"Endless Story # 1" Topic

Okay…let's lighten the mood around here, time to start singing in the trenches, re-arrange the deck chairs, ignore the fact that our neighbors now all have MERS.

I'll start and youse guise keep it going…but DO try and keep it within the same vein, will you.

Major Experiment was worried about Captain Beefheart, because he knew that Beefheart had a substantial steak in Captain Corelli's Mandolin Factory. Oh sure, when the war was over, the three of them expected to slice and dice their way to riches, but what if they were wrong?

What if Miss Demeanor had been listening at the door that frosty July afternoon in Bangkok? Did she know? Would she tell others that they had replaced their solid steal cutting blades with used Yper blades instead?

Even worse, did she know of their nefarious plot to overthrow the government of the United States of America with the assistance of the Boormann Tabernacle Choir…

Tony Solido put his feet up on the desk and tried to think. Sure, the dame was as hot as sunshine but her eyes made him think of rattlesnakes. But she was the only one that could lead him to the Singing Brakeman.

…the time I ran into him, quite literally, on Mars…so many years ago.

We bumped into each other at the 5th Avenue Bar, just off the old Hearsay Highway. It was Payday and he told me that he'd just won $100,000 USD at the illegal casino underneath the bar. We had a few drinks and then he invited me to accompany him to the Kit Kat Club, where Lady Godiva was appearing. He told me that I'd go Zagnutz when I saw her beautiful Almond Mounds.

So we went. It all started out well; Lady Godiva was putting on a ping pong show for us that I'd only seen three or four times before in Singapore. Then I noticed a few of the tables surrounding us began to fill up with some rather unsavory characters.

"Can't be Tony the S's boys", the Brakeman muttered into my ear, "You ever seen'em before?"

"No, they're a mean looking crew though. I think I've heard of them…a long time ago.", I replied.

Red Dust Bikers, wearing lipstick and vests proclaiming their allegiance to the Olympus Mons Committee were bad news anywhere this side of Jupiter.

Just then, one of the bikers stood up from his table and walked over to us. I tried hard not to Snicker, but he was shorter than the table and was trying hard to balance an old Bugs Bunny Compilation DVD on his head.

Poor guy, couldn't carry a toon.

Just then the Brakeman smacked his forehead and looked at me with a gleam in his eye.

"Hold on…I mean wait…er, stop a second…slow down, it's coming to me…"…

It was the matchbox.. Solido snapped out of sleep like a whip. Solido had been dreaming of a certain golden eyed girl from the Kit Kat Klub. Her name was Gumdrop or Jujube or something: Mars was long ago and best forgotten. But he remembered she had barely been taller than the table. Solido had seen her pass by the Brakeman just before the scene with the Red Dust crew. The brakeman had handed her a matchbox under the table. Just then the door burst open. The dame with the rattlesnake eyes was framed in the opening. It was hard to see anything else than her figure but the shadow behind her was carrying a Roscoe in a meaty fist……

Ca Shu ate his soup in silence ignoring the crass and loathsome voices of the common ruffians. Pea soup reminded him of London and the night the Brakeman had slipped away in the dense fog. But tonight Ca Shu saw that Heaven bestowed favor on him. There was the woman he believed to be a Fox Spirit and the twin of Mac. Ca Shu knew he was closer to Corelli, but who was the other man Ack had shoved in a seat at a table. No one noticed the large man wearing a Captain's hat shelling peanuts in the corner just another nut leaning against the wall.

With the peanuts finished, the man put the rest of his clothes back on, got up from the table and walked out of the bar into the all-engulfing darkness. But the peg-arm, the patch over one ear, and the small canary perched on his shoe told even the most casual observer that Captain Humous B Jokking was no ordinary merchant skipper. Nor was he a man to be trifled with.

For he knew the whereabouts of the Brakeman……

Tony Solido sat in the ally behind Pish Tachio's club tubbing his head. Ack had worked him over and thrown him out after the interview with Corelli in the back office. The dame and the muscle had brought him there so Corelli could pick his brain about the Brakeman. But why? If the dame knew the Brakeman why did Corelli need to pull him in for a grilling? Just then a man with a peg arm and a canary on his shoe walked by. Solido looked at the canary…of course, Solido remembered the dame now. She had been a canary at the Kit Kat Klub on Mars. She was working for the Brakeman. Just as Solido put the pieces together his world went black. Ca Shu stood over the unconscious figure. He knew he didn't have to use the cosh but it made him feel better.

The Dame with the Rattlesnake Eyes…Yeah, I remember her. No one who'd ever met her could ever forget that moment, because they were real rattlesnake eyes. REAL Rattlesnake Eyes, so help me God.

The funny thing was that she'd managed to let the rattlesnake live. I'd seen it a few weeks after the incident, crossing the Mars 301 using a walker and a Hearing Ear Cane…it wasn't a pretty sight.

Of course the guy behind her was carrying a Roscoe…would you expect anything else? What did he care that the Warren Commission had outlawed Roscoe's last year; there wasn't too much law on Mars to begin with.

Yeah, she spotted the Brakeman right away, but somehow missed seeing Corelli in the corner. I didn't see him either, because it was just then that the "not so ordinary Merchant Skipper" passed in front of me. I pride myself in taking in a lot in a short amount of time as far as my surroundings are concerned, it always helps to know where the exits are…along with the mens room; but too much was happening right in front of me to catch the sideshow's going on off to either side.

My head was exploding with a million thoughts and scenario's right then…The Olympus Mons Committee, Boormann's Tabernacle Choir and a pair of rattlesnake eyes, boring into me and dripping venom.

I did manage to catch Ca Shu slipping out the side door off from the bar, but I was still so entranced with those terrible eyes that it took me a second longer to realize that someone else besides the Brakeman was standing next to me, the smell of AXE cologne…not the cheap stuff either, caught my nose, but it was the warm, soft thigh that rubbed up against my leg that really got my attention.

It was Miss Demeanor and in her left hand was a used Yper blade, with blood all over it, while in her other left hand was a box of Jujube's. Before I could say anything she leaned close to me and whispered…

"Endless story? Let's go to a…"

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;-)