Posted by
Marshall's Law on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 3:21:27 PM
Entry # 085
Marshall’s Law Townhall Dateline – Non-fiction Halloween Story “Heart of The Ebony”. Americans who believe that Obama’s actions and policies will destroy America’s capitalist constitutional republic is fiction, will believe my short stories are non-fiction.
Just two out of many examples: number one collective attitudes of “no time to care about America” liberal women. After all they have, “my physical needs, my off springs’ needs, my family’s needs, my social needs, my career needs, my continuing education needs, my being promiscuous for little extra money needs, and my many other needs that come before country.”
Second example, liberal men attitudes: “God never helps me and keeps me from being happy, popular, and wealthy. That is why I live on and invest borrowed money in businesses that I know nothing about; do business with those whose individual character and professional integrity I know nothing about; make one fool’s decision after another never learning from bad decisions; spend more time thinking of scams to cheat customers with get rich scams rather than spend time trying to produce good products and deliver quality services at fair profitable price; then to make things ‘better’ get involved with liberal women which leaves no time to care about America. Not having time to care about America has noting too do with Heaven, other ethnic races and successful people keeping me a failure.”
Non-fiction Halloween Story “Heart of The Ebony”. Americans who believe that Obama’s actions and policies will destroy America’s capitalist constitutional republic is fiction, will believe my short stories are non-fiction.
“Heart of The Ebony” starts now:
What out of work investigators dislike more than bad guys are telephones. Phones never seem to bring good news, and always bother you when you don’t need to be bothered. As Heaven is my witness, one of these mornings, afternoons, or nights, I am going to use my phone for target practice.
Texas jerked my eleven year ticket to manage investigations in the Lone Star State for moral turpitude. Not mine, theirs. It seems that private political corruption investigations are immoral in Texas. After repeated warnings from state officials to stop investigating “honest elected officials”; I changed the “x” in Texas on my business cards and invoices to a swastika.
Apparently bureaucrats better suited to being welfare recipients do not have a sense of humor. All that aside, It’s my problem not yours that I am presently financially embarrassed because my ticket to make a living has been “Indefinitely” revoked.
It was sometime after midnight when I had just laid down for a good night’s sleep. My only hopes were that the utility company did not cut my water off; before I got up to fix my usual water and cereal breakfast
As predicted, the phone started ringing shortly after my mind was lost to the world. I barely recognized the frantic voice as that of a friend who always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
After getting him to speak slower and not so loud; I was able to gather that he had hit a pedestrian at dead man’s curve, but could not find the body. He wanted me meet him at dead man’s curve with my night vision equipment and heat detector to try and help him find the body.
Told him that I would be there in about twenty minutes, being honest, I wasn’t thinking about what we would do if I found the body, but how l might be able to get gas money and a real breakfast out of this venture.
First thing I noticed while greeting my friend was that there was no damage to his car. After explaining that this favor was going to cost him gas and a real breakfast; he blurted out there was a woman standing in the middle of the road as he came out of the curve. “She was just there; I tried to swerve but it was too late! I saw her roll over the right side of the hood, and slide off by the passenger door!”
Walking over and pointing to the right headlight, I tried to reassure him with the observation that there was zero damage to his car, and that kind of impact would have had to trash his fiberglass fenders. I was just about to suggest that we go find a truck stop for my gas and breakfast when I noticed what appeared to be a white veil dangling from the passenger’s door side mirror.
He watched while I spent the next two hours scouring the immediate area with my night vision and heat detecting equipment nothing absolutely nothing. Told him after a real breakfast and getting a full tank of gas that he should not say anything to anybody while I made a few inquires.
My first thought was to call Karol about lunch time to see what clues the white veil provided. Karol is the textbook forensic scientist: reserved intellectual doll always in long white lab coat, big glasses, and hair up in a bun.
After she repeated my favorite words, “I’m buying”; I headed over to her favorite vegetarian cafe to see what she might be able to tell me about my only clue. Meal was alright for people who live on rabbit food. She did tell me that the veil was at least a hundred years old, and that she would run some tests to give me a better time frame.
My next contact would be Tanya, a vice cop. I knew that Tanya came on duty about seven that night, you guessed it supper time. Tanya’s “I’m buying” made me look forward to dinner. No more rabbit food. Shrimp marinated in orange sauce is not usually a part of my diet, but seeing Tanya in her undercover costumes was always pleasing to the senses.
Explained to Tanya, that I was helping a friend for gas money; would really owe her if she asked me about any recent missing person reports. After leaving Tanya while heading home, I was thinking that I should draw a circle on the calendar around today’s date: three meals in one day - who need’s bureaucrats when you got friends?
Like an instant replay: It was sometime after midnight when I had just laid down for a good night’s sleep. My only hopes were that the utility company did not cut my water off; before I got up to fix my usual water and cereal breakfast
As predicted, the phone started ringing shortly after my mind was lost to the world. This time the voice was cold and calculated not frantic. It was Tanya asking me to meet her at dead man’s curve.
As I started clearing dead man’s curve I became a witness to one more emergency vehicles light show. Upon exiting my vehicle, Tanya approached and asked me to follow her. She led me over to a black body bag; took the towel off the victim’s face and asked, “Is this your fiend?”
Before I could answer, Tanya quipped “Look at his face. The coroner says fear killed him. Is this your friend?”
My crisp answer: he was.
Tanya seemed to forget that we had been dinner companions just hours before: “I want to know what you are working on.”
Being honest, I told her: I don’t know. As I was walking away, Tanya half way yelled “No more, until you tell me what’s going on.”
What a day, from three good meals to losing two meal tickets. Why do I know tomorrow is not going to be much better. Sure enough, the next day started out with dry cereal for breakfast because the water department started their day by repossessing my water meter.
No time to explain or complain as I still had to figure out whom or what had scared my friend to death. I sure wanted get back on Tanya’s occasional guest for dinner list. Thought I would start by trying to meet Laurel for lunch.
Maybe she would convey my most recent popular phrase; “I’m buying”. Being the county’s most relentless journalist, the lady is best distinguished by her business suits with creases that rival those seen in military reviews. At this point I would have been grateful for fast food.
Knew that if anybody could identify sources of information about dead man’s curve, it had to be her. Just as sure as rainbows follow thunderstorms, she had the answer: an old historian currently suffering from degenerative senile dementia.
After spending a couple of hours with the occasionally lucid nursing home resident, I was able to come up with the following legend. The name of the woman that my friend had supposedly seen in the middle of the road, roughly translates from traditional lore as “the tears lady”. Unconfirmed individual sightings of the woman have been reported for almost 250 years.
The story goes that a young Indian maiden converted and renamed Margarita by Spanish priests became involved with a prominent Spanish land owner in the mid 1700’s. The girl became pregnant and bore the land owners child out of wedlock. The land baron after learning of the unholy birth kidnapped the child and abandoned the infant in South Texas brush country.
Myth has it that Margarita spent the rest of her life crying hysterically while wandering through the thorny thicket looking for her lost child. Later legend has it that she would stand in the middle of the road trying to cause wagons to overturn when horses veered off the road.
It is also said that sometimes she would be seen on the side of the road, and latter appear on the backs of horses or in the backs of wagons of those who passed her by. Myth warns that those who turn to gaze at her will see a face so horrible that they shall be scared to death.
As to what she wants, nobody has ever survived her temptations to look upon her original beauty to know the answer; but her desires probably involve something that only the living can accomplish as spirits have physical limitations.
Upon arriving back at my cluttered "Free Spirit" fifth wheel, I decided to skip supper and just call Karol for an update of test results on the white veil. She seemed surprised when I asker her if the veil dated back to the 1750’s. Her response: If you are going to waste my time asking me things you already know, you can find yourself another meal ticket.
Somewhere somehow, my thought processes had turned from future meal tickets to returning to dead man’s curve. Instincts were warning me that I had to avoid swerving and force myself to drive through Margarita’s apparition. Intentionally running down victims may come easy for some people, but I knew I needed an edge.
Since the plan was to stay alert; drugs were not the answer; maybe technology could make the difference. I set the cruise control at fifty before entering dead man’s curve; now all I had to do was concentrate on running straight and keeping my foot off the brake and accelerator. As I cleared the curve, what had been a clear night turned to the blackest fog I had ever seen. Suddenly there in middle of the road standing and waving; as if welcoming me out of the fog.
My only thoughts were drive straight and keep away from the brakes. I do not remember what came first, her screams, the sounds of her hitting the car, or my outburst of a single profanity. I apologize for not remembering the sequence, but I was distracted by her rolling over the hood into the windshield.
Maybe it was Poe like terror or pure concentration that kept me from turning the wheel, who knows; but somehow I managed to avoid swerving and come to a slow measured stop. As suddenly as Margarita had appeared in the road, I was out of my car screaming verbal challenges, it seems that I had lost control of all my emotions.
The unplanned release of adrenalin suddenly reminded me that I still had to face Margarita’s temptations. In a renewed calmness I turned and stepped back into my car. In what seemed like passing inspiration, I reached up and tore off the rear view mirror before resetting the cruise control. My vehicle had not traveled thirty feet when I heard breathing highlighted by whimpering moans coming right behind me from the back seat.
In another flash of inspiration I reached over and turned on the radio, but the radio failed to generate a single sound. Put yourself in my place; imagine you were me; how would you feel when hot sultry breath punctuated with gurgling growls covered the back of your neck? Would you have turned to look into that face, or swerved out of reflex?
Being honest, I almost crossed the border of losing all self control when Margi, I was too terrified to remember her full name, started howling and running those colder than ice fingernails down the base of my skull. Right before losing all control, I noticed Margi along the side the road walking into the fog and mesquite thicket.
With out thinking I slammed on the brakes and stopped within feet of her exit point; without turning around, her barely audible fleeting words were: “A cross for my child made from the heart of the ebony.”
I spent most of the next morning looking for a suitable piece of ebony, and another ten hours making and polishing a small cross. I never knew that the heart of ebony was such hard wood.
The phone rang shortly before the ten o’clock news, Laurel wanted an update on my activities. Told her that I couldn’t explain what I didn’t understand. She is incredibly patient, but told me to find another meal ticket until I had a better answer.
Spent the following hours waiting for the phone to ring; suddenly as if I were possessed, I picked up the silent phone only to hear “It’s Margi, I’m buying”.
Being someone who always keeps their promise, I took my double action forty caliber out from under my pillow and shot that darn phone twice. After tossing the pistol on the bed, I reached over and picked up the cross for a child made from the heart of the ebony. As for this time tomorrow, don’t have a clue.