Chap. 25 - 'I Love Ginny'

Not-Exactly-Chopped-Liver Fiction™
a could-be-worse division of None-Too-Shabby Enterpises, Ink

PRESENTS :

The History of Gin
or
A Fox's Tail©


Is Life Existential?   You Decide.
by   ' Colorado '  Gumi
...I n s p i r e d By T r u e E v e n t s...


Chapter 25

I
Love
Ginny

Too Many Crooks

A long while later Ginny, sleeping soundly in her Upper East Side Manhattan apartment, was awakened by the buzzing doorbell. She had been dreaming of making animal love with Jim Cramer, the chair-heaving nemesis of financial types infesting New York City. Cramer, who hates communism and being called Jimbo -- but who, strangely, looks loads like that blood-soaked Bolshevik dude Lenin -- would be tickled to sell anyone the rope they use to hang him (he'ld make a gob of dough and, cause he ain't stupid, the rope would break). Ginny has no idea why her dreams currently are drenched in ferociously mindless lust with this particular CNBC on-air personality. . .it's as if someone is making this stuff up as she goes. But it does get her through the night and is a welcome change of pace from Jon Stewart, who looks more like an elderly Marlon Brando every day -- she's even started to wonder when the aging comedian also would descend to French-kissing Larry King on-camera.

Anyways Gin, who'd straddled Cramer's lap and was just beginning a bouncing ride when roused, erupted from her downy pink nest and rushed to the door, typically 'au natural', to see what the big deal was. Undoing the multiple chains and locks, Ginny stared across the threshold at a hallway full of people outside her door. And the hallway full of people outside her door stared back at her exposed, perkily-firm bosoms for a long, silent moment... then entered her apartment in a chattering rush. Bringing up the rear was Gin's best friend and landlady, Ethel Mertz and Ethel's prickly husband, Fred.

Ginny's friend Ethel was a bit of a puzzle. Though only two years older than Gin, she cultivates an aged, dowdy appearance as if bound by contractual terms stipulating plain, ill-fitting attire and superannuated demeanor to ensure she appears much older than Gin and more compatible with her improbable husband. As for him, Fred is clearly many years Ethel's senior, if not outright elderly. In fact it's painfully obvious the words "old-goat" and "Fred" long ago assumed cozy companionship through continuous juxtaposition.

Unirregardless, the crowd made themselves at home in Gin's apartment -- milling about in clumps, eating her leftover Sam's Club rotisserie chicken, flushing the toilet, drinking her scotch. . .one guy with severe gingivitis even used her toothbrush -- while Ethel explained the hubbub. It turned out a burglar was in the neighborhood and had just broken into an apartment nearby. As if to answer the perennial question, "Where's a cop when you need one", a policeman piped up and said the department knew little about this perpetrator, whom they called "Madame X", except that it was a woman dressed in men's clothes and they had her fingerprints at the Station. Ginny, who enjoyed dressing as a man (and in her adventures even relished having the correct associated plumbing on occasion), was flabbergasted by this news. What was she to do?

Incidentally, it's no fluke this cop was in the vicinity -- for days he'd maintained a furtive stakeout of the hallway, reinforced by several dozen donuts, specifically in hopes of seeing Gin open the door naked. Emboldened by his remarkable success, he wandered in with the crowd to see more then stayed for the Sam Adams and chicken they liberated from Ginny's pantry.

The next morning at breakfast with a guy named Ricky who seemed to be her husband, but wasn't, Ginny talked about the prior night's excitement. After listening attentively (positive proof he wasn't her husband) Ricky, a burly Irish dude who endured constant kidding about his heavy accent and supposed poor grasp of English, said that Fred's birthday was coming soon and he wanted to buy the acerbic old goat a new suit for a present but didn't know his measurements. Gin, who thinks as well on her feet as her back, said she'd sneak down to their apartment and swipe one of Fred's old suits so they could go by it's measurements. And she did.

Unfortunately, an antique busybody neighbor soon told Ethel she'd seen Gin break into the Mertzes' apartment and steal Fred's suit ...it all was very suspicious. When Ethel told Fred, they fixed upon the only plausible explanation. . .Ginny is "Madame X." And the only viable response was to mount a vigil on the fire escape outside Gin's bedroom window that night to catch her on her next caper. And they did.

Thing is Fred, a misanthropic crybaby, got chilly during their watch despite wearing a heavy overcoat and hat so he left the hat and coat to keep Ethel warm (one of the few kind gestures of his life) and went back home. And of course when Ginny grew tired after reading a chapter of "Sophie's World" and turned out the bedside lamp she saw Ethel in the dark dressed in men's clothes through the window. For some reason. . .at that moment. . .Ethel being "Madame X" seemed credible to Ginny.

With the premise now ripe for harvest, both Ginny and Ricky, and Ethel and Fred sparred to get the fingerprints needed to prove Ethel on one side, and Gin on the other, was a Cat Burglar...

Which begs the trenchant observation that though attending an Ivy League law school, most of Ginny's classmates never could fathom why someone would risk long incarceration to enter a home and steal a cat. . .but then these same people spend untold hours dreading the prospect of having to pass a bar -- without going in. And it only made things worse when one of the more resolutely senile Professors of Law, in trying to dispel the confusion, told the class that not all burglars are "cat" burglars. Some are human beings.

...Anyways, what a hoot as Ginny and Ethel both tried to get the other's prints while avoiding leaving her own -- it was just like the episode in that popular old Fifties TV series where one woman, an ersatz redhead, tries to get her friend to handle a silver cigarette case or drinking glass as the friend adroitly avoids leaving her fingerprints while trying to get those of the other woman. In the end, the friend sees the woman did finger the case so she pockets it on the way out but her husband, a stupid old goat, wipes the prints off before they get it to the Police Station. Granted that episode probably isn't as familiar and popular as some others from the series but I just now enjoyed seeing it on DVD. And it was just like that with Ginny and Ethel -- an undeniably remarkable coincidence.

So, frustrated with the lack of progress in bringing Ethel to justice, and certain her best friend in the whole wide world was itching to rob her, Ginny decided to tip Ethel off that she wouldn't be home that evening then lie in wait for her. In a tragedy bringing to mind "The Charge of the Light Brigade", the real Madame X picked that night to break into Gin's apartment.


It's a proven Scientific Law that when Ginger Sue Mullins "gets her Irish up", Israeli Commandos quake in their boots while mere ordinary men are know to soil themselves (at such times even her father's steadfast faith in a genially benevolent God is tested). And any hope this proposition was only an "iffy" Theory or "dodgey" Hypothesis rather than an algebraically proven fact was lost long ago. Even worse, the combination of Ginny feeling her Irish PLUS chugging premium single-malt Scotch is a Krakatoan event no one should endure without benefit of a priest, as a pathetic former paramour who was dumb enough to provoke such supreme apoplexy found to his misery.

But bad as that all is, it pales in comparison to the primordial cataclysm unleashed when Ginny caught Madame X in her apartment rifling her Victoria's Secret undie drawer. If the Gaming Industry had made odds on whether a person could be thrown through a closed, double-glazed window, clear the sidewalk below, sail across a city street, clear the other sidewalk and slam against the opposite building, everyone would have bet against it. . .and in the event, lost their money. On reflection Ginny -- an enthusiastic fan of defenestration, particularly as perfected in the window-full city of Prague -- was proud of her feat, though she actually had been aiming for the bedroom wall with Madame X. And in the interest of her treasured friendship with Ethel, Gin never mentioned that at the time she still thought her best friend was the burglar.

When Ricky got home that night from his job as leader and singer for his own Celtic band, all he could say was, "Ginny. . .you gotta lotta s'plaining to do."

As for Madame X, she survived the "Defenestration of Manhattan" when the awning of a Starbuck's in the building she struck broke her fall. . .and most her bones. Cured of crime forever, the reformed burglar took a nun's vows and pursued a cloistered life of piety and good works -- she had a real talent for Gregorian Chants, mainly because impact with the building lowered her voice four octaves.

To Be Continued

Chap. 24 - 'Adventures of Huckleberry Gin'

Not-Exactly-Chopped-Liver Fiction™
a could-be-worse division of None-Too-Shabby Enterpises, Ink

PRESENTS :

The History of Gin
or
A Fox's Tail©


Is Life Existential?   You Decide.
by   ' Colorado '  Gumi
...I n s p i r e d By T r u e E v e n t s...


Chapter 24

Adventures of Huckleberry Gin

Prologue

YOU don't know about Huck without you have read a book by the
name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.

It ain't no matter cuz that's a different Huck; this here is about Huckleberry Gin. This book is made by me, and I tell the truth, absolutely.

I. The Arrival

At 19:00 hours, ship's time, Ginger made her way to the launching bay. The men around the shaft stood aside to let her pass, and she climbed down into the capsule. Waiting inside the narrow cockpit Gin felt this seemed more like the start of Stanislaw Lem's "Solaris" (at least the English translation of the French translation of it) than a job interview.

But the site visit to Nevada was all-expenses-paid and the guys at the jobs fair said she could crash in Las Vegas afterward. She didn't realize they meant literally. Anyways, she'd soon gotten an email telling her to stand on a patch of dirt beside a particular light pole next to Delta Kappa Epsilon house close by the Law School wrapped completely in aluminum foil (her, not the law school) at a specific time. She did all that and for her trouble got her atoms disassociated then re-associated on this mothership thingy -- The good part was she was three pounds lighter (and the missing mass wasn't from her important bits). Now the space dudes were in geosynchronous orbit over Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport and ready to jettison her capsule. She thought a JetBlue flight from New York would've been easier. . .plus she'd have a bag of yummy peanuts and not be out five dollars for foil. . .but like they say in the movies, her's was not the reason why.

Ginny's descent consisted of long stretches of stark terror interrupted by brief moments of stark terror -- actually, not much different from ValuJet -- but she landed safely AND with TWO extra pounds scared off so all-in-all, it was worth it. Now she just had to clamber out of the capsule, strip off the spacesuit, smooth her Prada outfit a smidge and find "Janet" Terminal for the flight to Area 51, a Federal government facility no one knows about. The rest of Gin's adventure is a classified "ultra" secret and cannot be related here; although the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bavarian Illuminati all were briefed (the Gnomes of Zurich were there, as was Jim Cramer). Suffice to say that Ginger was met at the Area 51 runway tarmac by a Martian ("His Exalted Potentate of the Canals and Master of the Vortex", Pekoe-Auk_42 -- the equivalent Earthly rank is Army corporal) and that her interview included participation in an alien autopsy.

Gin decided not to accept the job offer when she heard spiders in Nevada grow bigger than a large man's hand.

II. Civilizing Huck.

So that was nearly a week ago. Now Gin was busy in the dark with a companion (whose name starts with "J" -- hint, hint ... nudge, nudge) putting final touches on a raft they'd cobbled together using sawn planks and such culled from flotsam along the river bank. After slapping a bumper sticker reading "Yield to the Princess" on the back Gin pulled the unraveling straw hat down firm on her head, tugged her droopy drawers up six inches, tightened the rope about her waist a couple yanks, spat in her palm and declared their work "done and lookin' dam swell." Slipping off her favorite camouflage-pattern flip-flops so her bare feet squiggled deep in the black mud, she and her confederate heaved the raft into the torpid water and jumped on for an adventurous drift down Manhattan's East River.

Life on the river was slow and easy. Their raft, which was twelve foot wide and about fifteen or sixteen foot long, floated above the murky water about six or seven inches, making a solid, level floor. To that she and her sidekick had added a small foyer, kitchenette, breakfast nook, conservatory and sleeping loft -- It was as nice as her Upper East Side apartment and the plumbing worked better. Behind they towed a beauty of a canoe, an Old Town worth ten dollars Ginny figured, that she'd catched drifting down the river earlier. This canoe, about thirteen or fourteen foot long, rode high like a duck and was piled full of their provisions, mainly Osetra caviar and Sam Adams.

That first night Ginny drifted to sleep serenaded by the wail of ambulances and prowl cars. The next morning she was awakened, fresh as a daisy, by her companion holding a breakfast tray -- Yes, for this adventure Gin had conscripted her father's Gentleman's Gentleman, Jeeves, whom her dad sometimes loaned her as butler. Setting the tray before her and tidying the loft a bit, Jeeves reported the current situation: The weather was clement, the river had fallen a trifle and he reckoned they'd drifted south along the river bank about three blocks.

The rest of the day Ginny spent in idyllic languor, watching the world inch by and working on her all-over tan. Supine in the somnolent sun, Gin heard the old River calling her name. . .catfish were jumping, a paddle wheel was thumping and black water kept rolling on past just the same. And if it rained she didn't care -- didn't make any difference to her. Indeed, she'd just take that street car that was going up town. . .she'd like to hear some funky dixieland and dance a honky tonk and she'd be buying everybody drinks all around. As the sun set and moon rose, the old black water kept on rolling. And the moon kept on shining on her, making everything all right. Ginny had no worries as she wasn't in a hurry at all.

Perhaps more than Ginny, her crew ...ever an unflappable edifice of rectitude... slipped deep into the comfy lassitude of a drifting raft. Quickly relaxing into relative effusive confession, Jeeves -- who had left a good job in the city working for the man every night and day -- admitted to having never lost one minute of sleeping worrying about the way things might have been. Moreover in his time he'd both cleaned a lot of plates in Memphis and pumped a lot of propane down in New Orleans, but he'd never seen the good side of the city until he hitched a ride on a river boat queen. Free to opine, he related the conviction that if one came down to the river, he bet you would find some people who live. . .But you don't have to worry cause you have no money, people on the river are happy to give. Ginny, delighted to see the faithful family retainer embrace their gestalt, swore that she couldn't agree more. Why a couple times Jeeves even helped her keep the Proud Mary burning. . .BUT still to his own self true, he never, ever presumed to bogart.

In such lazy haze many days passed on the big easy East River until the raft had drifted down Manhattan Island several dozen blocks and Ginny spied their destination docked in the distance. It was a house boat. . .or rather a unique residential community within a cruise ship named "The World."

It seems that Ginny's father had seen a program on the Travel Channel about a company named ResidenSea that conceived, constructed and managed this ship comprised of just 160 or so luxury apartments that people bought to live in as they sailed all over the world. The idea appealed to his simple seafaring ways so he plopped down seven million dollars, plus about a half million in annual fees, for Residence 1000, which just happened to be for sale (no pun intended). The 3,200 sf, Style "E" apartment he bought -- which was on Deck Ten at the ship's left, back corner -- had 3 bedrooms, 3-1/2 baths and was fitted out in the very popular and tres chic Italian TMT decor designed by Di Pilla. It even had TWO balconies, one on the port side and one that wrapped around the back corner from port to aft. When she heard all this Gin thought the raft adventure would be a really awesome way to get in the nautical mood ...for a while she'd considered going with a bloodthirsty pirate motif but canned the idea on learning the ship was well prepared to repel boarders.

III. Yours Truly, Huck Gin.

When the intrepid (and exceedingly under-dressed) pair guided the raft to the gargantuan ship's gangway, Ginny and her valet were helped aboard their new home by several scrambling seamen. Gin found the heady mix of fresh sea air and maritime man musk a tantalizing combination. Soon she was reclined in a fancy deck chair on her aft balcony chugging beer and -- as New York City sank in the sea -- munching buttered toast points heaped with rare caviar by Jeeves using a mother-of-pearl spoon. Off the stern a ways bobbed their raft in tow, bravely riding The World's wake as the titan ship made for Funchal, Madeira ...their first port-of-call.

To Be Continued