Why are the tighty whities so scared of Mexicans?

That's a question that Seb over at Sadly No! asks. So: Why are tighty whities on the right wing so scared by brown people?

Here's my theory: Hispanics believe in family. As in, extended family - grandmothers, cousins, uncles, the works. This is very threatening to white Americans who believe in "I got mine, and screw you" even when it's concerning their own parents or children. Thus all the RV's driven by old white people on the roads with the signs in the back windows that say "I'm spending my childrens' inheritence", the strange depravity of age-restricted communities such as the various Sun City clones (the notion of old people being isolated from the younger people of their family makes the Hispanics that I know get a puzzled frown), etc.

The fact that Hispanics believe in family, in helping one another, simply conflicts with the world view of the tighty whities. Thus the shrieking and screaming and running around in circles pulling out hair and shouting "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!". It's the same bias that was used against Italians 100 years ago, just retargetted to another suspiciously brown populace that is Catholic, speaks some kinda funny furriner gabble, and believes in family.

Anyhow, that's my theory (based upon living in Hispanic communities years of my life). Whether it's true or not, it does point out one significant difference between the Hispanic community and the tighty whities, and explains why, where the Hispanics see family, the tighty whities see conspiracy. The notion of "family" in the traditional sense simply does not make sense to today's tighty whities with their isolated "nuclear families", and when they see it, they can't tell the difference between that and some kind of foreign conspiracy to destroy white people. Of course, it requires someone with a peculiar kind of stupidity and paranoia to think that way, but hey, stupidity and paranoia are two things not in short supply here in these United States of Delusion...

- BadTux the Family Penguin

The flames of hell

For those of you who have read the first draft of my novel, provisionally titled "The Fixer" (and if you want a copy of the first draft for "editorial commentary purposes", drop me EMAIL), you might remember the painting in John Farner's entryway. That painting is not real. However, a similar painting hangs in my mother's entryway, and it is similarly created with red and black and yellow oil paints swirled onto canvas in a way that evokes the flames of Hell, albeit more explicitly so (with a vaguely demonic figure seeming to creep out of the background if you look at it wrong). It seems that a relative, while in college, shared an apartment with a fellow college student who was an aspiring painter. Unfortunately, said painter spent his rent money on canvas and paints, rather than on housing (an old story, eh?). The end result was that this relative ended up with a painting rather than with the painter's half of the rent money, and it ended up wending its way to my mother's hallway since she ended up making up the other half of the rent money. It always seemed to me that it would be more appropriate in the hallway of someone who was more violently-inclined than my mother, who wields a cold stethoscope but otherwise is more into the healing than hurting business (semi-retired nurse, not retired at the time she acquired said painting).

So anyhow, now comes the question of what to do about the title of the novel. To tell you the truth, I was looking at The Fixer's site and at his list of novels that he'd written, and thinking to myself, "Gosh, I wonder if I could write a novel?". So I decided to open up an editor window. So I typed "xemacs" then stopped... xemacs wants a filename. And then I asked myself, "Hmm, filename do I use?" I had a posting by The Fixer open in my browser. So I used the word "fixer" as the filename. Then I looked at the blank editor window. "Hmm, what's the title of this thing?" I didn't have the slightest idea what it was about, so I just wrote "The Fixer" on the blank page.

Then I went away and figured out who my protagonist was and pushed her into the story, and away we went.

The point... well, the story sort of is relevant to the title, in that she fixes a problem for a company that is an amalgam of a couple of Silicon Valley companies (as far as I know Oracle never stole someone else's software and branded it as their own -- but I know at least two other *very* large companies that did), but sheesh. I need a real title, not the handle of some other author stolen off of his web site!

Or maybe sharing a title with a blogger, a couple of classics (Bernard Malamud's and Joe Sacco's) and with a very lame vampire story (ick!) is the fate of this story, given that the titles I can think of tend to revolve around those paintings, and frankly, titles with the word "fire" in them are even more hackneyed. Sigh.

BTW: Just finished importing it into OpenOffice 2.0, remapping OO's keys to look sorta Emacs-ish (thank gawd for customizability!), spell-checking, and doing some minor changes. That was several days worth of work. There are two major changes coming up, a scene with the CEO of Sybil Software, and a scene with the big Russian dude after she wraps up the stuff at the warehouse, and a lot of fixes here and there. There's some parts I'm not happy with, some parts I need to re-arrange, and I need to do more setup for the last line (which will puzzle anybody who hasn't been reading my blog for at least a year). However, all in all, having just read through the whole blessed thing again, I'm fairly satisfied. Given that I wrote the whole first draft in less than two months of weekends and evenings (but had absolutely zero life during those two months other than work and writing, I guess that's how it has to be if you want to get things done) and it's my first attempt ever at writing a novel, it hangs together a helluva lot better than it has a right to, and leaves plenty of room for prequels and sequels if I ever want to come back to this character again.

Anyhow, enough for this Saturday. I'll see you tomorrow on Happy Mission Accomplished Day!

- Badtux the Fiction-writing Penguin

Eichmann in Jerusalem

When Nazi functionary Adolf Eichmann was captured and put on trial in Jerusalem for his crimes against humanity, Jewish philosopher and ethicist Hannah Arendt was dispatched by the New Yorker Magazine to cover the trial. She expected the architect of "The Final Solution" to be a slavering anti-Semite, a madman, crazed, filled with hate. She expected him to be the epitome of evil, a man unlike you or I, someone whose very nature was unlike that of normal men. What she found instead was an ordinary bureaucrat.

Far from being a slavering anti-Semite, Eichmann had no hate at all for Jews. He actually had Jewish friends before it became illegal. He never personally killed anybody with his own hands and in no way was personally a violent man, indeed, was appalled when he saw S.S. troops executing Jews and directed that more "humane" ways be found to exterminate the Jews (thus the gas chambers). His friends and relatives described him as a very boring person whose sole goal in life was to perform well enough in the duties assigned him to get the promotions and pay raises that he felt he deserved. Far from being a slavering psychopath, he was just an ordinary bureaucrat following the rules and following the law, trying to do a good job in the tasks that he had been assigned by his superiors in order to get noticed and promoted.

I am reminded of this because of the Reich-wing Republican's slavering devotion to law in preference to ethics. Reich-wingers never debate the ethical consequences of the behavior of their Dear Leader and His holy appointed administration. Rather, they debate points of law. For example, on the issue of illegal immigration, they focus on the law -- "it's illegal!" they cry. They never focus on ethical issues of right or wrong -- is it, for example, right to deport a 14 year old child who was brought to America as an infant? Reich-wingers, like Adolph Eichmann, never debate whether it's right or wrong. It's the law. That's good enough for them. Like Adolph Eichmann, for Reich-wing Republicans the law is the law, and the only ethical thing to do is to follow the law, even if it requires deporting a child to a land she has never known where she does not even know the answer, even if it requires exterminating the Jewish population of Europe. The law is the law, and as long as you follow the law, you are right.

The Republican Party is a party of Adolph Eichmanns, a party of people who believe that the law takes precedence over humanity, the law takes precedence over right and wrong, that the law is everything and that as long as you follow the law, you have nothing to be guilty about. See their defense of Dear Leader's program to spy on Americans without a warrant, for example. Their defense never touches upon whether it is right for our government to spy on Americans without the checks and balances of a warrant from a court. Rather, they defend it as being legal based upon legal analysis of the Patriot Act as provided by Attorney General Abu Gonzales. And the petty bureaucrats in the Federal bureaucracy who implement the program similarly have no moral qualms about their actions. They have received an order from their superiors to do something, and they implement it. Like Adolph Eichmann, whether an action is moral or not is irrelevant. All that matters is whether it will lead to recognition and a promotion.

The law is the law. That was Adolph Eichmann's defense at his trial. The law said he had to exterminate the Jews, so he followed the law and exterminated the Jews. Morality, for the Adolph Eichmanns of this world -- and I count the Reich-wing Republicans amongst them -- has nothing to do with whether something is wrong or right. The law is the law for them, and that's all that matters, especially if they can bend the law into gaining themselves the recognition and promotion that they feel they deserve.

- Badtux the Morality Penguin

Why can you use .38 cartridges in a .357 Magnum?

That's a question I asked elsewhere. So I did a little research. And it seems that .38 bullets are actually .357 inches in diameter.

So why is it called the .38 caliber, rather than a .357 caliber? It has to do with the old days of cap-and-ball revolvers. Well, "cap and ball" is sort of a misnomer. This was the setup that made the American Civil War so deadly: you'd put the powder load in the chamber, followed by wadding, followed by a bullet with an expanding base. Then you'd put a percussion cap on the nipple that led to the chamber.

Anyhow, the deal is that you'd pull back the hammer, point at whoever you wanted to kill, then pull the trigger to let the hammer fall on the percussion cap. And then, just like the cap pistol you may have had as a kid, it'd go "pop!". But this "pop!" would send flame into the powder chamber. Which, if you packed the wadding in there tight enough, would then go "bang" and shove the wadding up against the base of the bullet, thereby expanding it to match into the rifling of the barrel, resulting in a muzzle-loading rifle that didn't require a freakin' sledgehammer to load it and indeed could be loaded just as fast as a smoothbore.

The expanding-bullet rifle changed warfare. Prior to this rifle, most battles were fought with smoothbores that were accurate maybe to 40 yards. You'd get enough time for a couple of volleys, then get after the enemy with your bayonet. Battles were won by bayonets, not by bullets. Rifles were acccurate to over 100 yards, but were too slow to load. But once the expanding-base bullet was created, you could have a bullet that was smaller in diameter than the rifling, and load from the muzzle without having to hammer the bullet all the way down from the muzzle to the base. Thus Picket's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg, which would have been a glorious victory for the Confederacy in the pre-minie-ball day, was a senseless slaughter -- the new minie-ball rifle had enough range that the charging Confederates were cut down long before they managed to run across the wide field they had to go through to get to the Union lines.

Anyhow, this same system was used for revolvers. So the barrel was .38 inches in size, but the bullet was .357 inches in size so that it could be dropped down from the muzzle. The cylinder's chambers were .357 inches in size too so that you could pound the bullet in there with your loading rod so that your bullet didn't fall out the front of the gun. These early revolvers were loaded from the muzzle just like early rifles, you just did it six times. These early single-action revolvers didn't have the swing-out cylinders of modern double-action revolvers -- they were, frankly, a pain to load.

So anyhow, when the brass all-in-one cartridge was invented, the first thing gunsmiths did was bore out the rear of the cylinders of these single-action .38-caliber-barrel pistols and insert brass cartridges. Because the cylinders were designed to hold bullets that were .357 inches in size, that's what they put into them. Eventually gun-makers came out with guns explicitly designed to hold these cartridges, with barrels that didn't have the extra slop needed for muzzle-loaders, but they kept calling these guns .38's because the cartridges were the same ones that they'd originally fitted into the real .38's that they'd bored the ends of the chambers out of. So even though the bullets were only .357 in diameter, and the barrels only slightly above that, they still called it a .38.

Now, let's fast-forward to the early 1930's. Gangsters adopted early versions of body armor, and the metal-bodied cars were hard to penetrate with bullets. The venerable .38 Special cartridge from the late 19th Century just wasn't cutting it for the FBI. So a longer variant of the venerable .38 cartridge was created that held more powder and had a faster burn. Rather than call it a ".38 Special Special" or something stupid like that, the folks who designed the new cartridge called it by its real diameter -- the .357. And because a magnum flask of champagne is one that's larger than the regular one, they called it the .357 Magnum cartridge. Then they designed a gun to shoot this longer cartridge and voila, the .357 Magnum revolver was born.

There are larger calibers of revolver and pistols available nowdays, of course. Even with the .357 Magnum was created, there was the .45ACP (Colt 1911A and its clones), though its ballistics couldn't match the .357 Magnum's. When the .44 Magnum (Dirty Harry's favorite weapon) was created in the 1950's, it pretty much exceeded the limits of gun control in the gun nut use of the term -- i.e., it has so much kick that it's basically uncontrollable by most people. So the .357 Magnum is still a quite popular caliber. A revolver is simple and reliable, and the load is pretty much the heaviest load that most people can shoot and still adequately control. And because revolvers don't care how long their cartridge is, you can put the shorter .38 caliber cartridge into the chambers and have a reduced-kick pistol that is useful for target shooting and learning gun control (in the gun nut use of the term, i.e., "gun control means that you hit what you're shootin' at").

Nowdays revolvers aren't so popular. Blame it on the Feds, again. Once the Department of Defense decided to adopt the 9mm cartridge for handguns in order to have commonality of ammunition with our NATO partners, suddenly the old .38 Special and .357 Magnum just seemed, well, old. So police forces upgraded to 9mm automatics that could hold 15 or more cartridges in a magazine, significantly more than the 6 or 7 that a revolver can hold, and magazines can be loaded far faster than a revolver can be loaded even with speedloaders for the revolver. The problem is that the 9mm cartridge has about the same stopping power as the .38 Special, because of an interesting characteristic of an automatic: the bullet is pushed up into the bottom of the ejector chamber as the ejector chunks the spent cartridge out the side, and then is pushed forward into the actual chamber by the slide sliding back foward via the slide springs. Thus the bullet can't be a soft lead hollow-point that could hang up on any of the mechanisms. It pretty much has to be a jacketed round that will slide smoothly through this process, else it can jam, at which point you're in the same position as the poor GI's whose early M-16's jammed in Vietnam due to poor-quality ammunition, i.e., your pistol is now a rock or club, not a pistol.

Thus jacketed bullets. All autopistols use them. Soft lead rounds like are used in revolvers simply won't slide right through the mechanisms. The problem with a jacketed bullet is that while it might slide more easily through the mechanism of the autopistol, it doesn't expand as well when it actually hits something. A soft hollow-point .38 bullet will expend all its energy in doing damage to the bad guy. A jacketed 9mm bullet will pass right through him and do damage to the wall behind him. Unless you've got something against that wall, this isn't what you want.

So anyhow, the point is that it might seem that, say, a .40 caliber automatic such as is now issued to the FBI would have significantly more stopping power than the .357 Magnum. But that's simply not true. Bigger isn't better. It's just bigger. If the .357 bullet expands to more than .40 caliber when it slams into a body, and it has as much energy behind it, it'll do more damage than the .40. About the only advantage the automatic has is that its magazine holds more rounds. Which is fine if you're in a gunfight with a bunch of bankrobbers, but if you're just wanting to defend your home against a thief, it's way overkill. Not to mention another drawback of the automatic -- because it uses blowback or recoil to slide the slide back and eject the cartridge and allow the new cartridge to feed, if you "limp wrist" the pistol and allow it to kick back, it's possible that the energy needed to eject the cartridge will instead go into your body -- resulting in a jam. Meanwhile, a revolver is dirt simple, with nothing to jam. You point, you pull the trigger, you shoot. Repeat until done.

So anyhow, that's why revolvers are still an excellent home defense weapon despite all these fancy automatics that are so popular today, why a .357 Magnum has more stopping power than any automatic currently sold, and why a .357 will shoot .38 Special cartridges (because they're really only .357 inches in diameter!). Hope you enjoyed this little bit of gun-nuttia!

- Badtux the Libertarian Penguin

Money is more important than human lives

From my novel:

The headquarters of Sybil Software was a temple to money. People worshiped there, worshiped the almighty dollar and the power that it gave them, worshiped those above them in the corporate hierarchy who had more money and power than they. It was a cult, a cult based on money, a cult based on insanity, on giving up anything and everything that ever mattered in pursuit of pieces of toilet paper with pictures of dead presidents on them.

There was no joy, no feeling, no beauty in this sterile cube of glass and steel. People no longer came to work for Sybil in order to change the world. They came to work for Sybil because they wanted to work for a successful company. They came to work for Sybil because they were worshipers, and success defined as pictures of dead presidents was what they worshiped.

To the members of this cult -- which includes everybody defined as "successful" in this sick society we live in -- people are not important. Pieces of toilet paper with pictures of dead presidents are what's important. Thus Governor Bush of Texas, on behalf of large insurance companies and hospitals, signed into law a bill allowing hospitals to unilaterally take people off of life support whenever they felt like it if the hospital deemed the treatment too expensive. As a result, St. Luke's Medical Center in Texas unilaterally decided to kill a patient who was costing them too much money. And Texas law allows them to do that.

Because, you see, in these United States, there is only one God, and his name is Dollar. Remember that, everyt ime you hear Preznit Born-with-silver-foot-in-mouth mention the word God. He isn't talking about any God that you or I might recognize from the Bible. He's talking about the only God he and his entire retinue of hangers-on and flunkies worship: The almighty Dollar.

So: I wonder how long it will be before other "too expensive to live" people are quietly put down? for example, all those pesky dusky-skinned poor people? After all, money is more important than human lives here in the United States of Mammon...

- Badtux the Mammon-callin' Penguin

Praise Allah! Allah grows terrorist a new leg!

It appears that their Allah whupped ass on Bush's God. All Bush's God has done for him lately is manage to quelch the DT's under a bunch of Zoloft. Meanwhile, Iraq-based terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Allah has performed a major miracle that as far as I know the Christian God hasn't done for a couple thousand years -- Allah grew Zarqawi a new leg.

So: Whose god is a false idol, again?!

-- Badtux the Religious Penguin

Why would Preznit Cartman care about low popularity?

I mean, he done been electorated. Ain't nuthin' nobody's gonna do to get him out of office except impeach him, and that's not likely given that the House of Representatives is thoroughly gerrymandered Republican. So why would he care that he's completely and thoroughly unpopular?

Look. Local price of gasoline is $3.14 a gallon. Vice President Halliburton is dancing a merry jig and giving the middle finger to the U.S. pouplance and saying "Go Cheney yourself!". He's got what he wants. Oh sure, he might not do much governing over the next couple of years, but really, do you think he cares? Not likely!

- Badtux the Realist Penguin

It is done

The first draft of the crime novel, that is. I am somewhat emotionally and physically exhausted. Writing is hard work. Especially writing as grim as the ending of this thing.

It ended up at 63000 words. Longer than most of Raymond Chandler's classics, but too short to be sellable in today's marketplace. But for the second draft there's still a lot of writing to be done, so it could eventually make it to the 80,000 word mark needed to be sellable. Or not.

Now comes the hard work, going back and backfilling, adding clues and hints, fixing things that didn't work out, adding explication, punching up scenes, adding transitions and beefing up chapters, adding whatever is needed to flesh out the plot. During most of the story I didn't have the slightest idea what was going on, I was just pushing my characters forward to see where they went. That's how I write, if I know where the characters are going, I move them around like marionnettes rather than letting them live and breathe, I'm just not the outline kinda guy. Now that I know where they went, it's time to make sure I properly fill in where they were, and tie up any loose ends at the end. For one thing, one of the murderers isn't introduced until shortly before I kill him (well, actually, he got one line in chapter 10, but no hint there that he was more than just a walk-on). Well, let's just say there's a lot of work to be done before this first draft is an actual novel.

Anyhow: If anybody would like to review the first draft, drop me a line in EMAIL.

-BT

Fixer [Interim Title] Chapter 9

Previous Chapters

Note: Chapter 8 and 9 will get jammed together as one chapter in the next draft. But you get to see the first draft here. Enjoy!

Chapter 9

Oh of course Wallace objected, but look, I had him. He had forgotten or never learned the cop's first rule, which is to control the situation. He'd been off balance since I'd first confronted him, and was at the point now where he was too befuddled to resist when I pushed him around.

I had Wallace give me his keys and drove his BMW. We stopped by my apartment, where Wallace put his pants back on while I filled my messenger bag cum handbag with goodies and stashed a couple of them under the car seat while Wallace was still zipping his pants in my bathroom. Then I put my own pants back on, along with the ankle holster. I transferred the Kahr from my fanny pack to the ankle holster, hustled Wallace out the door, and we were on our way to Oakland to see his boss.

It was a small warehouse in one of the shabbier neighborhoods of Oakland, an old warehouse district that had declined as newer warehouses had been built to the north. There was a couple of guys hanging around the loading dock, but nobody else around that I could see.

Wallace took me in through a side door, sliding his keycard through the slot. Then he reached for an office doorknob.

"Let me," I said, pushing his hand aside and opening the door.

I walked through the door, pulling Wallace behind me, then let go of Wallace's hand as the bald guy behind the battered desk said into his phone, "I have to go, I'll call you back" and hung up.

It was the kind of seedy office you'd see in a bad gangster movie. The Feds had gone beyond authentic into outright overkill with this place. I wondered what went through this warehouse. Probably guns. Guns to people that weren't nice people, if the CIA's past record was any guide. But I was here on business of another sort.

"We need to talk," I said. There was a wooden chair in front of the desk. I pushed it back, stepped up on it, then sat on the back of the chair with my feet on its seat so that I was looking down at the man. "Are you Vernon Hughes today?"

"I don't believe we've met?" he said, eyebrows raising.

"Kathy Varis. You sent your boyscout Wallace to follow me around. He did a piss-poor job of it, as you can see."

"I see," he said, turning his gaze upon poor Wallace, who seemed to shrink.

"Way I figure it is, we can help each other," I said. "You have things you want done, things that your boy scout here," and I nodded towards Wallace, "can't do because he's too green and too dumb. And me, I want a couple of things too, things that you can get for me but I can't get for myself, not easily anyhow."

"I see. And exactly what do you believe you can do for me?"

I shrugged. "Whatever you want. Surveillance that nobody would ever associate with you. Infiltration. Wiretapping. Bugging. A little B&E. I'm not prime bodyguard material but I'm handy enough with a gun if you have muscle to take care of the beef part of things. And of course information. You won't believe the things I know about pretty much anybody who's anybody around here. Ask me some questions, and I can likely find you the answers if I don't know them already."

"And you want? ..."

I hopped down off the chair and sat on it, leaning my arms on the desk. "I want the FBI and SEC files on my father. All of them, including the parts that are, quote, pertaining to an open case, unquote. And my mother's files too."

"I see. And you believe I can get these for you because... ?"

"Well, Vern, because you got poor Wallace here an FBI ID. Which means you at least have a conduit into the FBI."

Vernon leaned back and smiled. I didn't like that smile. It was like the smile of a shark looking at a minnow. I took my elbows off the table and dropped my right hand near my right pants cuff, and my left hand into my messenger bag. "And would you like to see your own FBI file?" said the shark to the minnow.

"Not really," I said, not liking the direction this was going.

"Really? Because it's quite interesting." Vern pulled a folder out of his desk drawer. I pulled my left hand out of my messenger bag, a goodie clutched in it, and stuck said goodie on the underside of the lip of the desk as my hand came back up.

Vernon opened the folder. "This is quite a story," Vernon said. "You should read it. Talented gymnast, then parents cruelly ripped from you, raped, abused, track star, top of your high school class, cum laude from Stanford with a major in Political Science and a minor in Computer Science? Frankly, if this wasn't an FBI file I'd think it was bad fiction. Survivors like you aren't supposed to exist."

I shrugged. "I was never good at that whole victim thing. What do you say. I do a favor for you, you do a favor for me?"

"Odd thing about your post-college career, though," Vernon said. "You worked at a couple of places, yet never managed to last more than a few months. Why is that?"

"I don't play well with others," I said.

"Yet somehow managed to come out of it with enough money to buy a run-down apartment complex."

"I'm frugal."

"Then there is the strange spate of dead bodies that seem to be left in your wake."

I shrugged. "Trouble seems to follow me."

"Yet it never seems to stick to you. I wonder why?"

"Luck," I said. "And that stupid four letter word, C-U-T-E. I got it, I might as well use it." I leaned back and smiled my cutest head-tilted smile. "What can I say? People just love my natural charm. They want to pat me on the head and stuff. Isn't that just the cutest thing?"

"Let me be blunt, Ms. Varis. You are dangerous, and the fact that you managed to bludgeon poor Wallace into bringing you to my doorstep makes that even clearer. I must admit that I underestimated you. I will give you a piece of information. I believe that certain people here in the Valley are providing critical support to, let us say, various external enemies of the nation. I assigned Wallace to follow you because one of our assets here was targetted by parties unknown and it was unclear how involved you were in that. How do you feel about doing work for your country?"

I shrugged. "Doesn't do me either way. If I'm catching your drift right, you think someone is, say, fixing Osama bin Laden up with some nifty communications gear so he can direct things from his cave without the good guys catching him. I'm old fashioned, so I want bastards like that caught, every bit of skin flayed off their body until they die of pain and shock, then hung for the crows for the next thirty days. But that's got nothing to do with country and everything to do with not liking murdering bastards, regardless who they work for."

"So if I ask you for help regarding certain people who are removing work from our ventures and moving those assets overseas..."

I shrugged. "Get me a copy of the files I want, and I'm your girl. A favor for a favor."

"I see," Vernon said. "A pity. I had so hoped that you would be willing to come to work for me full time. A young woman of your talents could go far in this business."

I shrugged. "I don't play well with others. Besides, I like being able to look in the mirror in the morning without being ashamed of what I see."

"Ah, moral scruples. Do you see yourself as being an honorable woman, Ms. Varis?"

"I don't know what that even means anymore," I said.

"I will get your files," Vernon said. "Then you will do a favor for me. That is what it means."

"I guess so, then," I said.

"Our business here is done, then," Vernon said. "I will get your files, then give you a call." He looked at Wallace. "Wallace, please show the young woman out."

"Been a pleasure," I said, jumping up and reaching out to shake Vernon's hand. Vernon looked as if he were staring at a cobra, then took my hand in his own hand, which was surprisingly moist and limp. My left hand came down with a clunk on the desk just as my right foot pushed another of my toys up onto the underside of Vernon's desk.

"See ya," I said, waving goodbye as I followed Wallace out of the office.

Once the office door was closed, I asked Wallace where the lady's room was, and he showed me. One nice thing about a lady's room -- a guy isn't going to follow you into it. Not a nice guy like Wallace, anyhow. So I had a few minutes to work. There was a suspended ceiling. I climbed up on top of the toilet, and tried to reach it. No dice. I closed the door of the toilet and chinned myself on it, then crawled over it. With all the pushing, pulling, and chinning I'd done today, I was going to sleep well tonight, and be a bit sore in the morning besides, but so it goes. I'd had the kind of day where I could just curl in a ball and pass out from exhaustion, but it wasn't the first time I've felt that way, and like Coach Davis was fond of saying, when the going gets tough, yada yada yada. So I shoved the rather bulky transceiver package on top of the suspended ceiling, where it was hidden from view, and then plopped back down to the floor and went about my business.

I could listen for three days. After three days, the batteries would be run down. Since there was no way in hell I was going to be able to retrieve it all, this was close to a thousand dollars worth of equipment that I was blowing here, with dubious payback. But information was power... and I had the feeling that these guys weren't telling me some things that I really, really wanted to know.

Spammers are Timberwolves fans?

Being deluged with spam that has the words 'Troy Hudson' in the title. Who coulda thunk it that spammers were NBA fans?!

- Badtux the Spammed Penguin

Kitten therapy

I am sitting here on my couch with one cat curled up against my right hip, one cat curled up against my left hip, and my laptop computer on my lap. Oh, and they're both purring, too.

All is right in the world. For the moment, anyhow.

-- Badtux the Contented Penguin

Fixer [Interim Title] Chapter 8

Previous Chapters

Yes, you get a full chapter today! I'm up to 50,000 words in the mainline. It's starting to wrap up nicely. Still a few mysteries to solve before we wind down, and more than one funeral to attend, so it'll end up well past my 60,000 word goal for the first draft before I get all those threads tied together.

Chapter 8

I made my way towards the weights, as my friend from the red Beemer tried to pretend he wasn't watching me, then I stopped right in front of his stationary bicycle and said, "Can you spot me?"

Poor fool almost fell off his bicycle. Which is hard to do, when said bicycle is bolted to the floor. But he was in a jam, so he said the only thing he could say:

"Sure."

"Thanks!" I said, giving him my most winning smile. "I really appreciate that."

I headed over to the bench press, Beemer boy in tow, and shoved the bar onto the uprights, then a 25 pound weight on each end. I lay down on the bench and waggled the tips of my fingers at the bar -- short arms suck. My friendly ogler got the hint and bumped the bar down into my hands. I pumped out ten reps, then nodded at him to bump the bar back up on the uprights.

"They got you working long hours today," I said to my new buddy as I waited between sets.

"Huh?"

"Interesting BMW you're driving. Air America? America Import/Export? Hello? Where's your imagination?"

I lay back and waggled my fingers for the bar again.

"I don't know what you're talking about," my new buddy said.

I pumped out another ten reps. I felt the last one. It almost made me forget about the pain from the rope and cigarette burns.

"So what do you want to know?" I asked. "I'll answer any question you ask, if you answer a couple of mine."

"Are you always this weird?"

"Sometimes I'm weirder," I said, grinning. "Anyhow, I remembered something about a CIA-created venture fund. What do you bet that I'll find out that Akilna Software was one of the companies funded by the CIA?"

"Akilna who?"

"You're good," I said. "What's your name?"

"Uhm... Larry."

"Yeah, right. And I'm Britney Speares."

"Really?"

It was time for another set and I waggled at him again. I started running out of gas at the sixth rep. "Larry" gave me just enough assist to get over the bumps, then at the last rep bumped it up to the bar. Somebody had taught the boy good manners.

"So how long you been working for the CIA?" I asked him.

"Larry" looked like a deer caught in the headlights, clearly seeing disaster but not knowing what to do about it.

"I work for an import-export company," he said.

I pointed Larry at the squat machine. I heaved a 45 pound weight onto my end, he heaved another 45 pound weight onto the other. I got under the bar and did one rep.

"So you're just a random stalker?" I asked.

"Err..."

A big guy named Red overheard the last. Red was the kind of guy who bench-pressed 300 pounds and squatted more. He had muscles on top of muscles. He was also bald and, I suspected, his balls were about the size of ants from all the steroids. Despite that, he was basically a nice guy. He spotted me sometimes, and usually talked to me like I was his little sister, not like I was someone he wanted to fuck, not that there was a lot down there to fuck with given how much juice he'd shot himself with over the years. I liked Red, insofar as I liked anybody.

Red came over, and at my stalker's shoulder said, "Is this guy botherin' you, Kathy?"

I looked at "Larry". "He's been stalking me. Maybe we should find out who he is."

Red placed hands the size of a saucer on both of "Larry"'s shoulders. "I suggest you get your wallet out and show the little lady your ID, mister."

My favorite stalker sighed, and pulled out a wallet and government ID. His ID said that he was Wallace Johnson, and that he worked for the FBI.

"FBI?" I raised an eyebrow. "I get it. The CIA isn't allowed to spy inside the United States." I looked up at Red. "Thanks, Red. I guess he wasn't stalking me after all, he was just being very, very incompetent."

"No problem," Red rumbled, and patted me on the head, which I usually hate but I know Red just works that way. That little sister thing. Then Red rolled off to push some other incredibly heavy lump of iron to some other place repeatedly.

"So what should I call you, Larry or Wallace?"

"Just call me Wallace," my new friend said grumpily.

I got back under the weight, picked it up off its stops, and signalled Wallace to flip the stops out of the way. I did ten repetitions, then signalled him to flip them back.

"So I'm not going to ask why you're following me, because I know why. I know how too, you have a transmitter under the bumper of my car, which is why you are in sight only when I'm away from the car for a while or am out running. Just one question -- when I was at that house in West San Jose, were you following me then?"

"I was a couple of blocks away," he said grumpily.

"When I didn't move for a while, did you drive by to see if you could see anything?"

"Yeah, but you weren't anywhere in sight. I figured you were in the house."

"I was in the garage," I said. I waggled my wrists at him. "Some creep knocked me out and tied me up to the rafters, then had fun poking me with a lit cigarette. It would have been nice if you'd been there."

Wallace looked uncomfortable. "Hey, I'm sorry. But you're okay, right?"

I got under the weight again, waggled at Wallace to move the stops, and angrily heaved it up and down another ten times, the last few times pushing it up through sheer willpower through the burn. I came to a halt, catching my breath and signalling Wallace to flip the stops back down.

"No I'm not okay," I said. "Let me tie you up to some rafters and poke you with cigarettes and see how you like it. I had to shoot someone. Have you ever shot someone? Have you?" I saw the look on Wallace's face, which was a look of total incomprehension, and said "Of course not. Let me tell you about shooting someone. You're scared, you're upset, you're stressed out, you're jacked up on adrenalin so far that your blood pressure is about to pop your eardrums out, and you're looking at the person you just shot and wondering if you're going to have to shoot him again to keep him from hurting you, and you're trying to hold yourself together long enough to take care of business. It's one of the most horrifying and terrible things that any thinking feeling person could ever have to do. And you ask if I'm okay? Fuck no I'm not okay. I need to throw some weight around."

We did the ten more reps thing. I fed on the anger, pushing so hard that my vision greyed out on the last rep. Then I pushed Wallace to the next exercise, pullups. I'd already done my share of chinups today, but those hadn't been weighted behind-the-neck pullups. I snapped on the weight belt, directed Wallace's hands to my hips to keep me straight up and down, and jumped up to the bar.

"So, do you think I'm cute?"

"Uhm, yeah", Wallace said. I pumped out ten behind-the-neck pullups as Wallace's hands kept me stable, then dropped back to the floor, and turned around. Wallace's gym shorts showed that Wallace hadn't been kidding.

"Cute enough that you'd be very, very angry at anybody who hurt me?"

No hesitation. "I'd hurt them bad."

"Good," I said. "Just one thing." I poked him in the chest, looking up at him. "Don't you ever, ever, ever kill somebody that I've already put down. That's for me to do, not for you. Got that?" I was looking up at his face, which was showing nothing but confusion and a little bit of fear, and he backed up involuntarily a step. "Do you understand?" I demanded of him.

"I... what... okay. Okay."

"Because when you kill someone that I want to talk to, I become very, very angry. And when I become very angry, you don't want to be near me. So you don't do that. Do you understand?"

"I understand," he said, the fear and confusion mixing on his face. I was still poking him in the chest, and he was still giving ground.

"So did you kill that man in the garage?"

"What!" The combination of outrage and befuddlement on his face was impossible to fake, so I smiled.

"Of course you didn't. You're a freakin' Boy Scout, Wallace."

"Uhm... thanks."

I had Wallace spot me through the rest of the exercises I intended to do that day. By the time I was done, my restlessness had turned into a feeling of satisfaction and contentment as the brain chemistry kicked in. Even my burns didn't feel so bad anymore. Most of my harsh had mellowed quite well, thank you. Most. Not all.

I wiped the dripping sweat off with my towel, and said to Wallace, "Okay. Now we go talk to your boss."

Fixer [Interim Title] Chapter 7 Part 2

Previous chapters

One of the advantages of being self-employed is that you can take a nap in the middle of the day. Of course, the disadvantage is that your days end up so long that you need that nap.

Connie had a long list of maintenance items that needed to be fixed. Apartment 12A was reporting their sink clogged. Apartment 14B had a dripping bathtub faucet. Then the guys in apartment 10D were moving out and I had to do a walk-through with them before the end of the day. My life is neverending excitement.

But first I had to collapse.

I had been running on adrenalin, and I crashed hard, barely making it to bed before I conked out entirely. But thirty minutes later I was okay. Except for my face and belly hurting, and my wrists hurting. But there was nothing to do about that, so I did my best to ignore it, and went off to handle the clogged drain and the walk-through, and retrieved my Kahr too.

I was restless. I couldn't ask about the car until the men started coming home to their apartments. The guy in the red BMW wasn't anywhere around. Harry Emory hadn't called me on my personal cell phone to gift me with a few of his millions in exchange for being tiny and cute. It was a workout day, so I did what I always do on a workout day when I start getting restless -- I went to the gym.

My philosophy is, when the going gets tough, get tougher. And get even. Well, somebody else had handled the "get even" part for me, which irritated me. I'm a big fan of the personal touch. Much more satisfaction that way. But the get tougher part, I could handle. When Coach Davis had shoved me towards the weight room telling me I needed to muscle up to be the best athlete I could be, he'd also let me know there's no better way to get rid of your frustrations, no better way to work through the pains of everyday life, than to take it out on some poor unoffending lumps of iron at the gym. I'm not that girl anymore, but I'd just had a first-class example of why it wasn't a bad idea to keep my body tuned up even as small as I am. I might not be able to beat anybody up except maybe a random twelve year old kid. But getting out of trouble isn't always about beating people up, and I needed any edge I could get.

The gym that I go to isn't one of the meat market type gyms. It's a serious temple to the human body, a shiny testament in glass and chrome and steel to the lengths that people will go in order to be toned or strong. There's only a few fancy machines here, and only a small part of the floor is filled with stairsteppers and stationary bicycles. The rest is a sea of iron and steel, free weights to take care of every muscle you could see. This was a temple I could worship in.

At that time of day, the only people around were the serious types -- the trophy wives resolutely staving off cellulose with hours of stair stepping, the body builders honing their bodies to the ultimate perfection, and me. I waved at Brad at the front desk and grabbed a towel, then headed for the stationary bikes for my warm-up.

Ten minutes later, I looked over towards the weights to see who was lifting today who could spot me, and I saw a familiar face. A familiar face whose name I didn't know.

That, however, was something I could remedy.

Transitions are still not my strength. The next chapter sizzles a bit more, as we get a couple of new characters. On the mainline, I'm up to 47500 words now, and Kathy is about to kill someone, but she has to go clothes and shoe shopping with a friend first. Priorities, y'know. Gotta keep your priorities straight. Shop, *then* murder. Sort of like the advice to Ghenghis Khan's horde... rape, *then* kill, not the other way around. Anyhow, seems I can write about 1000 words per evening, when I have something to write. Less if not. Weekends depend. At that rate, it would take around three months to write the first draft of a typical novel, then probably another three months to polish it. The typical advance on a first novel is anywhere from $6K-$8K and they rarely earn out their advance. Now you know why I'm not interested in becoming the new king of crime fiction...

Fixer [Interim Title] Index of Chapters

Chapter 1 Part 1	Chapter 1 Part 2	Chapter 2 Part 1	Chapter 2 Part 2
Chapter 3 Part 1	Chapter 3 Part 2	Chapter 4 Part 1	Chapter 4 Part 2
Chapter 5 Part 1	Chapter 5 Part 2	Chapter 6 Part 1	Chapter 6 Part 2
Chapter 7 Part 1	Chapter 7 Part 2	Chapter 8	Chapter 9

Insane

Let's nuke'em 'till they glow, says the lunatic-in-chief of the United States of America as he boards Air Farce One to go raise some more money for fat cat Republicans.

The fact that he would even mention the notion of a nuclear first strike in any context means that he makes every other president of the United States since 1945 look like a paragon of virtue. Hell, Richard M. Nixon looks positively splendiforous by comparison.

We have now entered cloud cookoo land -- a President so bad, he makes Richard Nixon, a man so famously twisted that he needed servants to screw his pants on, look good.

- Badtux the not-deranged Penguin

Writing my little flippers off

A bit depressed, actually. I'm at 46,000 words in the crime novel (i.e., more than half finished with the first draft) and one of the murderers just got offed in a particularly gruesome manner by one of the heros. That was a gut-wrenching chapter to write. The kind of person who would kill a fellow human being in that manner is not a nice person, and putting myself under the skin of this person was like immersing myself in bile.

So anyhow, now you know why I haven't been blogging recently -- I've been writing fiction. Once I finish the first draft in a few weeks, I should be back to normal. Insofar as normal can be, when you're talking about a penguin.

-BT

I want one

Honda Fit. All the safety features. 33mpg city. Honda quality. Sure the bleep beats the 15mpg my current Chevy S-10 gets...

- Badtux the Gas-hog-drivin' Penguin

Fixer [Interim Title] Chapter 7 Part 1

Chapter 1 Part 1	Chapter 1 Part 2	Chapter 2 Part 1	Chapter 2 Part 2
Chapter 3 Part 1	Chapter 3 Part 2	Chapter 4 Part 1	Chapter 4 Part 2
Chapter 5 Part 1	Chapter 5 Part 2	Chapter 6 Part 1	Chapter 6 Part 2

Chapter 7

There was mixed gore and brains splattered against the wall. My masked buddy's ski mask was now fragments mixed with the gore. The smell of blood and urine and feces filled the air, the smell of death. Dr. Feelgood had arrived and was taking pictures, humming a happy tune. Officer Jackson looked a bit green about the gills again.

"Hi Marvin," I said, intercepting Dr. Feingold and kissing him on the bottom of his chin again.

"Hi Kathy. You look hungry. Want a sandwich?" He pulled a sandwich out of one of the pockets on his lab coat. Tuna salad. Yum. I grabbed it and took a bite, realizing just how hungry I was. I'd missed lunch getting patched up at the doc-in-box. Officer Jackson was making gagging noises and holding his hand over his mouth. Dr. Feingold handed him a barf bag out of another of his pockets.

I pointed at the dead man. "What killed him?" I wolfed down another quarter of the sandwich, eating like I meant it.

Dr. Feingold pointed at the wall behind the dead man. "The bullet went in there. We'll know more when I get it out, but it looks like a .357 magnum hollow point. Massive destruction."

"I shoot 9mm, full-jacketed."

He nodded. "I know." He pointed to the shoulder and leg wounds. "Those are 9mm bullet holes. Bullet went clean through except where it tumbled in the leg after hitting the bone. Odd angle, though. Almost like someone was shooting from the ceiling?"

I held up my wrists. "I was tied to the rafters. Rope burns."

"Ah." He examined the bandages on my wrists, then produced an evidence bag with frayed rope in it. "Already got that. Your blood on this?"

"Yeah." I stuffed the rest of the sandwich in my mouth. Officer Jackson was shaking his head. He still looked green.

He consulted his notebook, walked to where he'd found the rope, and looked upward. "How'd you work it?", he asked.

"I baited him into getting close, kicked him in the balls, and swung up into the rafters. The rest was easy."

"Not easy," he said. "Not easy at all." He patted me on the shoulder, and looked wistful. "You take care," he said. I was suddenly very interested in my shoes.

Officer Jackson cleared his throat. Dr. Feingold turned his attention to him. "She doesn't shoot a .357. Too much kick. She's too light, can't control it. She didn't have anything to do with this man's death. Send her home."

"She shot a man."

Dr. Feingold sighed, and shook his head. "Even if she did, it was self defense. There isn't a jury in this county that would convict a tiny little thing like her for shooting some goon who tied her up and hurt her. What's the point?"

"Thanks," I muttered.

Dr. Feingold gently put his hand on my shoulder, and said softly to me, "I know you think you're tough. And you are. But that doesn't turn you into a 250 pound linebacker. You've had a hard day. Go home. Get some rest. Go."

"Thanks, Marvin," I said, and leaned my head against his shoulder for a moment, and closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. Then I shook my head and headed for the door.

"Hey," Officer Jackson said, catching up with me. "What's with you and Doctor Feingold?"

"He's been with the coroner's office a long time," I said. "He was there when they brought my mother in."

"Oh."

Fourteen years old. Fourteen years old, and a knowledge deep inside that it wasn't right, wasn't fair. Saying to her father, "I have to see her. I have to know." And a young Doctor Feingold, hands on that girl's shoulders, saying "You don't want to see this, it's not a good idea" but I had to. I had to.

The image of my mother's dead and shattered body on that lonely table remains with me to this day. And the look on young Doctor Feingold's face, as that girl pulled the sheet down, looked, nodded, and said "Now I know she's dead," turned and walked out. I remember that, too.

I rubbed my eyes. The sunlight was making them water. Yeah, that was it.

"You okay?" Officer Jackson asked.

"Yeah. Just tired." I stopped. "What about the Beemer?"

"Leased to an import/export company. America Import/Export."

I closed my eyes, shook my head, and smiled. I knew who the guy in the Beemer worked for, anyhow. I doubted that he was shooting anybody with a .357 Magnum, unless he'd bought it himself, which was unlikely given that his issue weapon was a Glock 23 .40 caliber pistol which for his purposes was preferable to the .357 Magnum. Of course, Doc could be wrong about the .357, but it wasn't likely. He'd seen a lot of bullet holes in his time. A .40 jacketed government load shot from an automatic didn't make the same kind of hole as a .357 Magnum soft lead hollow point shot from a revolver.

"Forget about him," I said. "He's got nothing to do with this. What about the house?"

Officer Jackson shook his head. "Still waiting on the warrant."

I nodded. "It's been a long day. I'm going home."

It was 2PM.

Not much happening here, but still one of my favorite scenes. Got that whole hard-boiled softy thing going, between gobbling down a sandwich amidst the smell of blood and shit, and getting a bit bleary-eyed during the backstory flashback. Kathy is someone who might let her guard slip a bit from time to time, but never much, for reasons that should be starting to come clear now and will be crystal clear by the end. Too bad. There's people who care for her and could be good for her, if she'd let them.

Busy busy busy

Just got a nice project at work assigned to me, and am still churning away at the novel (closing in on the 30,000 word mark rapidly). So if I don't do much blogging other than the thrice-weekly fiction blogging, well, I'm busy (shrug).

- Badtux the Industrious Penguin

Fixer [Interim Title] Chapter 6 Part 2

Chapter 1 Part 1	Chapter 1 Part 2	Chapter 2 Part 1	Chapter 2 Part 2
Chapter 3 Part 1	Chapter 3 Part 2	Chapter 4 Part 1	Chapter 4 Part 2
Chapter 5 Part 1	Chapter 5 Part 2	Chapter 6 Part 1

The receptionist recognized me. "You again. What this time?"

"Cigarette burns. Partial suffocation. Rope burns. Not much this time."

"Kinky. Do we need to call the police?"

"Don't bother. I already did it. You can check if you like." I tossed her Officer Richard Welch's card that he'd given me that morning.

"I'll check. Here, sign in."

She gave me the obligatory clipboard, which I filled out and slid back to her. She directed me to take a seat until the doc-in-a-box could see me.

The doc was a new one this time. They didn't last long here, young interns just out of med school serving penance at the critical care center then moving on as soon as they got a bit of experience under their belt. He gave me an ointment and some dressings for the burns, and warned me that if I didn't take care of it, complete with scrubbing off dead tissue with a gauze pad ("debrieding", he called it), there would be some scarring. "You want to see a real burn specialist for the one on your face," he added. "That'd be a real shame if it scarred."

I think most of the doc-in-a-boxen that I've encountered have had a major crush on me, and this guy didn't seem an exception. Something about them being young, having just spent years of 16+ hour days getting their medical credentials, and being male (usually) and horny (went with the "male" part) seemed to be all it took. It was sort of sweet, actually, but futile. Trust issues, remember? Still, there was no reason to crush the poor child, so I simply said "Thanks. I'll do that," and let him finish up.

When I dropped my folder back at the desk, the receptionist pushed Officer Welch's card back to me. "You ought to get a safer job," she said to me.

"Hey, I'm in real estate. What can be safer than that?"

She shook her head, a bit of a grin on her face. "If you're in real estate, I've got a million dollars."

"Really? Why you working down here, then?"

"I own the place," she ad-libbed.

I smiled and shook my head, and headed out the door.

I was halfway to my car when my cell phone rang. I dug it out of my jeans and flipped it open.

"Hello!" I said cheerfully.

"I'm not in the business of disposing your bodies for you," said Officer Jackson, sounding a bit peeved.

"Not you too! What body?"

"That stiff in West San Jose? The one you blew away?"

"I haven't the foggiest idea what you're talking about," I said. "He was breathing and all when I left. If you'd gotten an ambulance down there in a reasonable time, he should have been fine. It's not my fault you guys operate at the speed of government."

"Breathing with the back of his head blown off? I don't think so."

I took a deep breath. "Look, he had a hole in his leg and a hole in his shoulder when I left, but otherwise he was fine. I don't know anything about his head being blown off, but here's someone who might." I pulled my notebook out of my bag and read him the license plate number and description of the guy in the red BMW who'd been following me that morning, as well as a general description of the car.

"Get down here," he said. "Or I swear, I'll get a warrant for your arrest."

"Okay, okay," I said. "I'll be there in twenty minutes." I swung my Toyota into traffic, and made my way there as fast as the whiney little hamsters under its hood could run in their wheels.