Off the Road - 23

a jazz novel on a typewriter

3

We were beginning to get very tired of sitting and drinking coffee and of course, having nothing to do. It was like be pleasure of making a daisy-chain like a printer in the old way: a small amount of pleasure for such a small elixir of happiness. But who would figure that such a word would stay in the lexicon for so long and with so many variations and permutations?

It was then we spied a blonde woman in a blue dress who was coming over to exactly the spot we were sitting at with intent on her mind. It was as if suddenly a white rabbit was bearing down upon us with a proposal that we could not refuse. Even if we were in a mood to. And such a mood had long since desserted either of us at least for espressos with sugar and spice.

She had the skin of a woman from the northern regions of Europe with a skin as white as marmalade with a blush of orange marmalade brushed over her face. She took out of her waistcoat-pocket a watch checked the time and currently charged the table we were sitting at and said:

“The person who runs the desk at the Hotel Rosslyn said that you two would be meeting a job and fortunately I have a deed that needs to be done in a hurry.” Of course, she had us at “the” and she knew it. And all at once we became the “the” in the brain of everyone involved.

Dean piped up: “Down Down Down. You will have to explain to us what the deed is and why we should find our cells at the latitude and longitude to be paid once it is accomplished.”

Immediately she reposted back: “I am Alice by the way assuming that would eventually reach that question, and I will tell you that the deed is not unworkable or unfixable.”

“So, it is not like dropping oneself down a whole which goes through the center of the earth?”

“Nothing like that I promise.” Though honestly if she had proposed that the wood be turning out in calculus exactly how to do such a thing, in triplicate and verse.

 So, Alice began speaking of a tail, which wound down so that it looked like a fury from side to side until it was emblematic in the way it resembled the affectation back to ancient Greece and updated by ee cummings and Apolloniare.

“I will tell you a lengthy poem about fairies which begins with long lines and grows shorter with each pass. I know that such words would not fit you all. My problem is that I once had a series of who hookars and they were absconded with, and I need them back.” I had stopped drinking espresso and switched to Earl Grey Tea, which right now I was swilling down at least my third cup since the change. The label was not known to me but it had a white unicorn and a tawny lion on the cover, the lion looked a bit like like a truss bound up with a sun. perhaps it went back as far as D’israeli and glad stone with dear tearing down of all the images and supplanting them with new ones.

Dean looked back at me and saw that my case was slightly a grin and here to get the money if it was enough to repair our pads. So, then he turned back to Alice, and with a turn of his head: “I was that you would ask us to balance and eel on the end of are knows. How much were you were paining of paying for this small transaction?”

Alice responded with a dexterous grin: “I guess you were picturing a different scenario. Perhaps you were thinking that I was lucid and caroling about some larger project plot that needs attention immediately and I have no other means but to higher the two of you. So, I will respond with ‘How much do you want?’ And if it is unreasonable I will tell you.”

We went back and forth until an agreeable number was settled upon, in bitcoin not in US dollars or in any other form of a nation’s currency. My account was in several places because I often needed to top my funds up near when the rent would be due. Due do do did do be do be do.

“And how do we contact you for the payment?”

She pulled out a map with two marks with a black pen. “These are the locations of to dead letter boxes.” She pulled out an iPhone and typed some numbers on it at which point my phone beeped and I looked at it and saw that there was a message from an unknown caller. “Call that number and ask for Charles, and he will Dodge like the son of an old viper, but he will respond once he checks the dead letter box and deposits the money in your card, then you can seal the package and put it in the second that letterbox. So, he will rush to your collection spot just as you will rush to the money.”

Dean just smiled: “You have it all figured out. My compliments on your professors for their tireless work on your logic and you were politics.”

With that, the lady in the blue dress stood up, turned away, and rapidly disappeared. There would be no chance for the colored girls to sing: “Doo, do-doo, do-doo, do-do-doo.” And I suspected that the transaction would have difficulties that even Miles would take at the skids on his blower. And that was saying something because no one did things the way miles did even when he was dead.

We only state a few more minutes to discuss little trifles.

Instead, I turned to Dean: “We are living on the edge.”

And Dean looked serious and replied back: “We can’t stop ourselves from falling.”