Car Plunges 650 feet into the Rio Grande Gorge--At least in Don Travis’s novel THE BISTI BUSINESS

 

Cover Art by Maria Fanning

 THE BISTI BUSINESS, the second in my BJ Vinson Mystery Series, is due for release by DSP Publications on March 21, so I couldn’t resist the temptation to talk about it a little.

BJ knows the Napa Valley wine mogul is trouble, but he agrees to search for the homophobe’s son and his male companion, who are missing after a tour of New Mexico’s wine country. Who better to look for a gay heir than a gay PI, right? That’s how he finds himself chasing all over the state for the two college men’s bright orange Porsche Boxter. Almost immediately, he finds clues someone else is searching for the two lovers, as well. The book is due for release by DSP Publications on March 21.

Because I love my adopted New Mexico, my books play out in various places across the state. THE BISTI BUSINESS centers around the Four Corners Area and takes its name from the Bisti/De Na Zin Wilderness, where a ghastly murder takes place. My first in the series, THE ZOZOBRA INCIDENT was released in November of last year, and the third, THE CITY OF ROCKS, is scheduled for July 19, 2017. The fourth, THE LOVELY PINES, is now in its third (and hopefully final) draft.

For a glimpse of the book, let’s look at a dramatic scene from Chapter 5. Alerted that the orange Porsche he is searching for has been spotted in Taos, BJ has just arrived at the Taos Airport in a chartered Cessna piloted by Jim Gray, a friend. He is met at the airport by Officer Gilbert Delfino. The Alfano mentioned is BJ’s California client. We pick up at that point.

*****

Jim radioed the tower well before touching down at the small municipal airport, and Officer Delfino met the plane, as promised. He turned out to be a police officer with more than a touch of the local blood. Standing five foot six in his boots with coarse black hair not quite long enough to wear in the traditional bun but shaggier than most lawmen, he projected a calm competence as we shook hands. It would not be wise to provoke this man. His hatchet face wore an air of serious determination, an impression reinforced by his extraordinarily broad shoulders and deep chest.

“Mr. Vinson, we might have a problem,” he said. “The sheriff’s people couldn’t find the Porsche in El Segundo, but a unit spotted it on the road. There’s a cruiser on its tail right now.”

“Do you know where it is at the moment?”

Not far to the west of us, as a matter of fact.” He motioned with his chin. “Headed for Agua Amargo… or in that direction, anyway.”

“That’ll take them over the gorge, right?”

“They’ll cross over in a few minutes.”

“Maybe they’re just going sightseeing. You know, stand on the bridge and toss rocks into the gorge like all tourists do.”

His lips pulled into a frown. “Maybe, but somehow I doubt it.”

“I expect they’re out of your jurisdiction by now.”

“The town and the county have a reciprocal arrangement, so I have permission for us to join the chase. If it gets too bad, I expect we’ll have to call in Tom Duggin. He’s the state police trooper up here.”

“Well,” I said, “let’s get going, unless you think the Cessna might make a good spotter for the sheriff’s people.”

He eyed the machine with evident interest. “Can’t hurt.”

He raised the sheriff’s department on his cruiser’s radio while I prepped Jim. Within minutes, we took off with the Taos policeman occupying the right hand seat while I crammed my carcass into the baggage storage cavity behind the two men. Delfino would have fit much more comfortably in the small space, but he knew the territory, and I didn’t. He was of more value as a spotter in the front.

The countryside east of the airport is relatively flat and open, so automobile traffic was clearly visible. Almost immediately we saw a county car, lights flashing, on the road ahead of us. Leading the sheriff’s cruiser by almost a mile was a blur of color that was undoubtedly Orlando Alfano’s orange Boxter. Both vehicles had already crossed the gorge.

“These guys aren’t fugitives, are they?” Delfino asked. “I thought we were just locating them for a family matter.”

“That’s right,” I said.

“So why’re they running?”

“I don’t know. Have two Anglo guys from California had any trouble around Taos in the last few days?”

“There’s no record of Alfano or Norville in the area, period. I checked every motel in the vicinity after the Albuquerque police called. If they were here, they didn’t leave any tracks.”

“Then how did Alfano’s car get here?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but there it is right down there. Uh-oh,” Delfino said, “It turned off the road. Hope our guys see it.”

“They’re still back around the curve. They won’t see the maneuver unless the dust gives the Porsche away.”

Delfino asked Jim if he could buzz the cruiser and try to alert them.

“I can do better than that if you know the county frequency.” Jim reached for his radio dial.

Within seconds, Delfino was talking to his compadres. By that time, they had passed the point where the Porsche had left the main road. Before the cruiser could reverse direction, the orange car regained the highway, heading back toward Taos.

“You want me to distract them?” Jim asked.

Delfino shook his head. “No, they don’t realize we’re a spotter. Let’s let this play out.”

“Here they come.” I nodded at the county car now in hot pursuit. “But I doubt they have the muscle to overtake the Porsche.”

“Maybe not, but we can keep them in sight from up here,” Delfino replied.

The occupants of the fleeing car were obviously aware of the posse on their tail. The vehicle hugged the ground as it took off like it had been goosed in the rear by a hotshot. The erratic way the car raced down the road made me question if an experienced driver was at the wheel.

“We got him now.”

Delfino pointed ahead of us. The Porsche rapidly approached the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge where a second sheriff’s vehicle sat in the middle of the span, blocking the fugitives’ escape. Even from this distance, we saw officers herding tourists off of the walkways and observation platforms of the bridge.

“Christ!” the pilot muttered. “Those guys better slow down.”

Delfino grabbed the radio mike and shouted warnings to the sheriffs’ deputies. Belatedly, the Porsche tried to stop, but it was traveling too fast. Skidding sideways, the car almost went over. Then it left the roadway short of the bridge, careening through a vacant rest area and sideswiping a stone picnic shelter. Now totally out of control, the Porsche crashed through the fenced area at the brink of the gorge. We let out a collective groan as it hurtled out into space.

Jim banked over the canyon to watch the automobile take flight. It free-fell a couple hundred feet before striking the side of the gorge, tearing out a sizeable chunk of the wall. From our perspective, it looked as if the car dropped in slow motion, tumbling over and over before smashing into the bottom of the gorge. There was no dramatic explosion, merely an awful finality as the machine appeared to disintegrate like a toy automobile smashed beneath a child’s heel.

Delfino and the pilot crossed themselves and muttered a Hail Mary, bringing home the awful, tragic reality of the last few moments. This was no movie stunt. Someone had just died.

Oh, hell! What would I tell Alfano?

*****

I hope that snippet of the book proved interesting. Here are some links to me and my writing and some DSP Publications buy links:

Blog: dontravis.com

Email: dontravis21gmail.com

Facebook: dontravis

Twitter: @dontravis3

DSP Pub ebook: https://www.dsppublications.com/books/the-bisti-business-by-don-travis-360-b

DSP Pub paperback: https://www.dsppublications.com/books/the-bisti-business-by-don-travis-361-b

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Bisti-Business-Vinson-Mystery-Book-ebook/dp/BO1MSATKCO

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-bisti-business/id1161475375?mt=11

Barnes&Noble: http://ww.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-bisti-business-don-travis/1113760492?ean=2940157409005

As always, thanks for being readers.

New blogs are posted at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

IT'S BEEN A WILD RIDE, A Memoir (A Re-post)

I ran across something the other day that made me think of a post published some time back. After a search, I found the post in question dated May 3, 2013. After re-reading the piece, I decided to republish it, perhaps to give you some insight into my psyche. Only the timeline of my mother death was changed to make it currently accurate.

By the way, I was the infant who was the subject of the piece.

*****

IT’S BEEN A WILD RIDE, A Memoir

In his heart, he knew it was a stillbirth.

The bright October sun streamed through the tall windows of a second-story apartment, sharpening the smell of blood and sweat and afterbirth in the little bedroom. The physician hoisted a newborn by its ankles to deliver a series of slaps to the tiny rump. Nothing. No reaction at all.

Although the baby was small—only five pounds—the delivery had been difficult, complicated by the mother's severe toxemia. The small town family doctor delivered another loud smack. Harder this time. Still no response. He laid the still form on the bed and swabbed its mouth with gloved fingers. No obstruction there.

As the clock ticked away precious seconds, he motioned the midwife assistant forward, and together they labored over the inert child. Nothing worked. After placing his stethoscope to the still chest one final time, the man glanced at the exhausted mother lying on the bed. Her pretty features sagged from illness and exhaustion.

Judging her more or less out of it, he swiped his damp brow with a forearm and turned to the anxious father perched on a windowsill on the far side of the room.

“I’m sorry, Travis, but it’s not unexpected given Birdie's condition. She’s the one we have to worry about now.”

The father stood and pressed thumbs into the corners of his eyes. His shoulders slumped. “Was it a boy?”

“Yes. You have to be strong now…for your wife’s sake.” He sighed from weariness and sorrow. “I know you were hoping your son would grow up to be a first baseman, but—”

“WAAAHHH!”

They whirled at the sound of an angry wail and saw the midwife holding the baby. As they watched in astonishment, she calmly removed her finger from its little rectum and handed the squalling child to the doctor.

###

I'd heard that story all my life but didn't really accept it as anything other than family legend—until I met Mrs. Ward decades later. She was the midwife in that little Oklahoma drama.

My father did not get the first baseman he wanted from that child. What he got, instead...was me. My mother recovered from her illness and lived to bear a daughter and twin sons. She passed away peacefully almost six summers ago.

I have speculated many times over the course of my life on the psychological implications of drawing my first breath in that manner. You see, I’m often accused of being anal-retentive.

*****

Dear Readers: Now you know the basis of most of the problems in my life. I entered this world contrary to usual customs, and have lived my life that way ever since. Please forgive me for doing a re-post, but I couldn’t resist the temptation.

Feel free to contact me at dontravis21@gmail.com.

Don

New posts are published each Thursday morning at 6:00 a.m.

Dark Dream

Not much response to my short story last week. Let’s see if I have any better reaction to this one.

*****

Courtesy of publicdomainpictures.net

DARK DREAM

The light of day snatched me out of my dark dream. I am not a prophet. I don’t see into the future. Nonetheless, the same dream three nights in succession bothered me in a vague, ill-formed way.

Lying there with the dawning day stretching before me, my mind struggled to recreate the reverie. But it had no form or function. Merely the impression of a dark place. An alley perhaps. With dim lights overhead. And a dark—masked?—figure disappearing around a corner. Nothing really frightening about it. Nonetheless, the recollection sent a shiver through my body and propelled me out of bed and into my daily routine.

My breakfast, oatmeal—lightly sugared—with dry toast and a single piece of bacon washed down with black coffee, occupied the physical me while I considered the day’s schedule. Simple enough. Drafting work at my employer's architectural firm followed by a date with Wendy, my airline hostess girlfriend, who was here one day and in Hong Kong or wherever the next. But tonight, she would be here for a cozy evening of nuzzling and cooing.

I made it through the day thanks to an interesting office high rise one of our younger partners designed. The project required some innovative drafting, so it held my interest until quitting time. That’s when the telephone ruined what was left of my day.

“Hi, hon.” Wendy’s sugary, sexy voice lifted me up before slamming me down. “Sorry to tell you this, but we’re held up at O’Hare International. Weather. I won’t make it home tonight.”

With my stomach somewhere down around my knees, I assured her that was all right. Everything we planned to do tonight could be put off until tomorrow. I hoped my voice didn’t mirror my real thoughts. Why don’t you quit that freaking job?

My evening destroyed, I wandered two blocks down the street to Murphy’s Irish Bar. With nary a single drop of Celtic blood, I usually enjoyed the atmosphere—even when the bartender addressed me as a bloody Brit. A table of other youngbloods from my firm beckoned, and the company lifted my spirits until they began to peel off one by one—this one going home to his wife and kids, that one heading out to meet his fiancée, another to hook up with his boyfriend—until I was alone at the table with no one to go meet.

Pissed off and out of sorts, I did the logical thing and switched to the hard stuff to put my problems behind me. I didn’t get stinking drunk, but my blood alcohol chemistry likely legally qualified for that condition—without the modifier. Before reaching the stinking point, I had the presence of mind to quit, only to confront a difficult, complex problem: Take a taxi home or walk two blocks to my car and drive the mile to my apartment building? Dawdling to puzzle over that dilemma provoked my waitress into asking if I was all right. That innocent, caring act prompted me to put aside my quandary. The walk back to the car would clear my head enough to safely drive myself home. My decision made, I stopped by the men’s room and then left the bar by the more convenient rear exit.

The portal no sooner closed behind me than I halted and backed against the cold, metal exterior. Goosebumps ran down my back. My breath came in ragged gasps. This was my dream! Black night. A dark alley with only a weak light over the doorway behind me with a tad more spilling out of a window two floors up. I held my breath and listened to the silence. Nothing. Not even traffic. A bug buzzing around the dim bulb right over my head, that was all. I wanted to go back, but the latch wouldn’t open from the outside. I was stuck. Stuck in my dream.

My lungs ached, making me realize I was still holding my breath. A gasp brought the rancid odor of rotting food from the dumpster halfway down the alley. The taste of my last bourbon and water rose in my throat to curl my tongue. I pushed my palms against the door to propel me forward. Get out of here. Fast.

No more than half a dozen steps down the alley, the sound of the door opening froze me in mid-step. I whirled to see a broad man—one of my fellow patrons no doubt—exit in a swift, sure stride. I tried to yell for him to hold the door, but my voice box refused to work. The heavy door slammed closed once again, the click of the latch clearly audible.

“’Scuse me,” the man said as he breezed by, apparently unaffected by any recurring dreams. I picked up my pace and followed him down the alley, preferring company to solitude.

As he came abreast of the dumpster—with me three paces behind him—he stopped and grunted. “What the hell you want?”

Was he talking to me?

Then I heard a rough voice. “Hand over your money.”

The big man lunged forward. “Get outa my way, you little bastard!”

Still uncertain about what was happening, I heard a loud pop. And then a second. The big man grunted again—a different sound this time--and staggered a couple of steps before flopping onto his belly. When he went down, he revealed a dark figure standing there. Although I couldn’t see his face, his body language expressed as much surprise at me as I was in terror of him. He held out his hand, making what it held gleam in the uncertain light from the upstairs window. A gun.

“Lousy luck, guy You seen too much.”

The thing in his hand spit fire, and something slammed me in the chest so hard I banged against the dumpster, making more noise than his pistol had. Shocked from the blow of the projectile, the surprise of what occurred, and the horror of my dream, I clung to the side of that reeking metal container as the dark man disappeared around the corner. Had he been masked? Who cared?

Slipping soundlessly to the ground, I struggled for breath as the blackness of my dream—this dream, this nightmare—washed over me.

*****

I’d be interested in your reaction to the story at dontravis 21@gmail.com.

As always, thanks for being readers. There wouldn’t be writers without them.

Don

Next post: 6:00 a.m. on Thursday.

Cotton Head

After my maudlin personal piece last week, I’d like to turn back to a short story for this post.

*****

COTTON HEAD

Cotton Head was beef; I was sweetmeat. We shouldn’t have meshed, but we did…. right from the day his family moved in next door when I was eight. I’ll never forget the first time I saw him walk out of his house with a fielder’s glove in his fist while wearing a fuzzy, snow white cap in the middle of summer. He spotted me right off and marched across their yard to invade ours, letting me see he wasn’t wearing a cap at all. He had white hair that looked exactly like a bunch of cotton balls glued to his head. I’m sure I gawked.

“Hi, I’m James,” he said. “But everybody calls me Cotton Head, so you can too. You wanna toss the ball?”

“Uh, Henry, but I’m Hank to most folks. Except my grandmother. I don’t have a ball.”

“I do. Let’s go.”

As bad as I was at tossing a softball, I was worse at catching it. That should have been that, but he was back the next day proclaiming we were going arrowhead hunting. So I climbed on my Red Ryder and pedaled alongside him to a field near where he used to live. Cotton claimed he’d found lots of worked flint there, especially after a rain. Worked flint. That was his name for artifacts. To give the devil his due, he located three. Heck, I even found one. After that, he adopted me as his best friend.

In a way, we complimented one another. He was physical and dragged me to ball games and picnics and dances and places I’d never go on my own. I was cerebral and made sure he got decent grades through the years. He was bright but lazy intellectually. Me? Physically uncoordinated and clumsy. But he never let that get in the way of being his buddy. I had my first date with a girl for one simple reason. He wanted to double, which meant I had to have a date. Pearl Manchester filled that role, and I have to admit I enjoyed myself

In high school, he discovered wrestling while I found the debating club. I always went to his matches. He came to one of my debates and later said “Way to kick ass, Hank.” He never showed up again. He was a popular, outgoing guy, but he always made sure I was involved in whatever he was doing. He made me a part of the “in gang” at school, even if it was by osmosis.

I remember the day—the exact moment—the revelation came. We were sitting on a bench outside the schoolhouse after last class when Marcie Sue walked up, leaned against Cotton’s back, and ran the fingers of one hand through his hair.

I’ll swear, I can’t keep my hands off your weird head.” She cooed the words rather than spoke them.

Something slammed me hard in the chest and my stomach bounced on the ground. That’s the way it seemed, anyway. While I sat semi-stunned on that hard bench, it came to me what had happened. Jealousy snuck up and walloped me cross-eyed. Why couldn’t I do that intimate thing she’d done? He was my BFF, not hers. Great gobs of green gorilla grunt! I was in love with the guy.

After that, I was scared of Cotton Head. That’s not right. More like worried I’d slip up and reveal myself. I thought about—dreamed about—letting him know how I felt. Couldn’t. Guys didn’t think about guys like that in our little town. Maybe in the big cities where nobody knew anyone and didn’t care what neighbors thought about them. But not here where everyone knew everyone else.

I tried hard to make sure my feelings didn’t show, and I must have done a good job because life went on like always. But something happened the summer after graduation before we left for college. I was all torn up because he was going to one university on a wrestling scholarship while my scholastic one aimed me toward another. Our last summer together.

We were horsing around at his house, him showing me wrestling holds and me relishing the body contact. Of course, he pinned me without any trouble at all, and once as he sat on top of me while holding my arms above my head, he must have understood what was going on. He licked his lips sorta nervous like and fixed me with a long, brown-eyed stare. He'd started to say something when we heard the front door open. His mother was back from shopping.

Cotton came up off me—too fast. Like he was feeling guilty. He bounded out of the room to carry in bags of groceries from the car for his mom. I trailed along to help him with a hollow feeling in my gut because I knew things had somehow changed. He wouldn’t meet my eyes as we worked emptying the bags and putting away the groceries. Ten times I opened my mouth to mention what had happened, and ten times I failed. Chickened out.

We finished the summer as we always had. Best friends. Neither temptation nor opportunity reared its head again. We no longer wrestled. I’ve always wondered how my life would have changed had Mrs. Biggerstaff not come home when she did that day.

*****

If you turn nostalgic for a moment and recall your own youth, you will doubtless call up moments like these. I daresay we all hd them.

I’d be pleased to hear from you at dontravis 21@gmail.com.

Don

Next post: 6:00 a.m. on Thursday.

Betty Blue

It’s that time of year again. Regular readers know this is my “blue quarter.” My late wife Betty died of pneumonia on February 12, 2009, and our wedding anniversary would have been on April 8 of that year. Sandwiched in between is March 13, her birthday. These three months are my blue period. It gets a little easier as time tolls, but it never quite goes away. This year, I’d like to mark the events with an attempt at some “poetic prose.” (Forgive me, poets, everywhere.)

*****

Betty Blue

Shades of blue are ever important to my life

Hazy indigoed mountain silhouettes

Robin’s egg skies

Aegean oceans

Turquoise stones

Sapphire rings

Teal eyes

The death of my wife in 2009

Brought my “blue quarter”

The cold slate of February which took her away

Warm azure of March on the day of her birth

Somber cobalt of April, our anniversary

These are the shades of my “Betty blue,”

A different palette altogether

*****

Thank you for indulging me in my annual descent into depression. After eight years, it’s becoming easier, but I do tend to think of her more often over these three months, relishing what was good about our time together and suffering through the difficult twelve weeks of her end time.

I’d be pleased to hear from you at dtm1332@aol.com.

As always, thanks for being a reader.

Don

Next post: 6:00 a.m. on Thursday.

FIDELIS, part two.

Readership looked pretty good last week. That’s encouraging.

Today, we get the second part of the story about Alice determined to land a hunky, handsome guy with the dodgy name of Fidelis Proctor Greenhouse. As Alice noted last week, the name might sound like a gaseous old windbag, but the physical being sure didn’t look the part. We begin as F. P. picks her up at her dorm for a night trip to a remote spot where light pollution isn’t bad. She’s baited him with a false interest in astronomy.

*****

Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

FIDELIS (Part 2)

F. P. sat looking relaxed in an overstuffed chair when I came downstairs at five-thirty sharp. He was as delicious as ever in canvas trousers with zipped and buttoned pockets everywhere but on his fly.He promptly sent me back upstairs for a heavier coat, gloves, and a stretch cap that would cover my ears.

His vehicle was a Jeep with bucket seats, so that put an end to my hope of snuggling on the drive. He monopolized the trip west on I-25 and south on State Road 14 by explaining that local astronomy clubs used the area where we were heading to watch meteor showers because the hills blocked most of the ambient light from the city.

“The best ones are the Perseids,” he said. “That’s the most popular shower because it appears in August of each year when the weather is nice. It produces a rate of 50 to 75 shower members per hour at the maximum.”

“Shower members? You mean shooting stars?”

“Actually, they’re particles released from a comet called 109P/Swift-Tuttle when it returns to the inner solar system. They’re called Perseids because they originate from the area of the sky near the constellation of Perseus.”

“So no shooting stars.”

“None of them are stars. If stars took off like meteors, it would create a helluva calamity. These are just small chunks of rock and ice that comets shed during travel.”

“Oh.”

“The Geminids are usually the strongest meteor showers of the year. And the most colorful. They come in December, usually starting before midnight. They’re cool.”

“I’d wager they’re cold.” My pitiful attempt at humor was lost on him.

The light was fading fast—along with my enthusiasm for the project—by the time we reached the parking area. After that, I followed him through the gathering gloom up hill after hill, through one grove of trees and across another meadow until he finally reached his destination, a large meadow rapidly becoming as dark as the closet back home where I used to lock my little brother.

By the aid of his flashlight—and the one he’d given me to light my way—we found a log to sit down on. About time. I was ready for a rest. And the log was perfect for snuggling.

My mistake. Instead of cuddling, I got a lecture on the Usids, the Orionids, the Lyrids, and a whole host of meteor showers. Apparently, they arrived on an established schedule to titillate astronomers and send them running to the darkest spots they can find.

Once he ground down on that subject, I gave him a little prompt to get him to put his arm around my shoulders.

“I’m cold.”

He jumped to his feet. “Let’s move around some. That’ll warm you up.” Then he took out a light laser and flashed it into the sky. It seemed to reach all the way to the stars. He moved it to point out the five stars making up the constellation called Cassiopeia.

I snorted through my nose. “Doesn’t look like a beautiful queen. Looks like a big stretched out M.”

“During the winter. But later in the year, it’ll turn on its back and look like a W.”

“It takes a bushel of imagination to turn that into a voluptuous woman.”

“I guess they had a bushel full back then.” He then pointed out each of her five stars, naming Schedar—which he said was sometimes spelled Shedar or Shedir—as the Alpha star. He droned on about how this was a circumpolar constellation. That meant, I gathered, it was visible from the northern hemisphere year-round, tumbling endlessly from an M to a W to whatever the hell it looked like when it was standing on its ends.

Romantic, Cassiopeia was not. At least to me. I was freezing my butt off in the blackest place on earth while the hunkiest man I could picture either in my dreams or in reality, wandered around prattling endlessly about stars and constellations and Greek and Roman mythology. Finally, I stopped dead in my tracks.

“I wanna go home.”

He turned, spearing me with his flashlight. “What?”

“I’m cold. I’m miserable, I don’t give a damn about astronomy, and I want to go home.”

I could see nothing except the bright light turned in my direction, but I imagined his eyes rendered wide and his mouth slack that someone actually said those words out loud. That prompted me to add the final nail to the coffin of my starry-eyed dreams.

“Fidelis Proctor Greenhouse, I don’t care if you are only twenty-year-old, you’re a gaseous old windbag without a clue to what’s going on around you.”

I guess I’m lucky he didn’t fade away into the night and abandon me to my fate. I had no idea which way was north or south. The only direction I could identify was up… where Queen Cassiopeia stared coldly down upon me. Was she disappointed, too?

*****

So there you have it. Alice now knows why no one ever has a second date with Fidelis Proctor Greenhouse. Let me know what you think of the story at dontravis21@gmail.com. Keep on reading, guys.

Don

Next post: 6:00 a.m. on Thursday.

FIDELIS, a short story in two parts

It’s good to be back on the Internet with my dontravis.com blog. Readership hasn’t built back to where it was when they shut me off on the 3^rd of January, so tell everyone you know that I’m back.

This week we get a two-part short story told from a young woman’s point of view. Now folks, I don’t know the first thing about a college-age woman’s way of thinking, but I don’t think I mangled it too badly. So here we go. This one’s “name-centric,” too… as was Pheobe.

*****

FIDELIS

Courtesy of Wikipedia commons

Fidelis Proctor Greenhouse. Sounds like a gaseous old windbag, doesn’t he? He’s not. He’s a dreadful sexy, way handsome senior here at Loma Linda College. Beyond description. Black hair. Green eyes. Pouty lips. And as proportionally perfect as the Taj Mahal. And his skin! My Lord, I’d give up ice cream for a smooth, tawny complexion like his. The strange thing is that he doesn’t seem to date much.

“I’m going to land that,” I said to my friend Mindy as we stood on the front steps of the campus library when he strode by talking to a couple of other guys.

“You mean F. P. Greenhouse? Tell me you aren't serious, Alice," she said with raised eyebrows.

I nodded. “Yep. That’s the one.”

“Girlfriend, he’s poison. Everybody knows that.”

“I don’t. You saying he’s violent or something? He’s cruel? Stands up his dates? Drinks too much? He’s gay? What?”

“All I know is nobody who goes out with him once ever goes out with him again.”

Well, I will. You wait and see.”

It wasn’t easy. I found where he hid out in the library stacks to study and casually took a chair at the same table and laid out a big book called The Astronomy of the Bible: An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References of Holy Scripture by somebody named Maunder. I picked that one because I heard he had a rad interest in the subject… astronomy, that is. He noticed the book right away.

“You into astronomy or the bible?”

I smiled, exchanged introductions, and launched into my planned program of attack. “Both I guess. But astronomy’s the new interest. I saw a program on TV about it last night. Piqued my interest, I guess.”

He tapped my book with a forefinger. “Well, you picked a good reference.”

“I’ve never noticed anything about constellations in the bible before.”

“You’re kidding. They’re all over the place. Creation of the sky, the sun and the moon preside, creation’s vastness… all in Genesis. The Bethlehem Star in Numbers and Matthew. A warning against worshiping the sun and the moon in Deuteronomy, Dark stars in Job. References go on and on.”

“Wow, you know a lot about the bible.” I curled a blond tress around my forefinger. I’d seen it done on TV once, and it looked like a good “come-on.”

He laughed, revealing double rows of white teeth. “I know a lot about astronomy. Not so much about the bible, I’m afraid.”

I moved into stage two of my plan. “I’m so dumb about astrology. Everyone looks at the night sky and says there’s Orion and Aquarius and Cassiopia.”

“Cassiopeia”, he corrected. “The vain queen of Greek mythology who liked to brag about her beauty. She was the mother of Andromeda. And Andromeda’s a whole galaxy.”

“Anyway, when I look up at the stars, I just see a whole bunch, some bigger than others, some colored a little differently, but I sure don’t see shapes.”

“It takes a little imagination, I guess,” F. P. said.

“And a little instruction.”

Lo and behold—as my mother would say—he came right back and bit. “I can show you some of them.”

“Great. When?”

“I-I don’t know. Tonight? It’s supposed to be clear. Have to drive out to a place down off Highway 14 where most of the light pollution’s blocked.”

“I don’t mind a trip down Highway 14.”

He brightened. “Really? How about I pick you up around four-thirty? We want to be in place before it gets dark. Sundown will be around five-thirty, and we’ll have to do some walking to get to the top from the parking lot.”

“I guess so.” I hadn’t planned on that much of my day being devoted to star gazing. But if it got F. P. into my clutches, it was a good investment of time.

“Sure.” I told him to pick me up at my dorm and prepared to leave.

           “I’ll bring a spare flashlight,” he volunteered as I made my way through the stacks back into the main library.

*****

It seems Alice has hooked F. P. Can she reel him in and land him? Let me know what you think at dontravis21@gmail.com. Keep on reading, guys.

Don

Next post will be at 6:00 a.m. on Thursday.

Back on the Air with a short story called “Phoebe”

On January 3, my site went off the air because Google said I failed to renew. Renew? Who knew? I received no requests or warnings, so I blundered blithely on until they pulled the plug. Getting reinstated wasn’t easy, I can tell you. I had to call on St. Larry (whom regular readers have met before) to perform his magic. It took until today, Jan 30 for him to get the reinstatement.

At any rate, I hope not too many people have given up on me and will find the site again. So here we go with another short story.

*****

PHOEBE

Phoebe… what a savage name. It rolls off the tongue and evokes images of a rad curvy Greek titan with lustrous blonde hair and sky blue eyes. One of Saturn’s moons got dubbed with that name. You know, after her. Of course, Phoebe’s also a longhorn beetle, but I don’t ever mention that.

A name shared by poets and musicians, actresses and artists, playwrights and screenwriters, Phoebe also served as the given name of the first female U. S. Marshal in America. I know. I looked it up in my Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.

The Phoebe in my life wasn’t up to those standards… yet. Of course, we’re still in high school so she has some growing to do. Okay, she’s a little vanilla, but she’ll develop into her name. Then too, she’s a brunette with brown eyes, but they’re nice brown eyes. Can’t quite claim she’s voluptuous. Still, I can look down the road and picture how she’ll be… when she gets there. Yeah, my Phoebe will do just fine.

Except she’s not really my Phoebe. We’ve been buds for years. Sat beside one another in more classes than I can count. Been to the same fleekin' parties together. But not … together. I sus she thinks on me like fam. That was going to change. Today. I asked her to meet me in the park after school and snuck out of my last class a little early to swing by the drug store for two strawberry milkshakes. That’s her dime… you know, favorite.

By the time I entered the park, she already sat at a picnic table reading and scratching the back of her head. Probably chilling on a romance novel. Bad. Nobody around.

Phoebe closed the book, which turned out to be our geometry text, and accepted the milkshake I offered. She took a big slug before speaking. “What’s up?”

“Does something have to be up?” I dissembled. This was harder than I imagined. We’d exchanged thousands of words—maybe millions—but none like the ones I wanted to say.

She blinked. “Not every day you ask me to meet you in the park. You need help with one of your classes?” She took another deep draw on the straw.

I smiled and shook my head. My egghead Phoebe. She set the grading curve in her classes so high the jocks bleeped her. But I managed to keep up. “Nope. Acing my classes.”

She plopped the book down on the concrete table and crossed her hands on top of the text. They were kinda broad and stubby. Another sign she’d fill out when her day came. “Okay, what?” she asked.

“We haven’t collected any down time together lately.”

“We studied for the biology test for two hours not more’n three days ago.” She raised her hands and slapped them back down on the book. “And we test quizzed one another on geometry yesterday. What else do you want?”

“Well. You know, some personal time.”

“Personal time? Since when do we need personal time, Boris Whiznant?” She stopped talking, and I endured a piercing stare from those brown orbs. “Are you getting funny ideas?”

I slipped off the table where I’d been perched and took the bench opposite her. “Funny ideas?”

“We’ve known each other since the fifth grade. We’re buddies. Pals. Study freaks. You gonna mess that all up?”

“H-how?” I stammered.

“OMG, you are! By getting mushy, that’s how.”

“I don’t want to be pals. Buddies. I want—” I had to stop and gulp air “—to go out with you.”

“Go out with me?” Her big mouth dropped open. I thought for a minute she was going to kek. “You mean like hashtag BF, GF?”

I reared back and said it like a man. “Yeah, exactly like that. I want you to be my girlfriend.”

I could have taken it if she had keked—you know laughed aloud. Instead, she threw dark shade at me like I was something gross lying on the table, got to her feet, and collected her textbook, pausing long enough to slurp down the rest of the shake. “I can’t even.”

“How come, Phoebe? Lay it one me.”

She shrugged her wide shoulders, another reason why she’d be—

“How do you chill with someone named Boris? Boris for crying out loud. You can’t make a cute pet handle out of Boris. You can call John, Johnny. Tim, Timmie. But Borie is boring. Borisee sounds like a German lake. Can’t shorten it. Bor is a wild pig. Can’t use the second syllable, either. Is is a part of the verb ‘to be.’ And Isie? Yuk!” She made a rude sound through her nose. “I just can’t.” She edged out from between the concrete bench and table, finished the dregs of her milkshake, and walked away.

I stood and yelled after her. “You can’t go out with me because of my name? Because of my name?”

I plopped back down on the hard concrete and rested my head in my hands. Unbelievable. Just because of my name. How shallow can you get?

*****

Hope you recognize some of the current teen slang. It almost left me behind… and I wrote it! At any rate, let me know what you think at dontravis21@gmail.com.

Keep on reading, guys. I always look forward to hearing from you.

See you next week.

Don

Next post will be at 6:00 a.m. on Thursday, putting us back on schedule.

PI Clients Are Not Always Pleasant (A reprint)

 I chose to reprint the following from near the beginning of Chapter 1 of THE BISTI BUSINESS for this week’s post because DSP Publications will be releasing this book before long.

In the scene, BJ is working late one evening when he receives a phone call from an individual looking for his son who—together with his traveling companion Dana Norville—is overdue from a vacation trip to the great state of New Mexico. The passage makes plain that confidential investigators occasionally end up dealing with clients they don’t personally like and, just as in any other profession, come face to face with bigotry on occasions. It also points out that PIs generally prefer to deal with attorneys as clients because lawyers realize what the rest of us do not. PI’s are information gatherers, not detectives who go around solving crimes… except in fiction… such as in THE BISTI BUSINESS, for example. The scene also allows me to highlight some New Mexico history. Enjoy.

*****

Cover by Mary Fanning

THE BISTI BUSINESS

“How about Norville?”

“That bastard’s a dyed-in-the-wool pansy, and he’s contaminating my son.”

I bit my tongue at the sophomoric outburst. “For your information, Mr. Alfano, I’m pretty ‘dyed-in-the-wool’ myself. I think you need to call someone else.”

“Now wait a minute.” Anthony Alfano obviously was not accustomed to getting the brush-off. “I know all about you. And except for that—nonsense—you’ve got a good reputation. You can move in both the straight world and the gay world. You’re the one I want. Find my son, Vinson, and send him home to his mother and me.”

“It’s Mr. Vinson.” Might as well set the bigoted SOB straight right at the beginning.

“All right, Mr. Vinson, score one for you. Are you sure you’re gay? You don’t sound it.”

“Does your son?”

“No, but—”

“But in your dreams he’s not twisted, right? How about Norville? Am I looking for a flaming queen?”

“Of course, not. Lando wouldn’t hang out with someone like that. No, I’ve got to admit, looking at Dana Norville, you wouldn’t suspect.”

“Then how can you be certain?”

“I did a quick background check on Norville when the two of them started bumming around together, and the guy was clean. But when they…uh, got close, I took another look and found the man Norville had been shacking up with before he latched onto my son.”

“Very well, Mr. Alfano, I’ll look into the matter. I’ll do it for Orlando and Dana, but you’re going to be footing the bills.”

He promised to have his secretary in California call Hazel tomorrow with the credit card information for my retainer and to provide anything else we requested. I asked him to email color photos of the two men. If they were as close as he believed, there would be a few around somewhere. He also gave me his son’s cell and pager numbers.

After hanging up, I tapped my desk blotter with a gold and onyx letter opener fashioned into a miniature Toledo blade. I sighed aloud. The Alfano case had all the hallmarks of developing into a nightmare. Working for attorneys was easier; they understood the process. Private individuals had a warped idea of what a PI did, which was nothing more or less than gathering information. But I was committed, so I might as well make the best of it.

I returned to the visual meditation of the landscape outside my window. As nature’s glow dimmed, man-made lights came alive: amber lampposts, white fluorescents, flamboyant neons, yellow vehicle headlights reflecting off wet pavement, and far in the distance a tiny spot moving slowly across the sky—one of the aerial trams hauling patrons up Sandia Peak’s rugged western escarpment to the restaurant atop the mountain.

By leaning forward, I caught the faint, rosy underbelly of a western cloudbank, the lingering legacy of a dead sunset. Was that what had drawn Orando and Dana to the Land of Enchantment? Spectacular scenery and surreal sunsets? Or was it our rich heritage of Indian and Hispanic art? The two were history majors, and Albuquerque had a long history. It was approaching its 300th birthday, while Santa Fe and many of the nearby Indian Pueblos had longer lifelines.

*****

The Zozobra Incident was released by DSP this past November. Bisti, along with The City of Rocks will be published in 2017. The novels feature the adventures of BJ Vinson and his partner, Paul Barton.

Keep on reading, guys. I always look forward to hearing from you at dontravis21@gmail.com.

See you next week.

Don

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.