Free Further Adventures by Jon Stephen Fink Page B

weather or hear the noise of the traffic only the pressure of the heavy clouds & the scrape & slap of my own shoes in & out of sidewalk rain puddles. Ugh. My mind traveled back to Annie on a worry of what her mind did when it traveled back to me.
    To Annie I was a girl crazy short pants kid going around in a goofy swoon and it was too bad her rotten Luck she got in the way.
    I was a juvenile fugitive from responsibility just living it up cheap &easy with the morals of a cockroach riding for a fall into the pit of Shame & Regret for not going to college.
    To David Arcash I was a whiny glass-jawed cream puff who did not Possess the nerve or the verve to stay in the ring any ring be it boxing or romance.
    To Lamont Carruthers I was a dumb ham actor in the words of Miss Shapiro ALL HOOEY.
     
    God forbid if my Life ended by itself in the Desert from a heart attack and if Annie LaSalle was there by my side I believe with my last breath I could defend my Actions of 73 Years and keep my Good Name. But before it could wind up that way my past experiences came back to me under my skin suckered the Good nature of my character and led me to people places & actions that God did not forbid. It peeled off my innocent skin but underneath it was the Opposite nor I do not mean Experience no it was Guilty.
    I can see by the dawn’s early light also by the clock on the clubhouse wall now it is the next A.M. so in my opinion I am safe here another 12 Hours—he will not come near at this time I know from personal experience he is a Creature of the night. He can do what he wants but not when he wants to he needs the dark to disguise his Deeds from the eyes of the world but if I refuse him he will not disguise his fingerprints on them any further. I am going to turn the Light on him.
    I can hear all the normal Sounds outside starting up i.e. the traffic on Ortega also the Mail delivered. Boys & girls going on the sidewalks gangs of them barking & mewing into School. I just heard a bird chirp he must be right out by the kitchen window. A screen door just banged shut downstairs. All the Normal Sounds the relief made me think forhalf a second my Life is back the way it was 3½ Weeks ago. My mind is wandering I have to figure & concentrate on it before it goes down the drain so Ray think think think.
    I want him to picture me better the best & equal. He has a gun & I have one here in my hand with bullets no kidding. So what the Hell I am going to eat a bowl of dry cereal it is Breakfast time. All I have in the kitchen is that box of Uncle Sam laxative cereal that Tay Gek’s delivery boy brought me from the Convenience Wagon a month ago so what it tastes the same fresh or stale. I was saving it for some emergency only I figured the Emergency might come on the bowel level not on the level of my Last Meal on Earth but I say NUTS to that! A Emergency is a Emergency and as long as I am in Control in my own apartment in my Final Hours & if I want my last supper to be a bowl of Uncle Sam Laxative Dry Cereal so I go out on a full stomach & empty bowels THEN THAT IS HOW IT IS GOING TO BE!! I am not going to let any villain with his polite manners & his cutthroat razor ruin my healthy Appetite. NUTS TO THAT.
     
    Maybe this was the Act that opened the door that led me into my present Predicament maybe this was when I took the fatal step & Gravity took over from there…I put my Ad in the Classifieds of the Mason Examiner —
    Is the Hour of Darkness upon you? Is all
    Hope gone? I will blz f/ shds to df/dfl —
    F/C! P. Tremayne. P.O.B. 127 Mason, N.M.
    The clerk on the Classified Desk suggested the abbreviations (e.g. F.O.C. = Free of Charge) he vowed everybody who read those ads knewall of the abbreviations by Heart so what was the point of paying extra for a whole word? Also I figured it was a good reason to accept a Case if a hopeless person understood the code of my Ad.
    I got Mrs. Orban to check my P.O.B. & see if any needy mail was there. Right off I