A continuing story.........

Sorry for the grumpiness...a bit of indigestion perhaps.
Realjohnboy writes ACTION!

Nick and Lola get back into the Jimmy after the arrest of Hiama.
They head out on Rte 74, with Nick driving at pretty much the same speed. (Hell, they made it from NJ to TX in only a couple of postings; Nick is one fast driver). Lola loves it. She loves the wind coming through the partially opened window, blowing her slightly graying hair. She loves Nick.

She doesn't object when Nick reaches across and rests his hand on her leg, just above her knee. She sighs softly as Nick, one hand on the steering wheel and with the speedometer hitting 80, begins moving his

---This is Ms Realjohnboy. -rjb- has been medicated for this evening. He may try again tomorrow. I think he may have mis-interpreted what kind of action scene he was supposed to write.

NOTE:

Lola sees a colorist every four weeks. No gray hair, not even gray roots are ever seen adorning Lola's head.

Nick and Lola are hungry and agree to stop at a truck stop along the way. As they are being shown to their seats by the lovely brunette receptionist, with the fringed halter top and boy pants shorts, Trevor arrives. He's heard about Nick and Lola and wants to be sure everyone know thats Nick and Lola are only good, platonic, much loved friends. Lola and Nick are happy to see Trevor and invite him to join them for dinner.

Nick orders bisquits smothered with sausage gravy, a side of grits, three eggs over easy all the while eyeing the fringe decorating the lovely brunette. Nick was a pushover for fringe. Lola was absorbed with other attentions, occassionally missing her mouth with the sinker that sopped up her coffee. She was a study in rapture only duplicated in the back of a readers digest from which had just falled a flag decal, a Canadian flag. Nick reaching for lola's attention says 'according to the current doctrines of mysticoscientism, we human animals are really and actually nothing but `organic patterns of nodular energy composed of collocations of infinitesimal points oscillating on the multi-dimensional
coordinates of the space-time continuum'. but right now I'm going to finish this blueplate special, order a Blatz beer, and contemplate the a posteriori coordinates of that young brunette over yonder, the one in the tennis skirt, tying her shoelaces. She has really nice fringe.

As Nick pigs out on artery clogging delicacies, Lola, the former Reader's Digest model of times past is telling Trevor about the adventures of the last few days. Trevor listens politely, while watching Nick eyeing the hot brunette across the room.

"Fringe," Trevor thought. "Nice stuff if you can get it."

Lola falls silent as she contemplates Nick's mysticoscientism musings and watches Trevor watch Nick watching the fringy girl across the room. The look of "pushover" is on Nick's face which makes Lola think of a Brautigan poem she once heard.

the eternal she

I gave
a girl my soul.

She looked at it.

Smiled faintly.

And dropped
it into the gutter.

Casually.

God! she had class.

After dinner, Trevor says he has to catch a plane back to New York, he has work to do. So Nick, Lola and Trevor pile into the Jimmy and head on down the highway toward the airport.

Lola looks at Nick and says, "oh well, Nick, that girl would have broken your heart."

Nick looks with disbelief at Lola. "My heart? I wasn't thinkin about my heart, I was thinkin about the fringe. I have a weakness for fringe, even if it's nothing but organic patterns of nodular energy composed of collocations of infinitesimal points oscillating on the multi-dimensional coordinates of the space-time continuum."

"Collocations?" asks Lola. "What is a collocation?"

But Nick isn't listening................

Meanwhile..........

rjb is getting a good night's sleep with Mrs. rjb, who hasn't misunderstood at all what kind of action rjb was supposed to have been writing.

VISITOR WRITES DESCRIPTIVELY
(200 words or more required)
Approved _________ (initial, please)
(this is work!)

SETTING: Blossom returns home from her study date with Richard.

Heaving her backpack onto her bed, Blossom Flower surveys her bedroom. It is an attic room, remodeled when Blossom was but a child. Pink and purple flowered wallpaper covers the slanted walls, a constant reminder of the days of Barney and Goodnight Moon. It is a neat and orderly room, reflective of Blossom's mind. One large window fills the gable end of the room. Blossom's collection of prisms hang in the window, filling the room with rainbows. She has collected these prisms on family trips. The spherical prism came from a museum shop in Denver, a cylindrical one came from Disney World. There are a dozen more.

Blossom takes off her new yellow Sketchers and carries them to her closet. The closet door is covered with posters. No Barney here...these are Blossom's current fixations. One large poster of Bon Jovi is surrounded by dozens of small photos of Justin Timberlake. Blossom has cut these pictures out of teen magazines, which are carefully stacked inside the door of the closet. Blossom wishes her mother would let her take down the door of the closet and replace it with a beaded curtain. Then the closet could become a sort of hideaway. She envisions writing in her diary in there. Or listening to CDs. She just hasn't figured out what to do with her clothes yet.

The hideaway would be the perfect place to escape from her little brother, Freddie. He is always following her around, which infuriates Blossom. And he is always inventing some new prank involving his pet lizard. Sometimes Blossom wishes she could lock Freddie in a closet somewhere...

(very nice descriptive contribution, Visitor)

Meanwhile back in the traveling Jimmy..........

As the three friends speed along down the highway, the music playing loud on the radio, the windows down, everybody smoking a Camel cigarette (Lola figures, "what the hell, may as well join these two guys in an early and possibly painful death"), Lola and Trevor decide Lola should return to New York with Trevor. They've suddenly discovered some urgent business that needs attention.

At the airport, Lola collects her things and tells Nick what fun she's had. Giving him an affectionate (and is it a lingering?) kiss on the cheek, Lola and Trevor wave good by at the airport entrance.

"Take care Nick," Lola calls as Nick turns his Jimmy back onto the highway, turns up the music and lights another Camel. "Damn woman, telling me I should quit smoking," Nick mumbles under his breath. Nick is so caught up in his musings (as usual) he almost misses the lone figure on the side of the road, her thumb out, needing and requesting a ride. In his rear view mirror he catches a clear image of a girl in a fringed halter top and white shorts.

Nick makes a quick u-turn and pulls onto the shoulder.

The girl doesn't hesitate, she sees that it's the guy she had been hoping to find out here on the highway. She recognizes his red Jimmy and his hat.

As Nick lowers his window, he doesn't even get a chance to speak. "Where ya goin?" asks the girl who up close is even prettier and more well endowed that she looked at the truck stop. Gorgeous big brown eyes with heavy, long lashes and a friendly and inviting smile.

"This is no girl," thinks Nick, "this is a woman. Just look at those white teeth, and those legs........oh this is gonna be fun."

"Where'd you wanna go?" asks Nick, barely able to hide his enthusiasm.

The girl, not managing as well as Nick to cover her eagerness, says, "no where, exactly........I'll just ride along with you, if you don't mind."

Nick doesn't get a chance to answer before the girl runs around the Jimmy and climbs into the front seat. Turning her inviting smile in Nick's direction, the girl says, "Hi, my name's Sylvia. Let's go. I'm starving, are you hungry too?".........................

Nick, ever wary, slips his billfold from his pocket in into the console and closes it locked tight, "hiya Sylvia, my names Bill." The fringe, like the feathers dangling from the dream catcher hanging from his rear view mirror, dances in the breeze. Nick knows, from many years of hard knocks, an overly friendly with those legs is up to no good but its a long, lonely drive back to Clovis. "Burger King?" he says, knowing full well that most anything done quickly is seldom worth doing but they got a drive-thru and an open highway. With one hand on the lady and one on the Whopper they cross the Oklahoma line.

Sylvia is happy with her Burger King. She loves Burger King. She loves Dairy Queen too. And, don't forget, she's wild about the dream catcher. If only she could find a poet, a dreamer..............

(What Nick does not yet know is that Sylvia is the heir to a vast fortune from a family back East. She prefers for now to live a less complicated life and not be controlled and pushed around by her wealty, dominant, industrialist father and her whiney mother. And she hates those snotty, Eastern, preppy type men. As a matter of fact, Nick is just her type and she can't believe her good luck that he's available. She's been lonely and she yearns for a poet.)

Nick, feigning nescience, mumbles something incoherent to Sylvia, something about event horizons and Jungian archetypal images appearing on prayer wheels, mandalas and Navaho sand paintings. Nick is confused amidst dangling fringe, fluttering feathers and legs that go all the way to the floorboards. Could it be he remembers the parts from Gary Snyders motorcycle in the back of the Jimmy, no, he says to himself, thats not it, thats not it at all. Forgetting about Clovis, Nick computes a new route. A route that will take in the hot springs south of Los Alamos then winding up to El Rito, down the canyon side of the Rio Grande and finially into Taos and the El Monte Motel. The back cabin with the kiva fireplace, a chilled bottle of Caves Bonifácio. He ponders telling Syliva his real name, but then is she really Syliva?

Sylvia suspects Bill is not "Bill's" real name. She senses a basic practicality in this man that would lead, no doubt to caution when confronted with something almost too good to be true. She can wait. She won't tell him about her family for now either. She doesn't want to scare him away. He looks like the kind of man who knows how to savor the basic pleasures in life and might be put off by the power hungry, money grubbing family from which she emanates.

She decides, rather than talk too much, she'll collect the trash left over from the hambergers, sit back in the comfortable seat, take out a little pipe from her fringed bad and relax.

"Here, Bill," she says. "Try some of this."

Meanwhile back in Texas............

As Blossom, sitting beneath the pink and purple flowers, contemplates what she'd like to do to her little brother, she leans back and falls asleep.

At the police station, HIAMA is trying to explain to Jennifer's father that he didn't know Jen was underage. He's not really a pedophile, he's quite simply often fooled by budding, almost of age girls. Jen's Dad begins to reminisce with HIAMA about his younger days, how he was often pleasantly similarly fooled. Pretty soon, he and HIAMA are exchanging stories about their exploits and they both decide to go out and have a beer.

(oh, my...I just got home from work -can y'all say "work?" Y'all
have certainly been busy today.
Visitor, I congratulate you on a job well done.
I'm still working on my end of the deal. It's proving to be more difficult than I had anticipated and, alas, I have to work tomorrow.
I will do it, though. Promise.) -rjb-

At the corner she rested, the sac was heavier this time than the last and she needed a moment to catch her breath. The deep darkness she loved was all around and, despite a low hum coming from somewhere high above, there was an air of calm amidst her sense of anticipation. Taking one last touch of the floor to feel for danger and sensing none, she moved on around the edge of the wall. As she made her way down the long passage she listened carefully to the sounds from above and below, stopping now and then to wait till a particular vibration passed. All seemed to be in order, then there was a puff of warm air to her right side and she hastened to get beyond it though she worried about disturbing the seal on her precious burden. She found a small alcove and rested again before making the last dash to the opening she had used so many times. She struggled through the break in the wall and hurried to finish. There, the sac lay just where the roach wanted it, in the corner of the closet under an abandoned wool sock.

j

As Christine the cockroach scurried under the door of the closet and between the cracks in the wall, she heard Blossom say, "Ok, Richard, what movie would you like to see?"

REALJOHNBOY'S ACTION STORY (This may not sequence with recent postings but here goes):

Sylvia doesn't object when Nick reaches across and rests his hand on her leg, just above her knee. She sighs as Nick, one hand on the steering wheel and with the speedometer hitting 80, begins moving his...

"Oh, no," screams Sylvia. There in the middle of the highway is a bunny rabbit.
Nick and Sylvia shout in unison, "Run, rabbit, run. Run, run, run."

Nick jerks the wheel as hard as he can to the right and then as hard as he can to the left. He expects to hear the thump of a tire
crushing the hare.
There is no thump, but the Jimmy does 360's across the highway;
spinning around and around.
Sylvia barfs up everything she ate at the fast food place.
***
"Smokey" Gleason drives a tractor-trailer. It's 70' long and today he's hauling crates full of chickens to the processing-plant. Thousands of them.
Suddenly he see this SUV spinning across the highway. He hits the brakes as hard as he can. Standing on the brakes, almost.
"Smokey" looks in the mirror outside his door and sees what every trucker fears: the back of his rig is out of control!
The truck jackknifes, landing on its side, screeching along the pavement and sending up sparks.
It comes to a stop. For a moment there is silence and then the gas tank explodes.
***
Sylvia says to Nick, "Let's get the hell out of here." Nick says "Wait a minute."
They wait until they hear the sirens getting nearer. Nick steps out of the Jimmy, walks to the wreckage of the truck and picks up a crate of birds. Returning to Sylvia, he asks "Would you like some chicken? I think it's done."

Word Count? above 200
Adjectives? None
Action?

very good, rjb. Very nice. Except I think Nick and Sylvia probably hit the bunny and it's now squashed flat on the highway. Poor little guy. :-)

Actually Nick and Sylvia were parked just off the highway exploring roadmaps among other things, their level in intricacy still in the exploratory stages. Not only the screech of tires but the smell of burning chickens altered their intentions, honorable as they were. OklaDamnHoma was behind them, OklaDamHoma was ahead of them and Tejas was miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles. Nick eased out onto the highway threading his way between the Gold and Black Jimmy 180'd on the road, the smoky with the flashing bubble gum lights and the overturned Mack bulldogged into the pavement. Sylvia's fringe jiggled as Nick shifted into overdrive, next stop Amarillo. "Butch didn't die in Boliva" Nick says to Sylvia "he came home to Utah-I saw him after he got back. The Sundance Kid was killed in Boliva and it really grieved Butch to leave him there." Sylvia closed her eyes and thought of ice cream.

Blossom hung up the phone, annoyed. She didn't know what she was going to do with Richard. Sometimes he could be so slow.

Applause for realjohnboy (wow! you're better at action than I am at description!...could be that writing catalog copy lately has drained my brain of adjectives) and also to Joe Nation (who is showing off again...damn, I almost became a cockroach back there, heart thumping and everything...)

-----------------------------------

A half hour later, Richard shows up at Blossom's house. They run up the back stairs to Blossom's attic room.

"Let's watch Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," Richard suggests. "I know it's an old one, but it's my parents' favorite. We've watched it so many times I know most of the words by heart. You'll see!"

Richard pulls his ball cap lower over his eyes and affects his best movie star pose. "Swim?! Hell, the fall'll prob'ly kill ya!" Blossom laughs, the sweet, high laugh that Richard knows so well.

Blossom finds the tape and inserts it into the VCR. She wonders how much longer her parents will be gone. She's not allowed to have boys in her room, but she didn't tell Richard that. She's been hoping for this chance for a long, long time...

Half way through the movie, Blossom and Richard hear the back door from the garage open and voices in the kitchen, the voices of her parents.

"Darn it!" says Blossom. "Right in the midle of the good part too."

Looking in surprise and concern at Richard, she says, "oh dear, Rich, do you suppose you could climb out of this attic window?"