years old and eligible to vote or be drafted in time of national emergency, the spare parts aren’t made anymore. I drove–well, coasted–the Escort home and took stock. Two cars, both with working engines, both crippled by other problems. It’s such a cruel coincidence I would have laughed if I hadn’t been crying.

Happy New Year indeed…

Check out this month’s other bloggers, all of whom have posted or will post their own responses:
Areteus
MamaStrong
LilGreenBookworm
Domoviye
writingismypassion
pyrosama
kimberlycreates
Turndog-Millionaire
AbielleRose
Proach
SuzanneSeese
Alpha Echo
Diana Rajchel
Ralph Pines
Alynza
Literateparakeet

“I suppose you could say that made him a little bitter,” said Cliff. “Skilled metalworker and engineer getting laid off like that without so much as a how-do-you-do. Worse, the union told him that if he went to work for one of the other Big Three and switched locals he’d lose all the progress toward his pension.”

“So he started customizing cars after that?” said Wills, laying her hand on the vehicle’s fine–yet somehow unplaceable–lines.

“Whoever said that this was customized?” Cliff laughed. “I had to put something in the form, sure, but this isn’t just some rat rod. My uncle built the car from scratch.”

“You mean he made all the body panels himself?” Wills said. She whistled, impressed.

“And the frame, and the seats, and most of the engine,” said Cliff. “He used a few stock parts here and there, like the engine block, but nothing from the Big Three. Most of the stock parts came from wholesalers after car companies went out of business.”

Wills took a step back. “Are you serious? Why would anybody ever do something like that? It would cost more than a new one!”

“Maybe to prove to himself–and anybody else that was paying attention–that he could do everything the Big Three could do by himself, and better,” Cliff shrugged. “They were living off Aunt Milly’s salary anyway; maybe he needed something to do. But it’s a one-of-a-kind car, and after he finished it in 1963 Uncle Wilt drove it every day until he died. I guess you could say it’s the one and only ’63 Culbertson there is.”