Friday, January 27, 2012

CASE NUMBER THREE

THE CASE OF AUTHOR GODFREE

CHAPTER ONE

I’m thinking it was some sort of non-linear temporal vortex that had sent me from 2011 Central America (or was it Southern Mexico? I was never sure about the location of the Mayan Ruins) to 1959 Dime Box, Texas. But even if I wasn’t in my currently confused and befuddled state of mind, and even if I was instead in my usual sharp and focused TPE institute trained mind, I couldn’t tell you what a ‘non-linear temporal vortex’ was; to be honest, I don’t even know where the term came from; the first sentence just seemed to write itself. But nonetheless, whatever state of mind my state of mind was currently in, it was a state of mind that found itself in the state of Texas.

Now for those of you who want to know as much as I know do about my present circumstances, and if you haven’t done so already, you may to want to take a few minutes to read my previous adventure that got me in this mess: THE CASE OF THE ODD GOD OUT.

CHAPTER TWO

Bobby D helped me to my feet and we started walking to what he called the B6 Family Diner, Drive-In and Dive.

“But how can it be all three? Doesn’t it have to be one or the other or the other?” I asked.

“You don’t explain things in Dime Box. They just are and the B6 is all three.”

We walked to the end of Kinsey St. and turned left on Main St. The B6 was then two blocks down on the right. When we got to it, I have to say I wasn’t too impressed by its façade. The B6 looked like (and actually was it turned out) a double-wide trailer with an added-on porch on the side. (“That’s the dive section.” Bobby told me). When I asked about the drive-in part, Bobby said that most people drove to the restaurant. Walking wasn’t big in Dime Box.

CHAPTER THREE

We got a table for two in the crowded dining room. From experience, Bobby recommended I order child’s portions. “The management gets upset if you don’t clean your plate and unless you’re a whole lot bigger eater than you appear to be, you’ll be getting the riot act. Trust me, I speak from experience.” As hungry I was, it was all I could do to eat all of the child’s portions that were put before me.

During the meal, Bobby and I talked about how he had become a resident, albeit, a temporary one of Dime Box.

“I’m from Minnesota. On my 18th birthday I bought a bus ticket for Texas. Dime Box was as far as I got before I ran out of money.”

“How far did you want to go?”

“I wanted to go all the way to Austin and investigate the Western Swing movement. My dream is to be a professional musician. But I’ve been stuck here in Dime Box for the last few months.”

“Still no money?”

“I’ve been working as a dishwasher here at the B6. But I just quit this morning. I’ve saved up my money and now I’m going to Austin.”

I had never traveled through time before so I wasn’t up on Time Travel Proper Protocol. What could I say and what couldn’t I say? But it was pretty obvious Bobby was headed in the wrong direction. I finally deciding a little nudging wouldn’t hurt. Heck, the Mayan Calendar Catastrophe might have already messed up Time beyond repair anyway.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Bobby, what instrument do you play?”

“Acoustic guitar.”

“Have you ever considered the folk scene? Pete Seeger, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Woody Guthrie. Why I bet you can play some mean Woody.”

Bobby looked thoughtful. “That’s a good suggestion. But where do I start?”

“You start by going back to Minnesota.” Bobby started to protest. “Hear me out. When you get back there teach yourself the harmonica. It’ll give some street cred, I mean authenticity, to your folk act. Wait a few years before you go electric though. Build a base that will stick with you through thick and thin.”

Bobby was getting the idea. “Should I write my own songs?”

“Of course. But make the lyrics opaque and esoteric. People will think you’re smart. Stick with protest songs to begin with; the girls really go for them. Here’s a good theme: write about how 1 % of the country owns most of the wealth and how the other 99% get the shaft. Wait a minute, don’t use those terms. Just use the term ‘greedy rich bastards.’”

“Bastard is a hard word to rhyme.”

“Trust me. You’ll find you’re a better word rhymer than you ever imagined.”

“Where do I take my act?”

“Greenwich Village in New York City is a good place to start. But you’re going to have to change your name. Bobby D sounds like a motel lounge act. What does the D stand for?”

“Deerfield.”

“Too long. Keep the D and randomly pick four letters from the alphabet. Put them after the D in any order. Doesn’t matter. And change Bobby to Bob. It’s time to become a man.”

“That’s funny. That’s the same thing Matilda the cook told me last week at closing time one night.” Bobby’s face suddenly turned red.

Bobby, I mean Bob, seemed grateful for my advice. As we parted he asked, “Will I find the answers I’m looking for?”

“Not all of them. But the ones you do find,” I paused pensively, “might be blowin’ in the wind.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Bobby had offered to pay for my meal, but knowing that he needed every penny he had to get back to Minnesota, I politely declined. I was in a quandary, though. TPEs never carried cash. Our Third Heaven issued TPE credit cards were good everywhere, and I mean everywhere: all parts of Earth, all parts of the Solar System, Third Heaven Cafeteria, etc. and even supposedly throughout Eternity (past, present, and future). Its motto was ‘Don’t Leave The Universe Without It’. But it seemed there was one thing the Associates at the TH Credit Bureau did not consider. The B6 accepted only cash (or coins to be more exact; they really loved the shiny ones).

There was one other option. Because of the volume of food that was dished out on a daily basis, dishwashers were always needed at the B6. I worked doing so until about 2 am (which also paid for my breakfast), took a nap in an area designed for dishwashers to sleep in (much like rooms used by overworked interns in a hospital), woke up about 6 am, ate breakfast (which was enough food for the whole day), brushed my teeth with my portable toothbrush (which thankfully hadn’t fallen out of my pocket while I was hurtling through the non-linear temporal vortex) and at 6:30 am was on my way to College Station, Texas.



CHAPTER SIX

I was able to hitch a ride to Sweetwater Flats, which had a bus station and a bank. With my TPE credit card, I got some much needed 1959 hard currency at the bank. I then went to the bus station and bought a one way ticket to College Station, home of Texas A&M and probably the greatest research institution in the nation. If anyone could help me find The Ghost, it was the sophisticated scientists at A&M.

I was winging it in the dark. No celestial cell phone connection, and even if I had one, who was I going to call? The Boss and Boss Jr. were millions of light years away; the Associates were tied up in a battle in the Alpha Centauri System with The Man and his Minions that might last another 500 years; and then there was The Ghost. Where was he? Now you might ask, hasn’t 1959 already occurred and if that’s true, wasn’t the Boss, Boss Jr. and the Ghost around at that time? The answer of course would be yes but maybe this wasn’t the same 1959 as that 1959 and in this 1959 they were gone or missing as described above. Weighing all the possibilities, I decided that was the best assumption to go on.

It looked like I was suddenly living in a god free world, and if that was the case, maybe it was time I gave atheism a real hard look.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Before stepping on the bus, I bought the latest edition of the Dallas Morning Views. With all the changes that were going on, there was one fundamental fact that hadn’t changed. Even in what might be a godless world, I was still a Class II Theological Private Eye and I still had a job to do. Just because it was virtually an impossible job didn’t deter me. Not in the least.

I bought the Views because I was looking for clues. Newspapers in 1959 in many ways were more informative than newspapers in 2011. They had to be. Cable tv, the internet, and twitter were not yet available.

I read every section very carefully. I was hoping that some obscure tidbit of information (“Information is the enemy of uncertainty” as some scientific pundit would write years later.) would jump out and grab my attention. Nothing did but in the entertainment section there was a line that was interesting but didn’t strike me as important at the time: ‘Divorce rate in Hollywood goes down for third year in a row.’ I wish now at the time I had paid more heed to that line and had given it more thought. Doing so might have saved me from a life threatening situation. But I didn’t.

CHAPTER EIGHT

College Station was looking lazy in the noonday sun (the paper was dated June 12 – so the non-linear temporal vortex had not only displaced years but months and days as well). The bus station turned out to be only ten blocks or so from the A&M campus so I walked there. It felt good to walk in the warm, Texas sun. The exercise was good for me too as I was still suffering from being stuffed in Dime Box.

I saw a crowd of people standing around a statue that stood at the entrance to the campus. Apparently it was the birthday of a famous Texan and the statue was dedicated to him. I was able to get close enough to read the inscription at the bottom of the statue:

Dedicated to the memory of:

Colonel Billy Bob Ledbetter

Born June 12, 1850 – Died December 31, 1949

Knew that God did not exist, but yet still able to build

Financial empire as Religious Huckster

Didn’t give Religion a bad name, because it already had one

“I am not sincere, even when I say I am not. “

-Jules Renard, writer

A tribute to an Atheistic Religious Huckster? How strange that seemed, but then I remembered I was in College Station where anything goes.

Just then a loud horn went off and I expected a fire truck to come rushing by. But no one seemed perturbed by the horn. They did, however, begin quickly strolling in the direction of a big bowl-like structure that appeared to be about a quarter of a mile away. I stood still as the crowd moved away from me. One of the young men in the group stopped and looked back at me. He asked, “Aren’t you coming to the game?”

I walked up toward him, “What game?”

“Why the football game, of course. It’s Saturday afternoon, ain’t it?

“Football? But isn’t it baseball season?”

The young man looked at me wild-eyed like I was some sort of heretic in the Dark Ages. I knew college kids loved bonfires. I just hoped one of them wasn’t meant for me.

CHAPTER NINE

Sensing I was in danger, I reacted as only a well-trained TPE could and would. I pretended that I had made a joke. The man didn’t laugh, but neither did he call on his friends to help him tie me to the stake. He just shrugged and started walking toward the stadium.

I waited a few moments then followed him, but not too closely. He might look back and change his mind.

My next big surprise happened at the ticket gate. There was none. No one was collecting any money or tickets. There was a reason why but I wouldn’t find it out until halftime.

Once inside, I was lucky to find a seat. The stadium was packed. The game hadn’t even started and the place was going wild.

The A&M team, nicknamed the Aggies, were playing their hated rival, the Longhorns from the University of Texas.

It turned out to be quite a game and I learned things that are still hard to believe.

CHAPTER TEN

The game is now over. It’s midnight and I’ve been sitting for the past six hours in a dark and dank college bar on the edge of the campus. In that time I’ve had about ten Old Milwaukees (Shagah Lite won’t be on the market for 52 years). Since OM is nothing more than slightly alcoholic colored water I am totally sober. I needed to be so I could digest what I had seen and heard in the afternoon. It’s a good thing I couldn’t call the Third Heaven or a fellow TPE. No would have believed me. They would have thought I was drunk. And they may have been right. I wonder. Did the Aggie bartender spike the OM?

In an effort to remain coherent, I am going to simply list what I learned. Since, as far as I know, I am the only person from 2011 now living in 1959 (well, in this particular and peculiar 1959) I have no witnesses that I can ask to corroborate these assertions. Either simply believe me or simply don’t. I would wash my hands of it if I could but there’s no soap in the bathroom.



Here in no particular order is the game of ‘College Football’ as it was played on June 12, 1959 in College Station, Texas:



1. Entrance to the game is free because a collection plate is passed around at halftime.

2. Also, at halftime, a band plays and a chorus sings ‘A Mighty Fortress is Our Football’ while little bits of beef brisket and tiny cups of Shiner beer are passed around to all the players, coaches, school officials, game officials, press members, students and spectators.

3. When a player is headed for a touchdown, he is said to be ‘Glory Bound’.

4. The coach of the Aggies is named Herbert W. Armstrong. The QB is his son, Garner Ted.

5. The games are played on Saturday because, according to Armstrong, if there was a God, he would have wanted them to play on that day because it was God’s Play Day.

6. Penalties, such as off sides or holding, are called sins. If a player commits a sin, he has to ask forgiveness from the game official who called the sin. The game official subjectively decides whether or not to forgive the sin. If he does not, the team with the sinner has to pay a tithe (ten yard penalty).

7. Football is played year round. All other sports are banned. The young man did turn me in and I was accused of blasphemy and threatened with excommunication. When they found out I just passing through they let me go with a warning.

8. A huddle is called a Prayer Circle.

9. What I know as a ‘Hail Mary’ pass they call a ‘Hail Darwin.’

10. Madeline O’Hare is the Commissioner of the Texas Football Synod.

11. ‘Getting to the Promised Land’ means going to the Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Day.

12. An ‘Altar Call’ is when fans storm the field once the game is over.

I could go on but I think you get the drift.



CHAPTER ELEVEN

It was about one am when it struck me that I wasn’t going to find any answers in College Station. The fact that I could think that thought meant I was probably still sane.

But where do I go from here?

Have you ever wondered just where the brain stores things? Things that we see, feel, experience, read, hear, smell, touch, etc. All those things must still be in the brain. The problem is to getting to them, especially the ones that can open up the doors of mystery and can lead us to the answers that we so desperately seek. A highly trained TPE should be equipped at all times (pun intended) and places to find ways to access those seemingly impenetrable mysteries.

It was time I put my TPE training to work. Bereft of almost all modern private eye essentials, I realized all I had in a god free world was my brain.

Would it be enough?

It was something I would have to think about.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The next morning after a few hours of sleep on the Prescott Bush Bench in the Bear Bryant Town Park, I flipped a coin; the first of two flips actually. The first flip established whether I would go either east/west or north/south. East/west won. Then I flipped again. I was headed west.

My plan was simple. I would travel in a westerly direction and the only thing I would do while traveling was think. Since the purpose of the thinking was to come up with a final destination there was no reason to hurry. As long as I was both moving westerly and thinking, I was doing my job.

Prayer would do no good because there was no one to pray to; neither would positive thinking because TPEs were not trained to think positively (or negatively for that matter). We were just trained to think.

And that was what I planned to do.

The thinking would be its own reward. It also might yield a nugget of information that would propel me to the next nugget of information and so on and so on.

I decided the best combination of travel and thinking could be found on a train going from Houston to El Paso. I took a Greyhound to Houston, then a taxi to the train station and soon was riding the rails to El Paso.

I took my seat and started thinking. Real hard.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Somewhere between Austin and El Paso while thinking real hard, I came up with a thought. To find The Ghost I would need to think like The Ghost. It immediately struck me that that might not be an easy thing to do. But if the Boss was on the celestial, I know just what he would say: “I never promised you easy.”

Now if I had spent all my previous existence everywhere, not just somewhere, how would it have affected me? One way might be I would know things in a surface manner. Because I was so spread out my knowledge of them would be skimpy. Also, I would probably not be real familiar with idiomatic ways of speaking. I would most likely be very literal minded and I would miss many of life’s nuances. In other words, my knowledge would be broad not deep. Now please don’t take this as a criticism of The Ghost. He had a job to do and that job was being the Everywhere. The Boss took care of the Everything while BJ was the Everyman. They had made a great combo. Would we ever see such again?

The train pulled into El Paso. I got out and stretched and then went straight to the ticket booth. For some reason I bought a ticket to Los Angeles.

Still moving west. Still thinking hard.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

While being lost traveling in time, I had lost track of time while traveling on the tracks. And then it hit me. From the depths of my brain there busted out a clue: ‘Divorce rate in Hollywood down for third year in a row.’ That had to be the most incredulous statement ever written. Such a thing was against everything Hollywood stood for; in a god free world, that was a definition of a miracle. But if it was a miracle, then there had to be a god behind it; or the remnants of a god. A god who had become human but still had enough of the vital force in him to effect changes all around him. Yes, some kind of good spirit was emanating outward over the usually adulterous Hollywood avenues.

For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, I knew where The Ghost was located.

The train arrived in LA on time, or so I assumed, but since I was living in the wrong time there didn’t seem to be any right time.

I found a decent motel and checked in using my Third Heaven issued TPE credit card. After taking a much needed shower, I sat down on the bed and started perusing the phone book.

It was going to be a long night.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The hours slipped by. My eyes were both bloodshot and heavy. The coffee was no longer working. I had made it to the G’s and was just about ready to give up the search for a while and grab some shut-eye.

Then I saw it. Why hadn’t I thought of it myself? I knew The Ghost would be literal minded so it followed he would chose a name and profession that would literally describe who he was and what he did. And there it was, on page 147 of the Greater Los Angeles Phone Book. As follows:

Godfree, Author 1953 Simpson Ave. Mulberry exchange P1453

It didn’t list his profession but can you guess it like I did?

I thought you could.

He was a Ghostwriter.

EPILOG

The next few days were rather exciting. I explored the back lots of Hollywood and got to meet several people in the movie and television industries. My biggest thrill was visiting the set of ‘Peter Gunn’. After he died, Craig Stevens, the actor who played Gunn, was asked to be on the Third Heaven TPE Institute Board of Advisors as well as work as a Third Shift Cafeteria Supervisor. I couldn’t tell him that, of course, when I met him in 1959.

Meeting Author Godfree was another matter. He was definitely in Hollywood but everywhere I went to find him he was no longer there; still acting like The Ghost but with a much more limited range.

But I wasn’t going to give up easily. If I couldn’t talk Author Godfree into becoming The Ghost again, I could at least see if he could somehow send me back to 2011.

It was worth a try anyway.

THE END

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