I gave Danny back his comic book...

the day he came home. I told him he owed me a fake hundred dollar bill. He had Jen photocopy five twenties all on one sheet of paper.

And I guess everything is okay now. I didn't mean to leave you hanging about Brian. He's moving kind of slow, but he's home and up and he comes into work now and again slowly picking up steam. But not too much, he is Weezer, you know.

Maricel clipped newpaper articles and burned copies of the TV news stories to disc to show her aunt that I was a great guy. I thought it showed I had one badass girlfriend.

But I think things may be getting back to normal. Whatever normal is around here.

I've got some new stuff up in the Ebay store. I think you'll be impressed. If you print the coupon off the website, you can get a ten percent discount on any action figure all of next month.

See you in the funny papers...
Simon Wolfe
Wolfe's Den Comics

Jen bullied him into talking to a surgeon...

about his arms.
"You're basically helpless as it is." She said. "Do you think a little mobility in your arms might come in handy."
Danny was tired and he gave in and he let them do tests. They're looking at doing after the first of next year. They want him to fully recover from being malnourishe and tourtured.
I used the press to get his wheelchair delivery on the fastrack. The sad story of his stolen wheelchair and the long wait for a new one played well in the media. He got a bunch of offers of monetary help, but money was something he had. I suppose that getting his Ibot delivered means some other poor guy or gal is without one. I hope that person hasn't been through anything nearly as awful as Danny.

I am so tired of hospitals...

I was sitting there holding his hand when Jen showed up...

He was scared, so freaking scared. Every noise terrified him.
"Should I leave you two lovebirds alone?" She said from the doorway.
Jen was skinnier since college and someone had taught her to wear makeup.
"Hop in." Danny said, his voice perking up. "Make a threesome."
"I don't want to be the filling in a dork sandwich." Jen relaxed a little as she realized she wasn't going to get pushed away. I let go of his hand and got up to give her the chair I was sitting in. Jen sat down and took his hand and pretty much didn't move from that spot again. She stayed with him all day and they couldn't even get her out at night. Sometimes she went over to his house and took a shower and worked on straightening the place up. We got a professional cleaning crew in there, fixed the elevator and did what we could to make the place seem like his house instead of the palce he was locked up. The cops got most of his books back. Donald and Susan had been hauling them off to storage in contemplation of taking them away in a truck. They thought it would draw attention if the parked a U-Haul at Danny's back door. Since they drained his bank account with a VISA check card and some forged checks, he really hadn't lost any money. They didn't make customers pay for fraud. Nothing was missing but his piece of mind...

The police got there pretty quickly I guess...

It seemed like it forever before I was done talking to the police and could just go to the damn hospital with Danny. It was very helpful when Ellen showed up to vouch for me. Even better than the kidnapping victim insisting I'd rescued him. FINALLY rescued him. Fatboy and Heather/Susan got a ride over to the hospital same as Danny. She had a slight contusion from falling into a wall and he'd had the living crap kicked out of him. I had some bruised ribs if anyone cares, but I'll be okay. Danny was sick with penumonia, malnourished and damn near crazy. And I was the only one there to look out for him.

Susan Jablonski had been sent over by a home health care agency to work as a nursing assistant and caregiver for Danny. But she and her shifty boyfriend had gotten other ideas. They knew Danny had money, so keeping him prisoner seemed like a great idea. They had quickly drained his checking and he had convinced them that there was just no freaking way to get to the principal without him going to a lawyer's office. Then Donald Holzinger (as fat blonde dredlocked boy was better known) had decided to find out if some of the comics were valuable. So he sold one worth more than a hundred grand to my cousin for a fake hundred dollar bill. When Susan had figured that the comics were kind of valuable, she got really pissed. Of course, then I showed up and started asking questions and ruined everything. Fake e-mails could only work for so long. There were a few of us who actually cared about Danny and would eventually insist on seeing him in person. They sold his wheelchair. Although this thing was so advanced it was known as a mobility system. The damn thing was great. He could go up a few stairs, raise up to reach things. So I had to figure out how to get a thirty thousand dollar wheelchairs that usually has a month or more wait delivered ASAP.

The headline in the paper said COMIC BOOK HERO. I was a hero and all for allowing my girlfriend to beat up a kidnapper. But Danny said to go for the publicity for the sake of the store and even talked to the TV stations which surprised me. The publicity absolutely freaked out the home healthcare agency. Which you'll noticed I didn't name because of the terms of the settlement. Without a word from Danny's lawyer, their insurance company was ready to pony up an undisclosed amount.

When I gave interviews, I always lied and said that Weezer was suspcious of the valuable comic book with a hundred dollar price tag and had purchased it so that we could track down the real owner. I can be nice, you know.

It was Danny...

Lying on the floor in absolute filth, surrounded by empty Slim Fast cans and water bottles. There was nothing in the room but trash and the windows had been covered with a dark sheet that had been taped over. But he was alive and thrashing about helplessly.
"Oh dear God." I said dropping to my knees beside him. "I thought I was going to find your mummified corpse."
"Get me out." He said. He had a couple of months worth of nasty beard growth and his yes were red and runny. He smelled like absolute hell.
"I'll get 9-1-1 and the cops..."
"No, just get me out." He gasped. It sounded like he had a good repiratory infection going. "I'll go crazy just drag me out of here."
"Where the hell's your wheelchair?" I asked.
"Said she sold it." He whined. That was not like Danny. "Just get me outside. I wanna go outside."
"Do it." Maricel said.
"I don't want to hurt you." I said looking around the room in complete disbelief.
"I might get parazlyed." He said. "I know I'm disgusting, but please."
I tossed her the phone. "Get 9-1-1." And I slipped my arms under his and hauled him up as best I could to start dragging him out.
"Took you long enough." He said.
"I'm a moron." I said. "Lucky for you Jen's a little smarter than me and my girlfriend is smarter than both of us. These stairs are gonna hurt. They busted the elevator."
"I almost wiggled away." He said. "Bolt on the outside of the door and broke the elevator. I don't care if it hurts."
"Hurt me, you dummy." I said. "You haven't lost that much weight on Slimfast."
Maricel was direct on the phone. "I've got an injured kidnapping victim. I need police and an ambulance." She said. "Where the hell are we?"
I gave her the address to repeat to the cops. She was a couple of steps ahead of me, so she saw the big fat dreadlocked jackass a second before I did. I was rounding the bend of the stairs with Danny in my hands. I was screwed.
Then my baby doll made the most bad-ass move I've ever seen. She dropped flat down on her ass reared back and kicked the SOB with both of her legs as hard as she could sending him backwards down the steps. Then she popped up, jumped over me and Danny and ran back upstairs. I let go of Danny on the landing and did something I never imagined I could actually do. I don't know if you've every heard of a Berserker Rage. But it's like that scene in X-Men 2 where Wolverine jumps onto a group of soldiers and just starts slashing. Well I jumped down the stairs onto Fat Guy. I figured he'd be a soft place to land and probably a little sore from being stabbed and kicked by my old lady. I can't punch for nothing, so I was scratching and biting like a little girl. I even pulled out one of his stupid blond dreds. He was hard to keep down, like a big bull elephant you'd managed to piss off instead of kill. He flipped us both over with his fat ass on top ready to beat the crap out of me. We rolled out onto the floor and I heard someone run, jump over Danny and land hard on the stairs. Then she came out literally swinging one of Danny's old baseball bats that he kept from college. She was going Al Capone in the Untouchables on him. Thought she only hit him once in the head. She screamed as she busted on his arms and legs and she was so damn fast, he didn't know what to do. I rolled out from under him and struggled to me feet just in time to catch Susan/Heather out of the corner of my eye. She was about to dive in like me. I snatched hold of her hair like the freaking sissy I obviously am and threw her back against the wall. I've never hit a girl, not even on the playground, but
I could have killed her for what she did to Danny. I probably should have helped Maricel, but I didn't want to get in between that bat and its screaming target. Danny had sort of slid down the stairs head first and he was lying there smiling.

Somebody took the key from under the flowerpot...

So I had to go to plan B and just pry open one of the kitchen windows. Not really that hard when you happen to know that the latches are missing from the kitchen windows and that somebody wanted to find hardware that matched the rest of the house before he let me put them on. It was during the course of bickering with Danny about hardware that I realized I needed a girlfriend. I climbed up on a garbage can and shoved my fat behind through the window and then I opened the door and let Maricel in. She thought I should have let her skinny self go in the window. But I thought I'd be manly and go first. I made a quick sweep of the downstairs and noticed that his comic room had been nearly cleaned out. But no body.
"Check this out." Maricel said nodding to the small elevator that had been installed to get Danny between floors. It was more of a chair lift than an elevator, really just big enough for his chair. The mechanism to operate it had been busted. It looked like someone had taken a hammer to it.
I went up the stairs with a knot in my stomach. Something didn't smell good, but I didn't think it was a corpse smell. Danny's bedroom was obviously being occupied by someone else. There was girl crap all over the place. Maricel had opened the door to a smaller room and she screamed out my name. My hands suddenly shook violently, but I got ahold of myself and got over there. What I saw was awful.

Maricel saw her first...

She grabbed me the arm and pulled me back behind a garage out of sight. Heather/Susan was putting a short box of comics into the back of a car. A full long box might have been a challenge for a woman to carry. She drove away and I turned to Maricel.
"I gotta get in there now. I don't know if the police will go in if I call them. They'll probably come knock on the door. I might be able to get Ellen..."
"Are you sure you want to go in?" She said.
"Cause I'll probably find his body." I said. "Yeah, I think I owe him that much don't I?"
"Can you get in?" She asked.
"I can get into an old house." I said. "If I give you my phone..."
"Screw that." She said. "I'm going with you. I'm not Betty Brant, I'm Lois Lane."
"I am so going to marry you." I said.
"Well, of course you are."

"I don't know..."

I told Maricel. I don't know if he got pissed and left town and somebody stole his comic book. But something isn't right. I'm looking at his email and it's stuff that really only Danny would say, but it's not right, I don't know why. I can't tell if he's mad or..."
"You want me to look at it?" She offered. "Maybe you're just too close. Why don't you make some coffee?"
So I did, the good stuff. I ground the beans, made the coffee and even frothed some milk.
"You're right." Marciel said. "And I think I know what you see. You have a separate file for his correspondence, I see."
"Right above you." I said.
"I'm searching his e-mails for some phrases, because what I see here is something I've seen a lot of over the years."
"What?" I asked.
"What things look like when you copy bits and pieces from other sources and try to stick them together without bothering to rework it. Basic plagarism, my darling. Only not on a school paper. And what do you know..."
"What?"I asked putting down a latte in what had become Maricel's Wonder Woman mug beside her.
"I found the source for this paragraph. Two year old message. And let's see about this little Wolverine reference. " She took a sip of her coffee. "Hell yes. This is cobbled together out of old messages. He didn't write these last three e-mails. No way, no how. Somebody just went back and cut and pasted."
"Hell." I said. "I'm so stupid."
"You're not stupid." She said.
"I was thinking about you, I was worried abou Brian. I didn't see it."
"One more thing." Maricel said and she opened the Google search engine. She typed in Heather Carver Toledo and came up with only Heather Carvers in other states. Then she asked what the common spelling of Jablonski was and put in Susan Jablonski Toledo. And that took her to Susan Jablonki's MySpace page with a big picture of the girl I knew as Heather Carver smiling back at me.
Internet genius that I am, I had never even bothered to frickin' google her.
Figuring that sweat pants and a T-shirt counted as dressed, I put my damn shoes on and picked up my phone.
"Screw it." I said. "I'm goin' over there."
"Give me a second." Maricel said. And in literally five of them, she'd pulled on a pair of jeans and was slipping on her shoes as we went. I called Ellen, because I thought she'd better be able to understand what the hell I was saying about Danny than if I started from scratch with a cop. I left a pretty frantic message as I walked. In the early morning darkness we cut across the playground of the school behind my store and over to the alley that ran behind Danny's house.

I could not sleep...

I wondered if Danny thought that somehow I knew about Jen. Maybe put her up to finding him since I was so big into my Internet romance. Jen couldn't sleep either, because I was looking at Danny's forum at five in the morning and she was there, too. I e-mailed her and asked if she thought he might think that somehow we were conspiring against him.
"Maybe." She answered. "He wasn't mad at you before he found out about me. He was just waiting for you to come over so he could show you something. He spent a freaking fortune on Detective Comics..."
"Thirty-eight." I said aloud before I read it. "Oh my God." I said it loudly enough to wake Maricel.
"What?" She came out of the bedroom in a panic.
"Something's wrong." I said.

I could see why Danny might feel like hiding out...

He probably realized what a stupid freaking mistake he made all those years ago. I decided to see if Juanita was familar with Susan Jablonski.
"No, the name doesn't ring a bell." She said. "Danny went through a lot of caregivers. Some people found him a little challenging to get along with."
"Not Danny." I said sarcastically.
The next morning I tried to get the agency that supplied his nursing assitants to tell me something about Sue Jablonski, but apparently everything like that is so confidential that to even speak of it invites a federal prison sentence.
Crap.

I related the sad story of Danny and Jen to Maricel...

She's heard bits and pieces of it all, but she hadn't heard me talk so much for so long about Danny before.
"I tried so hard to talk him out of dumping her like that." I said.
"How awful she must have felt." Marciel said. "You know what you'd think?"
"What?" I asked.
"That you were just some chick he was screwing and if he didn't think could use you for sex anymore, he just didn't want you around."
"Hadn't thought of it like that." I said. "That wasn't the case, he loved her. He just didn't want to stick her taking care of him for the rest of her life. I told him that if she didn't like it, she could leave. That it wasn't his decision to make for someone else. But he said he could just as easily have me barred from his room if I didn't shut up about it. I didn't want him to be alone."
"Dumb." She said. "But I've been dumb a time or two myself."
"The worst part was that Jen was really up on the medical stuff. I didn't have a handle on it at all and there was some stuff, I didn't think he was right about. The wanted to do some surgery on his arms because they thought they could really increase the mobility. The arm problems aren't from the spinal cord injury, the arms were badly broken and didn't heal so good. But he was scared of losing the mobility he had. But I thought the doctors were making good sense..."
I shook my head wearily. "That was a freaky time. Seems like I always have somebody to worry about."
"Now you have me." She said.
"You aren't particularly worrisome." I said. "And you bake."
"If you got hurt, I'd take care of you." She said.
"I know you would. I'd let you. You know, I'd take care of you."
"I know." She said. "That's kind of why I'm here with you."

I pretended to be Danny on-line last night...

and lo and behold Mystique turned up.
"Where have you been?" She typed. "I was starting to get worried. That last message was so vague. I know you're mad and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But I just wanted to talk to you and I knew you wouldn't. Don't you understand that?"
"I guess." I typed for and non-combative and non-communicative answer.
"I was worried about you." Mystique wrote. "And don't get mad, anyone can get sick or have an accident. I looked up your phone number and I left you a couple of messages. I gues syou got those. I'd rather have you yell at me than not talk to me at all."
"I'm not Danny." I typed. "I'm looking for Danny. He hasn't been around in a few weeks. And I'm just getting worried."
"Who are you?" She wrote.
"I'm a friend of his, we go way back. We've done the comic thing together for years."
"Simon?" She typed rather unexpectedly.
"Yes." I replied.
"What's your number?" She asked. "I'll call you."
A minute after I replied my phone rang.
"It's me, Jennifer Wells." She said.
"Oh my God." I said. "Jen."
"Yeah. I think that's what Danny thought when he figured out it was me he was talking to."

Jen had been Danny's girlfriend for a couple of years before his accident. They were crazy close and she did her best to stand by him after the accident. She talked to doctors and took notes and made the funeral arrangements for his parents. And one day he just cut her off and had her barred from his room. He wouldn't read her letters or take her calls and nothing anyone said could change his mind. She had been in despair for a long time, then finally moved away to Florida to get on with her life. She'd gotten married and opened a business. Both had gone south about the same time. She was just trolling around looking for some comic sites and she came across Danny's board and figured out it was him. He hadn't figured out that Mystique was her at first and they had hit it off famously, just like the first time. Jen, like Ellen and Maricel, was a girl who really dug comics.

A few weeks ago, Danny had decided to come clean and let his on-line honey know that he was confined to a wheelchair. Then it was her turn to come clean and confess that she already knew that.
"God he was mad at me." She said. "Cause he hardly said anything or typed anything. You know what I mean. When he's really mad, he won't talk he just says two or three words."
"I think he's pretty mad at me." I said. "I was meeting a new girlfriend out at Comic Con in Vegas and I didn't even offer to take him this time."
"He wasn't mad about that. He thought it was cool that you had a girlfriend." She said. "He told all to Mystique."
"I'm just worried." I said. "And I talked to my friend who's a cop and he's not technically missing, though he supposed to have gone to Florida."
"Why would he come here?" She asked. "You don't think that he's here, do you? Or that something happened to him on the way here?"
"I don't know." I said. "I really don't know."

I had just about the best Sunday ever...

It consisted of church, a walk in the park and some delicious hot soup that we ate sitting on a park bench overlooking the river. The we found a really nice rug. Well, there was some other stuff, too. But nothing that's any of your damn business. Years ago when Danny was still in college, I remember giving him some crap because he went to some antique show with his girlfriend Jen. He said that if I could learn to do a certain something as well as she did, he'd go anywhere I wanted him to.

About the rug. Even if you don't like it. I do.

See you in the funny papers...
Simon

I did manage to catch up with Heather...

She stopped to get gas and was finishing up as I was pulling in.
"Did you get hold of him?" She asked me.
"No." I said.
"I get the feeling something weird is going on." Heather said. "I mean, that he's mad or he's doing something he don't think other people will like. Other people have left messages and stuff and I don't think he gets back to them. I mean, I don't know him or anything and I shouldn't be in his business. Cause everything for the house is all paid up and I've been paid. But I guess I'm kind of curious about who pissed him off. Was it like a girl or his family or what? And I think he's totally mad. The nurse chick said somebody blew him off for some big thing he wanted to go to and you know, he can't go by himself really."
Those were not happy words for me to hear. Since I was the one who blew him off for the big event.
"Who's his nurse now?" I asked.
"Her name is Susan." She said. "Susan something all Polish like Jablonski maybe. I never said much to her. She's kind of stuck up."
"You don't need diet anything." I said to her.
"What?"
"I saw you at the store, you don't need diet anything." I said.
"Thanks, but you've never seen me in my fat pants." She laughed.
Men don't have fat pants. We just keep lowering our waists.

I was in line at the grocery store...

A ten for ten dollars sale on shredded cheese had sent me on a mad buying binge. There are 20 lanes at the Kroger's. Two of them were open. I could have used the self-checkout, but that thing is my enemy. I spotted Danny's housesitter Heather stocking up on Slim-Fast shakes and Diet Pepsi. There were ten packages of cheese and five boxes of brownie mix in my cart. I think we're living very different kinds of lives. I wanted to catch up with her and ask after Danny, but the person in front of me would not accept the fact that her check would not clear because she had insufficient funds in the bank. Those stupid new electronic devices make it damn hard to kite checks like the good old days. She was wearing low-rider jeans and a belly shirt that bared way too much belly and showed off a tattoo. Some little kid with her was calling her Grandma. And she wasn't a hot grandma, she looked like a regular grandma. Just in lowrider jeans and a bell shirt...with a tattoo. And she couldn't get her cigarettes. Bummer...

A bunch of Maricel's stuff came...

She was so happy. She's got so many freaking dolls. Well, compared to me, she doesn't have that much stuff. They're pretty nice. I have some display cases in the basement that I knew would come in handy someday. I suggested putting some of the nicest stuff down in the store with a prominent not for sale sign displayed. The rest can go in the bedroom she has carefully crafted into a functional and attractive office for both my business and her teaching work. Did I mention the part when I went out and bought actual office furniture? When you buy stuff from a furniture store it costs more money, but there are actually dudes that move it upstairs for you. We got this stuff pictured up top. That's from the company's website, our office isn't out on the patio like that one seems to be. I would think that wouldn't be so good for the electronics. I could be wrong. But her clothes are in the closets and some of her stuff is hanging on the walls. And that really doesn't bug me at all. I'm thinking that's a good sign. Weezer's out of the ICU, too. Another good sign.
See you in the funny papers...

I picked out a bunch of ruined books...

And gave them to Maricel for her students to use for art projects. I got to drive them down to the school and carry the boxes up to the classroom. It's a cool place and apparently everyone had heard so much about me. They were smiling like it was good stuff. I went home to opene the store and an hour or so later Ellen came by with lunch. It was a giagantic Italian sandwich. What a gal. She just wants to get her hands on my comics. I floated the possibility of Danny being a missing person. Even though, I'd only sorta kinda noticed his absence just recently. And there was that possibility that he was just pissed at me, backed up by a terse e-mail that contained enough personal information to indicate that it was actually from him. By the time I finished talking, she was frowning at me and I was frowning at myself since what I said didn't make much sense. She said that Auntie Maria's P.I. had talked to her and that she'd vouched for me. Even though her first instinct was to tell him to step off. We laughed a little and finished lunch. Then all of the sudden she said.
"I was really scared of messing up our friendship. Which is pretty stupid since you're supposed to be friendly with your boyfriend. Am I screwed up or what?"
"Are we talking about now or about the thing we aren't supposed to ever speak of?" I asked.
"The thing we aren't supposed to speak of." She sighed.
"So can I speak of it or is this some kind of test?"
"You may speak." She said.
"That was a long time ago Ellie Mae." I said.
"You'd like to forget about it." She said.
"No, I forgot at your behest." I said. "And not wanting me as your boyfriend really doesn't mean you're messed up."
"But I did want you as my boyfriend. I just like the fact that you think like that. You know, being my boyfriend. A lot of guys don't think in terms of boyfriend."
"I'm too lazy to dig up different girls to sleep with." I said.
"This is a bad time to bring this up." She said. "Maybe some other time."
"You know, sweetie. I just don't think so." I said.
She sighed. "I was afraid of that."

SWSNBN e-mailed me...

Why is some dude calling me on my honeymoon to check up on you?
She inquired.

I told him the only read danger is being bored to death with deep meaningful conversation about Star Trek and Batman.

She said. And I sort of remembered that sometimes she used to make me laugh.

You should check your new sidekick out. No matter what you think, those foreign
chicks can be sketchy.


Looks like Auntie Maria is wasting no time having me investigated. Well, good for her I guess.

I took the purloined passwords...

and checked out the forum Danny moderates. He hasn't posted in a damn long time. You like the word "purloined?" Sounds better than stolen, though not as good as filched. So is he busy with his new friend, much like me? I dunno. But I looked at some of the messages and checked out some private mail. Looks like he has a very good friend who goes by Mystique. Which could be a little worrisome if you know who Mystique is in X-Men lore. She's much badder than the blue naked Rebecca Rojmin Stamos from the movies. I began to have visions of Danny buried in her backyard. Just like Marciel's aunt does.

Maricel is getting pretty good with a martini...

And I needed a drink when I got home. Turns out Maricel can get a provisional teaching certificate so she's now counts as a "highly qualified teacher" as she takes the necessary classes to get her master's in education. They're pretty happy about that at the school, since a couple of their full time teaches have bailed for higher paying positions elsewhere. And I guess she's as popular there as she is around here. And they've never even had her martinis or eaten her cooking. Wish I was that cool...

I'm getting kind of frustrated...

that Danny has no real interest in calling me back. I've scored a couple of terse e-mails, but he's really the person I want to talk to about the stupid comic book. I'm getting a little worried, but I wonder if that isn't just a bit condescending of me. He's a grown up and should be able to come and go as he pleases. But the idea of him taking off to meet someone from the Internet... Just like Maricel did. Hmmm... I went over to his house tonight, hoping to irritate the housesitter, but nobody answered. Nobody ever thinks of me. On the slightly brighter side, Brian looked better; much better. He was sitting up, or he was actually propped up. But he was upright and able to talke a little. Or at least answer a couple of quesitons. He confirmed with a slight nod that big blonde dreadlocked dude had sold him the comic. For a hundred freaking bucks. That was the offer Weezer made and the guy was pretty happy about it. My cousin thought it was a good idea to to get rid of the fake hundred dollar bill by spending it on what he must have known to be a stolen comic. There was a lot I could have said to him about the subject, but it probably wasn't a good time. Sometimes Brian makes me very tired.
"He said there was more." Brian literally weezed.
"Dude, it's all stolen." I said. "And I don't think he wants to sell you anything else since he figured out that damn book was worth more than my house."
"Too bad." He said.
"He came to kick your ass in a hospital bed." I said. "He came to the store, my girlfriend stabbed him."
"You have a girlfriend?" He said. Well, he had been in and out of it.
"Did you come across some diamond earrings?" I asked.
He smiled wickedly. Just like he used to when he was getting me into trouble in our childhood.
"I should kick your ass." I said. "She was over at my house ranting and raving. She even broke in and got her butt arrested."
"That's funny." He said weakly.
"I found everything up in the ceiling when my cat got up there. I tell you about the cat later."
"Funny." He said again. He also said that when he set things on fire or pulled the legs off bugs.
"Where were the earrings?"
"I was gonna hide the book in that funny bathroom thing, but I found the earrings. Then I wanted somewhere better." He started to cough and I figured that was it for the day.
Yikes...

see you in the funny papers...

Simon

Fabulous day at the store...

A customer came in and absolutely jumped my ass over the Marvel Civil War. Like it was my idea and I had some control over the content of the comics. I refused to get excited. He was getting all red in the face. I made the suggestion that he could just stop reading Marvel books. I thought he was going to swing on me. I would have hated to have to beat him down with a baseball bat. There's already been too much blood on my floor. Ellen stopped by. Said there's till nothing on my rare and lovely comic in the safe deposit box. I had her watch the cash register while I put dinner in the oven for Maricel. Insensitive you say? Nah...

I watched Maricel sleeping...

and I thought about a lot of stuff. Like why it is so much easier to live with her than SWSNBN. Maricel has said much the same thing about her relationship with her jet-lagged ex. This just seems easier. Is it because we're right for each other or we've just wised up at this point in life and started picking our battles carefully. Or is it because everything is just new. When homesickness or a real distaste for winter weather sets in, stuff could change. Maricel swears she remembers and loves winter. But I sometimes long for winter in the middle of summer, but not the actual winter that comes in November. Some pretty clean winter with no black slush and no bitter winds slicing you in two. I really don't want to mess this up. I think I should go to sleep, don't you?

See you in the funny papers...
Simon

So is it wrong....

to kinda sorta borrow your girlfriend's phone and call the last number she dialed to talk to her Aunt and explain you aren't a serial killer? You think? Ooops! But if you call at midnight our time, it's noon in Manila. And what's a better lunchtime conversation than explaining that you're as harmless as a petunia plant to a woman you've never met. Why on earth would you be suspicious of some dude your niece met on the Internet? I don't get it. She made it pretty clear that she was having my ass checked out and I made it pretty clear that I was okay with that. Which is sort of true. How can I blame her? And truthfully, there's not a heck of a lot to find out. But it still irritates me. And I guess it shouldn't. Like I've said, if it were my sister running off to Manila, I'd be on a plane in half an hour. And my sister is a giant pain in the behind. Sooner or later Maricel is going to find out and probably be pretty ticked off at me. Oh well.

Maricel was on the phone with her aunt...

She was not happy. I stayed out of it and served myself some dinner. It was flank steak stuffed with cheese in a really tasty tomato sauce. Afterwards, she sat down with me. I said nothing until she spoke to me.
"He left, by the way." I said.
"Darn, I was hoping he'd stay for dinner." She said.
"I asked." I said. "He had another engagment."
"I was hoping you'd shoot him." She said.
"No you weren't." I said.
"Pistol whip him?" She suggested.
"He's completely confused." I said.
"I don't know quite how she got him to come here." Maricel said.
"Maybe he feels guilty." I said.
"After she got done with him, he probably does. But it won't last." She said. "So dear, tell me all about your day."
And I did.

See you in the funny papers...

Simon

To top off a magical day of fun...

I was just ready to close up the shop after a day so busy it made my head spin. I could smell dinner wafting down the stairs and was beginning to salivate. Maricel can cook. She's going through my cookbooks and coming up with something different every night. But she's walking me so much, I'm not getting any fatter. I had an exciting evening of dinner, TV and comparative comic book reading followed by discusison ahead. And I'd done nearly two thousand dollars worth of business in a day. The front door beeped and one tired looking guy came in.
"May I help you?" I asked cheerfully. I can always fake cheerful when I want their money.
"I'm here to see Maricel." He said.
I could pretty much figure he'd some all the way from Manila.
"And you are?" I asked.
"Why do you need to know?" He said in an unneccessarily confrontational tone.
"So I can tell her who's here." I said. "Honey, some unidentified male is here, doesn't seem to cut it."
I knew who it was. I was just screwing with him. I didn't have to call her, she came skipping downstairs to help me close up the shop like she always did. If I hadn't grabbed her by the belt, I think she would have killed him. I actually snatched her out of mid-ail and pulled her back towards me before she could get him. No need to repeat the string of obscenities. You get the gist. She was not too happy to see her cheating, lying ex-boyfriend.
"What are you doing here?" She screeched. That's exactly my reaction when SWSNBN shows her face. So I understood.
"I came to bring you home." He said.
"Your wife might not like that." She said.
"To your aunt." He said. "Your family is worried."
"And they sent you?" She said. "That's a brilliant idea. I hate you."
"She talked me into it." He said. "I don't know why I'm here."
"Neither do I." Maricel said. "I am home. This is where I live. This is where I was born."
"Don't delude yourself." He said. "Everything isn't going to be perfect because you moved to America."
"Everything will be perfect because you're not around." She said. "Go away. I'm fine. I don't need your help now. When I needed your help, you were busy with some other girl. Remember her, your wife? Shouldn't you be home with her now?"
"I should." He said angrily. "But I came halfway actoss the world to help you."
"You should have tried dropping by when I needed you to come halfway across town, you selfish, stupid bastard." She said. "I'm done with you." And she turned her back and ceased to acknowledge anything he said or did. She just went upstairs.
"I don't think she wants to talk to you." I said.
"Nothing better happen to her." He said to me.
"Bite me." I replied wittily.
"She's having your background checked." He warned me.
"Don't blame her." I said. "There's nothing to find, but I don't blame her. Don't you think you'd better leave before she hurts you?"
"I spent two straight days on a plane." He said.
I shrugged. "Maybe you should have called first."

Juanita called me...

She talked with her daughter and is now worried about Danny. The Florida stuff has her nervous. Danny had an online friend who lived in Florida. Juanita was worried he was spending way too much time chatting with her. He met her through a comic fan message board that Danny moderated. I didn't really know much about this because I was pretty busy with my own online friend.
"He's got a lot of money and he's in a vulnerable position." Juanita said. "I don't want some girl taking advantage of him. I was so afraid something would happen if I left him."
"You didn't leave him." I said.
"Can you check up on him?" She asked. "Without seeming like you're checking up on him?"
"I could do that." I said. "And I want to ask his expert opinion about something anyway."
"I can tell you everything about that group." She informed me. "I know all the passwords and everything. I had to help him with it sometimes."
"Can you e-mail it to me?" I asked.
"I understand all about e-mail." She said. "Learned that helping out Danny. He's like a son to me, you know?"
"I know." I said.
]
See you in the funny papers...

Simon