Again with the potty mouth but these are not your Disneyfied pollyanna characters. They are drug dealers, killers, and high school students.
This episode shows our Hero in later life, looking through a library with unique books. He also is in the Congo as a high school student, fighting to save a kidnapped woman from sex slavery.
««« Sir Joshua’s Book »»»
He stood in awe in Sir Clive’s library. Packed with first editions of nearly every English author since and including Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales bound in goat skin.
The shelves reached the ceiling; a movable ladder attached to railings skirted the books. A quiet man hunched over a large desk, checked notes in a leather-bound book, then entered them in an AirMac.
“Finally entering the digital age,” Sir Clive said as he handed him a large glass of brandy and opened a box of cigars in blue wrapping with a royal crest emblazoned on it. “Got a couple of other workers scanning the contents.”
He declined the cigar but politely accepted the brandy knowing he probably wouldn’t drink it.
“But you’re not here to hear me ramble on about computers and software, are you?”
“No, sir.”
“Please, have a seat,” Sir Clive pointed at a pair of large chairs with high backs. “Mr Blatner? If you would give us a moment?”
The librarian nodded, bid the leather-bound book goodbye, and quietly exited the room.
“First, I will tell you the rumor about Sir Henry, then I will tell you my interpretation, if you would indulge me.”
“Of course.”
“My great-grandfather met Sir Henry. . . Ah, before that. Let me show you something. No need to get up. Do you see that shelf over there? The one outlined in pale mahogany?” Sir Clive pointed his brandy snifter at a shelf on the far wall.
“Yes,” he answered.
“The twelve books on the right are all bound in snake skin. Different kinds of snakes, of course. The six on the extreme right? Those are all bound in constrictor skins. Snakes my great-grandfather, uh, found, if that’s the correct euphemism, while in the Congo. It was called the Belgium Congo back then, of course. Two snakes attempted to devour him. Funny, that, eh? I mean, how many snakes must try to consume your flesh before you leave their habitat, eh?”
“And the twelve on the left?”
“Various mammals.” Sir Clive took a sip of his brandy. “The one on the far left? The mammal known as homo sapien.”
“Human skin?”
“Yes. At his request, I hasten to add.”
“His request? He wanted to be a book cover?”
“Yes. Yes, he did.”
“Who? A criminal? A doctor?”
Sir Clive sipped his brandy, examined the cuticle of his left hand, and looked at the book. “My great-grandfather.”
Hairball stared at the book.
“But you undoubtedly want to hear my theory of Sir Henry, yes?”
Hairball turned from the skin of Sir Clive’s great-grandfather wrapped around book boards to his descendant sitting in his library staring at his brandy. “Yes, and, if you could, tell me why the Fielding was withdrawn from Lord Bringhurst’s auction?”
“All in good time,” Sir Clive announced. “First, Sir Henry.”
Sir Clive sipped his brandy and stared into his mind. The story of Sir Henry and Sir Clive’s great-grandfather was stored in his mind and extraneous facts and information were not allowed to discolor or alter it. He sipped once more, then looked at Hairball.
“Joshua, my great-grandfather, was volunteered to serve time in the Belgium Congo. By my great-great-grandfather; his father. It was,” Sir Clive smirked, “a family tradition. The eldest son was expected to, as my grandmother used to say, ‘venture forth’ into the world.”
“Is that why you went to the Congo? To venture forth?” Hairball asked.
“Precisely. Yes, precisely. And, of course, to get managerial experience.”
“So you could run the family business?”
Sir Clive nodded. He cast his mind back to the day he left England for the Congo. He was hungover and sexually sated, having spent the night with Elizabeth Watkins. In her bed. Only rushing to the airport at the last minute with a small bag. He met his parents at the gate.
“Be careful out there,” his mother insisted.
“Keep a journal,” his father instructed, then whispered, “The Watkins woman?”
Sir Clive nodded and answered, “Yes, mother.”
“Don’t be expecting cash disbursements from us,” his father continued. “You’ll have to make it on your own.”
“Yes, sir,” Sir Clive replied, knowing he had several thousand pounds in his account.
“And did what you learn in the Congo come in handy?” Hairball asked, jerking Sir Clive back to the present.
Sir Clive looked up. He saw the rough American bookseller staring at him. He formulated how much to tell the young man about the Fielding book he had flown to England to buy. For that buyer, the woman with the husband. That supposéd buyer, Sir Clive smiled.
“Yes,” he answered. “Managing the mine was difficult but managing the family business is quite,” he sipped his brandy, “simple in comparison.”
“And Henry?”
“Who? Oh, you mean Sir Henry? Yes, of course. And his, what, two million pounds of gold sequestered somewhere in the Congo? Or France? Or Spain or whatever new conspiracy the conspiracy nuts have come up with? Yes, Sir Henry.” Sir Clive reached forward. He touched a small button Hairball had not noticed before.
Within a few seconds, a butler arrived.
“Ah, Mr Gwaltney, would you be so good as to inform Ms Shandy that our guest,” he tilted his brandy at Hairball, “will be joining us for dinner?”
“Yes, sir,” the servant replied.
“Are you allergic to any food items? Or insist on a strict diet of non-meats?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. Tell Ms Shandy the menu is at her discretion.”
Mr Gwaltney nodded, bowed, and withdrew.
“Shandy?” Hairball asked.
“A coincidence, I’m sure. I can’t imagine she is in any way related to Mr Tristram nor Reverend Sterne. However, back to Sir Joshua and Sir Henry.”
««« Skewered »»»
Kurtz tried to sit up but his skewered back and the small nick Nyoka’s knife gave him were too much. He laid back down, his right arm under his head. He took a deep breath and looked at Hairball. “Drink. Now. Tell you what you want to know!” he shouted.
“Where can we find Tipu Tip?” Hairball asked.
“Dunno. Drink!”
“You sold her to him. Where?”
Kurtz glared at Hairball. “What do you think I am?”
“A heartless ass who’d sell his own mother into sex slavery for the money.”
Kurtz struggled to his knee and held out a hand for help.
Neither Sakombí nor Hairball moved a muscle.
“Come on, get me away from these freaks,” Kurtz pleaded as he looked at the five sick Congolese men. “Don’ wanna catch AIDS!”
“Tipu Tip?”
Kurtz ignored him. He struggled through his pain to get to his feet. He couldn’t turn or twist his back because of the pain. He took a tentative step forward. The pain persisted but not so much that he had to lie down. He took another step, downhill, towards the river. The pain was less than he expected.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Hairball demanded.
Kurtz ignored him and took another step. He looked up and down the river until he found what he needed: an older woman selling herbs. She, he knew, could sell him something for the pain and clean his latest knife wound. He attempted a step.
But the ground was uneven. He stumbled. Pain blackened his vision; weakened his resolve; cracked his consciousness.
Sakombí and Hairball watched him collapse in the sun. They sipped their beer as they got close to him.
“He dead yet?” Sakombí asked.
Kurtz remained silent but his chest rose and fell; in short bursts, but enough to show life still inhabited in the heartless man.
“Tell us and we’ll get you up.”
“Water.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Hairball said.
“Can’t tell ya,” Kurtz mumbled. “Tell . . . anybody . . . he kills me.”
“Where?”
“Can’t tell ya,” Kurtz repeated. “Finds out I tell ya . . . He kills me.”
“Well, you’re gonna die either way, so . . . tell us?”
“No. Okay. Rwanda.”
“Where . . . ?” Hairball asked but Sakombí interrupted with a quick whisper.
“He is one bad . . . evil . . . The devil’s inside this man.”
“Water,” Kurtz grumbled.
Hairball kneeled down and held his beer to Kurtz’s lips.
Kurtz sipped. “Bought the cheap beer,” he complained.
Hairball stood up with his beer. “Yeah. Too cheap for you.”
Sakombí pulled Hairball away from Kurtz. “This Tipu Tip is like a snake. He is a snake. He’d rather chew on your liver than talk to you. We stop looking for this white Australian. We have to. Or we end up like Kurtz. Only in pieces. Scattered all over the Congo.”
“No, we find Tipu Tip.”
“No. We find him, he kills us.”
“Think what that girl is going through.”
“Think what we will go through if we try to take her from Tipu Tip.”
“She’s gotta be terrified.”
“Hairball,” Sakombí pleaded, “Kurtz is scum. A pimp and a murderer. He smuggles drugs. He bribes customs in two, three countries. He’s afraid of Tipu Tip.”
“I can’t leave the Congo without her. Knowing she’s being pimped out to who knows who. And will probably end up dead in a couple of years.”
“Hairball,” Sakombí muttered. “Is she really our problem?”
Hairball looked at Kurtz withering in pain in the sun. He looked at the five AIDs sufferers in the shade. He looked at the people beside the river selling what they could: food, mended clothes, used pots and pans. He looked back at Kurtz.
“No, James, she’s not our problem.”
“Good.”
“But she is my problem. I have to find her.” He kicked Kurtz. “And you, moron, are going to help me.”
“No.”
“You help me find Tipu Tip or you die.”
“Bull–—”
Hairball slammed Kurtz in the side. He poked his beer at Kurtz’s skewered wound. Kurtz howled in pain.
“You wanna die?”
What do you think of the two plot lines involving the same character at different ages? Is it normal, too confusing, great? Are you having problems following either story? Let me know what you think in the comments, even if you have complaints or questions, it would be great to hear from you.