Entry number 7 (chapter 2 part 4)

Tesla walked further up the room and out the door, you could hear a crate opening and a few seconds later he walked back in holding a strange bottle. “I got a crate of this from an old friend in Europe. This, dear Sam, is Absinthe. Fans also know it as ‘The Green Fairy. It is called such due obviously to its green hue, and the supposed hallucinations it causes. Now I haven’t tried it so I can’t say whether the hallucinations are real, but it is highly alcoholic. I told you about the two brothers running things, well before too long they decided to split the crimes between the two. You remember Romulus from the meeting? Well he is the more physical side of the group. Him and his muscle are responsible for robbing banks and general thievery. Remus, on the other hand, has his group involved in less messy social crimes. Prostitution, gambling and anything lecherous is his game. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out where more of the men drifted. Remus has a bit of an issue with alcohol. He was nearly thrown off the boat on the way to America after nearly finishing the ships supply of wine. So I have had some close friends arrange for Remus and his men to have a get together with the green fairy.” Mark looked at his friend for a long while “I have to say Tesla, I am glad you are on my side because you can weave one hell of a plan when pressed. “Well Sam, what is life but a series of inventions? Let us hurry, Gary has to get changed and we have boxes to build.” “Boxes, Tesla?” Asked Twain. “You’ll see Sam.”

“How is it that Nikola talks me into these things” asked Joseph Jefferson. Robert Underwood Johnson was putting on his jacket behind him. “You are just as mystified by that man as the rest of us and, like us, you are curious what he will do next. Besides Joseph, would you rather do another revival of Rip Van Winkle?” “Well Robert, if this absinthe is as impressive as Wilde makes it seem there will be no need. You and I will probably experience the story ourselves and wake up with long ugly beards. (Joseph looked at Johnson) Well longer and more ugly beards in your case.” The two men were told by Tesla to throw a party for Remus and his men. Not too unusual a task since some of the actors going along with them were, in fact frequent customers of his. Jefferson still talks about one such actor who was a little too frequent. The story goes like this: They were having a performance of Our American Cousin on the Road. One younger actor appeared earlier in the play and not again till later in the play. His part at the end had a very large monologue and he was quite nervous. He figured he had enough time to have a quick ‘lunch’ with one of Remus’ girls who frequented areas near the playhouse. He always felt more relaxed after a quick ‘bite to eat’ and confidant to boot. So as the story goes he told the actors that he wished to go out for some air and he would return soon. Obviously he wanted more than air. He went outside and propositioned the woman outside for private lunch in the nearby hotel, she agreed and up they went. There was one issue; this was no ‘quick bite’. For reason or another he just get his ‘appetite’ going. It might have been the cold weather at the time, or just the nerves from the play. The actor claimed that the lady was not an attractive lass at all and challenged anyone to be able to properly ‘eat’ with such a woman. Whatever the case he was trying to force down the meal for over an hour to no avail. His second queue came up and the production was forced to put in an understudy to finish the play and hope that the audience didn’t notice. They did. One review said of the play “The changing of the actors for the pivotal monologue clearly demonstrated the change in moods the character had gone through.” It was a success. In every city of the state they made the decision to change the actors. They of course replaced the opening scene actor. The actor in the hotel apparently gave up after a while and paid the woman for his troubles…. after a stern talk from Remus. He rushed to the playhouse and knocked on the door of the dressing room, he was fired and punched in the gut by the director. He hasn’t had much success since then though Joseph Jefferson keeps him on the employ as his personal assistant. Some say the only reason Jefferson keeps him around is to humiliate him by telling the story to every new person he meets, he denies this of course.

The Absinthe was flowing like the ancient rivers of Babylon at the party. The majority of the actors and Remus’ men had long since passed out from the effects of the booze. Still sitting up were Joseph Jefferson, Robert Underwood Johnson, and Remus Himself. Remus a hardened alcoholic had a tolerance well above any man in that bar. That said, he was clearly feeling the effects. If you were to watch his hand you would see that he was clutching on the to table for dear life. This was good news for the two friends of Tesla. Were he no indisposed by the alcohol; he might be able to notice that both men showed no signs at all of being drunk. The only two he really trusted, Tesla made for them a special powder neutralized the effects of the Absinthe. The two carefully stashed the bags of the powder in their suit sleeve and gently released a little into each glass. The only effects they had to feel was the truly horrible taste of each glass. Though strong, Absinthe was renowned for it’s horrible taste. It was the Jägermeister of its time. “And so” said Jefferson “we were at the playhouse and wondering where the hell he went. After a brief intermission we replaced because the show must go on and the curtains must go up. Which apparently he was saying to himself at the time.” Remus roared with laughter at this. “Huagh huagh huagh and look at him now (he gestured to Jefferson’s assistant) even now he can not stay … awake.” At ‘Awake’ he let go of the table he was bracing to elbow Johnson many times in the side. After many more minutes of laughing Remus lost his balance and fell over, passing out on the floor in front of them. At that moment Tesla and Twain came through the door. “Very good, my friends exactly as planned. Twain and I have placed boxes in the other room and we will return soon after we dispose of the rest.” Twain spoke immediately “ Ok you have to tell me, why the boxes?” “Patience Sam, there is no time to explain. If we don’t hurry Gary will be left by himself with no one to control him. He wouldn’t stand a chance, not being alive after all.” “Tesla I am getting too advanced in my years for filth such as this.” The two men then rushed out of the room. Johnson and Jefferson then started to separate the men who came with them from the gangsters. Jefferson spoke up while carrying a man from under his arms “who the hell is Gary?” Johnson laughed and nearly dropped Jefferson’s assistant “See? I told you Tesla is exciting”

Tesla and Twain earlier had placed Gary uncover in the alleyway and put him in the shopkeepers clothes. They took turns shooing the homeless away from the metal man in human clothes until nightfall when they took their places across the street from the alley outside the restaurant. Tesla had a square metal box with an assortment of knobs switches levers and buttons. Tesla hit the large red button in the middle of the box and the box hummed to life, across the street so to did Gary. Tesla moved the knob on the upper around a few times and too Twains amazement and amusement Gary walked around the alleyway. In the darkness it really did resemble the shopkeeper. Twain amusement quickly turned to annoyance. “You mean to say that all this time you could have controlled the metal thing all the way here? Why then did I strain my back picking it up and bruise my ribs every time its head bumped into me?” “Sam, his name is Gary. You are a hypochondriac and we would have drawn far more attention if we had him walk in broad daylight.” “Yes Tesla and a famous scientist and writer carrying a large burlap sack is much more inconspicuous.” “Shh Sam, people are coming.” At that moment a group of men came towards the alleyway.  Romulus looked very annoyed “Where is Giorgio, I swear that lush and his men are the first ones being forced out when the empire expands. (Romulus gestured to the alleyway) There he is familia get him. All at once the men ran into the alleyway. “You have made your last payment shopkeep” said one of the goons while Romulus rolled his eyes and pulled out a gun. At that Tesla swung around a knob and whirled Gary around. He pulled a lever on the side of the box and the gas deployed. The goons all dropped unconscious. Romulus struggled to his feet in Italian he garbled out “what the fuck are you?” as he threw the mechanical man against the wall. Tesla dropped the box and ran across the road screaming “gaaaaaaaaaaaaryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy” as he ran. Romulus tried to grab for his gun off the groud and Tesla kicked it away. Tesla then punched Romulus in the face several times. Unfortunately for Tesla, though dazed, Romulus had the distinct size advantage on him and punched Tesla hard in the gut knocking him to his knees. Romulus staggered to the end of the alley to get his gun. Before he could make it he got a vicious punch to his kidneys. “I may not be young but I can still handle myself” said Twain. Twain ducked a punch by Romulus and landed two hard shots to the face. Though twain was caught with a hard elbow to the jaw and fell. “Hey Giuseppe. Catch!” Said tesla as he threw a large metal ball at Romulus. He caught it and a series of sparks went out as it hummed to life, Romulus then dropped to the ground convulsing several minutes before passing them out. “I knew brining this with Gary was a good idea.” Tesla then ran to his friend and helped him up “Times like these remind of working on the steamboat when the captain was drunk” said Twain while rubbing his jaw. Tesla making sure his friend could stand ran to Gary and looked him over “Thank goodness, just cosmetic damages, easily fixed” “Yeah I’m fine Tesla thanks for asking” barked Twain. “Your body will heal itself Sam, Gary’s parts are not easy to come by.” Just them Johnson and Jefferson walked up “The Italians are boxed and in place and the actors are sleeping it off in a pile in the room” said Johnson. “Good to hear friend, come help us drag these men into the boxes across the street. We only have so much time.” Twain couldn’t take anymore “WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE DOING WITH THE BOXES FULL OF PEOPLE”  Tesla put Romulus down “Sam they are shipping boxes, by the time the men wake up they will already be on sea on the shipping boat halfway to their destination back where they belong.” Mark was dumbfounded “You can not be serious friend. You are shipping these men, who already know who you are, back to their home country where they will just regroup and come back stronger than ever?” Tesla put his arm around his friends shoulder “No Sam, I am sending these men where the true bottom depths of society deserve to be…Austrailia!”

And the Rest

A short break with the novel. I wrote a very short story and I wanted to share with you.


                                                   And the Rest

A man is whistling while walking down the beach on an island far off from civilization.  He is dressed in, what were once clothes, and have been reduced to tatters.  A red and white shirt is now no more than a crude smock and bucket hat now serving primarily as a sun visor. The hair on his head and his face has grown long and ragged. The sun has bleached his hair and tanned his skin. Once a happy man, he now has a default grimace and a permanent contempt. He has not smiled in many, many years. He stops dead on the beach.

In the distance there is a strange man walking in his direction. He runs in the direction of the person approaching and begins to speak. Nothing comes out at first; he clears his throat and tries again. “I’m sorry sir I have not spoken to someone in a very long time. I cannot believe I am finally seeing another person,” he said with a coarseness in his throat. 

“My name is Jonas Grumby, I was flying overhead and saw this island, I thought it was uninhabited, I guess I was wrong.” he said “So you came down here in a plane? Is it still here?” asked red smock. “It’s a helicopter actually and yes. I can take you back to Hawaii with me sir. How long have you been on this island and how did it happen?” .

 “It has been so long that time has been lost to me. How, however, is all I ever think about and I can share without hesitation.” Said the man. He sits down on the beach and gestures for the man to do the same “just sit back and I’ll tell you the tale. 

“The trip was supposed to be uneventful, a short trip to and from port. I was the first mate and we had five passengers. Things were on schedule until we hit a rough patch of weather and lost control of the ship. I did everything I could to help but it was useless, we fell of course and crashed into this island.

            “I checked the charts and this place was not mentioned in any of them. Thankfully all of the passengers survived the crash. Including me there was six of us. A well to do couple, an up and coming actress, A teacher from nowhere Ohio, and someone else whose name escapes me. There is nothing much on this island but coconuts and bamboo. The first of which proved disastrous. The coconuts on this island have a rare bacterium that grows inside. All of us grew very sick. The teacher got it the worst of us since he was trying to be inventive with the meals he made of the coconuts.
            I suffered a serious bout of dementia.“I created a new world around me. I imagined that the well to do couple was in fact super rich. I envisioned them having impossible amounts of luggage filled with tons of clothes and money. The actress I turned into a famous starlet on the cusp of her fame. I gave the teacher an appropriate fascination with coconuts; he made everything from radios to walkie-talkies and once even a TV out of the things.  I cannot remember the last one but I think she did something. I gave us adventures and made life on the island manageable in my head. Celebrities would visit us and we would be far too wacky for them to want to save us.

            “After a while the people stopped coming in my head and I imagined us getting off the island only to come right back. We opened a resort for people to visit us on the island and get away from it all because in our time here we learned that the island could bring us all together. At the end of it I even imagined us being visited by the world famous Harlem Globetrotters. Can you imagine such a thing? I eventually came out of it and realized I was the only one alive. Everyone around me had been dead for weeks. Whomever lived the longest had started to dig graves for the dead so I finished the jobs and said a few words for each of them, even though my only memories of each were all in my head.” The man in the red smock took a look at Jonas Grumby and sighed deeply.

            “The worst part of all of this is that I will still occasionally dip into the dementia and rerun these fantasies in my head, sometimes for hours or days on end.  I realize in telling you this story that I omitted someone very important to the tale.  It was you skipper. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to save us, there was no one I would ever want to be a first mate to other than you.” The skipper vanished. Gilligan pushed himself up off the ground and continued to walk down the beach. There was a clearing on the other side of the beach with bamboo and coconuts and he needed them for a new animal trap.

                                                            The End.

Entry number 6 (chapter 2 part 3)

             Tesla and Twain were sitting in the very restaurant that they met due to their mutual dislike in Thomas Edison. Since their adventure in tesla’s forbidden room, Twain had to go and settle a few things. It’s been a month since that day. “Good to see you Tesla as always. Would it be too much to hope for that you have come to your senses or are you still determined to make me doubt your sanity and have us go on a masquerade?” “If you didn’t wish to be involved Sam you would have never come back, you and I are both stubborn that’s how we work.” Twain said nothing; he just drank his coffee and tried to hold back a smirk. “I asked you to come here for a reason. In Italy the Sicilians have formed a power crime syndicate. I have reason to believe various members have immigrated over and are attempting at starting an American branch here in New York.” At this Mark was shaking with withheld laughter. “Did one of your 90 pound lab techs give you this valuable intel?” Tesla straightened his tie “No, earlier this month several Italian men asked me to make them enough guns to take out a small town in Rhode island.” “Ok that certainly raises a red flag or two” said Mark after finishing his coffee. “They are trying to lean on the shop owner for protection money. That’s bad enough as is, and even though I love this place, but just look around (Tesla gestured to the mostly empty restaurant.) this place isn’t jumping with business there is no way he can afford to pay. The shop owner confided in me not long after you left, I have been doing intelligence gathering since then” says Tesla. “Well it’s obvious then, they are forcing him out of business so they can take it over and use the business as a front for illegal and otherwise nefarious ventures.” said Twain.  “So are you finally ready to die on your feet then Sam?” Mark chuckled “Well I figure one of two things will happen …” Tesla interrupted him, “You can tell me your two ways on the road, and I’ll fill you in on this group. We have some planning to do.”

            The group originally called themselves “The Saviors of the New Italian Empire”  it was more majestic in Italian. They eventually shortened it to “New Italy.” The two brothers Gaperi, Giuseppe and Giorgio founded it. It was originally just the two of them but now they grown to twenty. Not the most powerful army, though considering the two of them spoke little English it was an accomplishment. Suitably enough when they became the higher ups they were called Romulus and Remus after the fictional founders of Rome. They set them selves in up in an old condemned firehouse. To say the conditions were not ideal would be a tremendous understatement. The firepole was song since removed so there was hole above them if they had a meeting on the ground floor and a hold below them if they chose to have a meeting on the floor above, a plywood board did little to appease people. Romulus called the meeting to order. "Gentleman, what is the progress of the missions I have given each of you?" "everything is going according to plan don Romulus. We have imported the stuff and as soon as we take down the restaurant we will have the most impressive opium den in all the world" said a goon. Romulus straightened up in his chair "very good to hear, Antonio you were put in charge of the restaurant how is it coming" "I just don't get it don, he should have run out days ago,  I think that scientist is giving him money" Romulus was less pleased with this news "TESLA! He thinks he can step into our business? Familia we will meet the shop owner tonight, you can't give money to a dead man. When we are done Tesla is next!"

                      Miles away at his lab tesla and twain were listening in. “Tesla how in the hell were you able to plant a listening device, and also why didn’t you tell me you invented a listening device” said Twain. “This thing, I made it back in the old country, it never came in handy. I almost threw it away. The transceiver is attached to a newpaper I switched with a newsie. Though I couldn’t be sure which paper was going to go to the Italians so I had to plant one in all of them. I had to spend a good couple hours triangulating the signal, after making a few humorous recordings for my records.” “I never figured you for a voyeur mister Tesla. Anyway it sounds like these are the people you don’t want on your badside. We have to go to the police with this recording. They plan to kill the shopkeeper Tesla!” “Sam, how can we know they don’t have the police in their back pocket? Plus they already know who I am so either way they will know I turned them in. So if I am going to die by taking them down I will do it directly.” Said Tesla. Tesla then turned off the listening device. “Come Sam, I’ll explain my plan.” Again Mark and Tesla made there way to the back of the lab to the secret room. After the unlocking process they made their way to back of the room. Tesla gestured to a large human sized figure covered with a sheet. “Sam this is the foundation of our plan.” Tesla then pulled off the sheet, it was indeed a human figure. Underneath the sheet was what appeared to be a metallic man. It had a head with no facial features and they arms and legs featured life like joints. “What the hell is it” said Twain. “It’s a remote control military militia. This guy can withstand knives, guns, cannon fire, and even if need be a nuclear blast” said Tesla. “What is a nuclear blast?” “Oh (Tesla clears his throat) nothing, forget I said anything. Anyway the idea of this metal militia was to stand in for our soldiers. Enough of these and we would never lose another war. Of course the money pushers of Washington determined he was not a cost effective expenditure. I call him Gary Gray.” “No one is more thrilled for Gary to have a friend than I but where does ‘he’ come in to stopping the Italians?” asked Mark. “I sent the shop owner and his family on a vacation and we are going to use Gary in his place when the new Italy tries to ambush him. I have modified it with non-lethal additions. In the left arm I have placed toxins from rainforest plants that causes temporary paralysis. There is enough here to knock out at least sex men. Any questions?” Tesla asks while looking while looking quite confident. “Oh ever so many question. How do you have enough money to pay off a growing crime syndicate and still have enough left over to send a man and his family on vacation? When did you go to the rainforest? New Italy has at least twenty people in the group, what are we going to do to the other fourteen of them?” asks Twain. Tesla takes a deep breath “Remember when I mentioned government contracts? Those pay quite well. I make a yearly trip to the rainforest, I have since I was a child. You can come with me next time. I knew I forgot to mention something, you’ll love this part.”