Say what now?
With just a sliver of moonlight to cast a pale reflection the clouds above the Ciderville Megatorium only just stood out against the dark night sky, dusty cotton swabs amongst navy velvet. All would have been dreary but for the two piercing beams of illumination which when followed to their source turned out to be spotlights drawing all the rich and influential moths to burn away yet another night in front of film crew and fan alike.
Standing just beyond the arc of false daylight projected from marquees and camera flashes Ace Carafe wondered just how Ciderville managed to be chosen as the site of the 16th annual Celebrity Showdown. Certainly city hall had more than it's fair share of greasy eels who served no purpose other than to lubricate the publicity wheel with syrupy promises of benefits and perks for a friendly event promoter, but Ace figured that with the heads of many extended Family nearby influence has been spread far and wide to bring a little glitter to an otherwise flawed gemstone of a city.
No matter. Carafe's priority was his client, due out of her limo at any moment. From his vantage point outside of the garish sheen of the red carpet flesh paled and plastic unnaturally when exposed to the strobing brilliance of the paparazzi and their tools of trade. Ace was not surprised to see more shining reflection than shy half-smiles as the train of the unrealistic role models rolled along it's red shag track into it's final stop of the night. If not for the handsome fee Giovanna's agent paid up front Ace would have spent the entire weekend far away from the Megatorium and even Ciderville fishing and drinking the days away at a cabin on the far side of the reservoir bought in the name of his dead cousin.
Ace knew that sometimes being unable to be reached is the purest form of rest.
As soon as Mr. Gedfontane laid out his client's payment up front Carafe knew that he would be neck-deep in celebrity within the hour. The number of zeroes before the decimal point on the check already signed by a Miss Giovanna Brevara froze up Ace's reason centers. The same could not be said of his center of speech. Private detective Ace Carafe accepted Miss Brevara as a client before getting a hint as to why she needed someone in his profession.
Giovanna Brevara's face graced the cover of every rag a housewife in line to buy her groceries pretends to blow off with disdain but secretly obsesses over. Brevara is pregnant. Giovanna's miscarriage tragedy. Her eating disorder, her massive weight gain, her secret marriage to her costar, her secret affair with her co-star's wife, and her extraterrastrial parentage all adorned the walls of her agent's office. Any publicity is good publicity in Giovanna's case, as long as it stays well away from the truth. The beautiful young star of televised afternoon drama, prime time situational comedy, and box office violence did not win any talent competitions. She wasn't a child actor in Fact cereal commercials, or a guest-star on a family-oriented comedy on the thinly veiled Christian values channel. One night Brevara was providing physical distraction to anyone who looked nonthreatening and could pony up thirty bones, and the next she was the sexy young physicist paired with the gruff handsome treasury agent trying to track down and prevent nuclear secrets from being sold and exploited every Thursday night on channel seventy-four.
Every actor longs for the big break, the discovery. Giovanna's break was approaching the limo with Prasi Magone in the backseat. Magone was not an organized crime boss or a regular gang banger. He held a relatively small contingent of intelligent dark man in his thrall and lorded over the drug trade in Ciderville with almost supernatural efficiency and violence of the sort that would make the hardiest gore-addict's stomach turn. Rumors of his involvement in various massacres and corroborating photos hung like smoke in shady speak-easies all over Ciderville but Magone remained untouchable. His wild eyes and glinting behind lensless spectacles obscured by wild braids hanging out from every direction fueled rumors of strange symbol carvings and blood-letting rituals that cemented his position as the narcotics czar of Ciderville. When he laid those wild eyes on a grimy Giovanna Brevara he fell in love almost immediately and made use of his considerable power, both physical and other-worldly, to make all of her dreams come true.
Giovanna had only one dream: to be a star, not a whore.
Within two years Magone was able to claim responsibility for putting a cleaned up Giovanna's face before all the eyes in Hollywood that mattered. Within three years Brevara able to secure rolls without Prasi's involvement. Within three years and six months Giovanna Brevara sent her agent, Olbere Gedfontane, to sever all ties with Magone. Gedfontane returned with drug lord's consent but shy one index finger on his left hand. Prasi Magone does not take bad news with any sort of grace.
The night Ace Carafe finds himself standing behind a decorative bush trimmed in the shape of a bugle outside the Ciderville Megatorium is nearly five years after Prasi Magone introduced the country's sex symbol and sweetheart all wrapped in one provocative and unreachable package to her public. Carafe's charge is to try and prove that Magone or whoever is threatening and stalking the celebrity. Carafe accepted a packet of letters and trinkets from Gedfontane's mutilated left hand less than a week before the Celebrity Showdown was scheduled to begin. None of the notes were signed, and both missive and trinket were devoid of any traces that could identity the sender. Not a fingerprint, or hair was present and all of the notes were printed, though none from the same printer. That last bit of info was gleaned from a contact of Carafe's in the Ciderville PD's forensics department. Carafe refretted using the source because he was now bound to covertly chaparone the cop's teenage daughter on her dates for the next two months.
The starlet had her share of fans and obsessives, but was convinced that the mania expressed in the letters she received could only have come from her benefactor, Prasi Magone. Brevara was scheduled to compete against a no-name soap opera star in a foam joust match for some random charity in this evening's showdown, but was concerned about the content of the most recent letters from her anonymous admirer. The stalker promised to meet her after her competition and to reacquaint his(her?)self with Brevara's womanhood. Carafe figured it was just the usual delusional's fantasy, but a paycheck is a paycheck so he skulked outdoors using a phony press pass issued by the event coordinator as a favor to Mr. Gedfontane.
All in all, the evening was a success. Celebrity sychophants and rich would-be philanthropists got their money's worth watching their on-screen favorites humiliate themselves in stunt after stunt. The highlight of the evening was an Lifetime Achievement Oscar winner bobbing for Kleenex in a tub of baked beans. In other words, entertainment in its purest form. Giovanna had already knocked her opponent off of her platform and onto the paper-thin mat supposedly protecting the talent from the harsh floor of the stage and was changing out her spangled unitard into her street clothes. Carafe stood watch near the buffet table and noted that things had gone unusually smooth. There was no overflow of screaming fans who managed to bribe their way backstage. There was even no sign of the pushy stage manager who seemed obsessed with organizing all of the participant's activities in the Megatorium even after they had completed their onstage antics.
Spooning another mouthful of complimentary gumbo into his mouth Ace contemplated the lack of backstage chaos and thought they maybe he should be concerned. The only occupied dressing room was in use by his client and there were no grips, or techies, or hangers-on, or damn was this gumbo spicy! Carafe's nose began to run and his eyes began to water as he helplessly took another bite. Cool air washed over his perspiring brow and in were it not for his blurred vision and crisis of tastebuds (also his drug-addled mind) he would have noticed the contingent of young black men all sporting the yellow and black colors of Magone's crew filing into the backstage area from the unattended service area. The last thing Carafe though before falling to the floor was of his hemorrhoids when the spicy dish exited him and the welfare of his client. Survivors of Magone's home brewed sedatives often noted their inability to prioritize properly before losing unconsciousness.
Ace Carafe retained few memories of the period between passing out at the backstage buffet table and waking in a recovery suite at Ciderville Memorial. There was laughter. At one point he opened his eyes for a moment and saw unfamiliar runic figures painted onto what appeared to be the ceiling of a subground room. He was unable to view more of his surroundings before the candle smoke stung his spice-addled eyes causing him to grimace in pain. His captors must have noticed Carafe's wakefulness. An internal supernova behind Ace's eyelids guided the way back to unconsciousness. His only other memory was the rough feel of a crude blindfold on his eyes and gag in his mouth. And burning. Burning, searing pain...
from his crotch.
When Ace awoke in Ciderville Memorial Hospital it was to a prick in his arm as the night nurse took a sample of blood. When he inquired as to the nature of the blood test the nurse replied that he had been admitted with a measure of unknown narcotics in his bloodstream. The last few samples seemed to indicate that the narcotic cocktail he had been fed was breaking down over time, but the police crime lab wanted samples, and the hospital needed to test his blood to ferret out any lasting effects on Carafe's system. The knowledge that he had indeed beend drugged, and the dull ache from his scrotum proved too much for Ace to take and he again slept into an unnatural shocked doze.
A shiny silicon-coated human claiming to be a news anchor was reporting the discovery of Giovanna Brevara's body from the Ciderville reservoir when Ace Carafe finally regained wakefulness. The announcement of his client's death instantaneously wiped out any sense of grogginess that shock and narcotic might have left in the private investigator. He frantically grasped for the remote and turned up the volume of the hospital suite's wall mounted television, much to the chagrin of his elderly suitemate.
Giovanna Brevara's body was found nude, swollen, and with lurid declarations of her pre-acting profession and activities carved in minute script on almost every available surface of her flesh. An enterprising photographer had managed to bribe his way onto the coroner's vehicle carrying the celebrity's body to the morgue and snapped off hundreds of photos of her ruined beauty. Ace sat up with a start upon viewing all of the insults carved into his client's corpse. His keen detective's eye had spotted something amiss amongst the litany of filth etched into her flesh, but the dull tendrils of pain rising up from his manhood and into his abdomen derailed his train of thought. Collapsing back against the hospital bed Carafe raised up the bedsheets and lifted his gown to find his undergarments amiss and his genitals swathed in gauze. He had enough time to register the dull burning, his lack of appropriate anxiety, and the IV tube snaking from the crook of his elbow to the bag covered with illegible script hanging from a rack next to his bed. Ace was very near to using his keen power's of observation and deduction when two nurses followed by the attendant physician entered his room, drew the curtain around his bed and informed him that it was time to change his bandages.
Ace Carafe was only able to view the damage down to his scrotum for a few brief moments before his dressings were changed. The hospital staff was very efficient. However, his highly trained detective eyes were able to observe and retain the patterned incisions and clots on his sac. After the doctor assured him that he was healing very well and his contingent of nurses left his room, Ace laid back and closed his eyes to reflect upon the words that someone's honed blade had carved into his beanbag in a very familiar small, neat script that made the best use of the limited, yet elastic palete the villain had chosen.
"Breaking a mirror is bad luck for seven years."
"Do not walk under a ladder."
"Never let a black cat cross your path."
"If you spill salt, throw a pinch of the spilled salt over your shoulder."
"If you find a penny, pick it up. For the rest of the day you'll have good luck."
And all that was just on the bit of his scrotum that Ace had had the chance to see while his dressing were being changed. Little bits of old wive's tales. A client's murder. Cloudy memories of dark rooms and darker runes. Rage filled Carafe's heart and blood oaths were sworn to himself with only his soul as a witness.
Ace Carafe would avenge Giovanna's murder.
He would bring down Prasi Magone.
Someone would answer for this very superstitious writing on his balls.
That's all there is of this bit. One day I was at work, and not working, and had a horrible pun come into my mind. That pun was the last line of this little tale. I thought that maybe I would just put the one-liner in my LJ and leave it at that. It wouldn't be the first time I had wasted bandwidth on something really, really dumb... but this time I wanted to flex a little. I haven't actually spun a bit of fiction in a while and I thought that maybe a bad pun could be made a little worse by drawing the reader into what could potentially be a story only to end abruptly with a punchline that doesn't deliver in the slightest. When I started I knew I wanted a PI yarn, I knew the last line, and I knew I wanted to start with a vision of spotlights in the night sky. Everything else came up as I was typing it out, so please to excuse any typos, misspellings, grammatical errors, and/or tense mismatches. This isn't the New Yorker, this is my LJ and I will damn well fuck up some writing while I'm writing.
Yep, that there is proof positive that when I write, I write for me.
So if you got this far, thanks for reading.
Also, as you might have noticed, I have a real real hard time coming up with names. The only name that I didn't come up with off the top of my head was Ace Carafe. That was my Denny's alter-ego in high school. And no, I'm not going to explain that because it's very stupid and this entry has more than it's fair share of stupid.
Standing just beyond the arc of false daylight projected from marquees and camera flashes Ace Carafe wondered just how Ciderville managed to be chosen as the site of the 16th annual Celebrity Showdown. Certainly city hall had more than it's fair share of greasy eels who served no purpose other than to lubricate the publicity wheel with syrupy promises of benefits and perks for a friendly event promoter, but Ace figured that with the heads of many extended Family nearby influence has been spread far and wide to bring a little glitter to an otherwise flawed gemstone of a city.
No matter. Carafe's priority was his client, due out of her limo at any moment. From his vantage point outside of the garish sheen of the red carpet flesh paled and plastic unnaturally when exposed to the strobing brilliance of the paparazzi and their tools of trade. Ace was not surprised to see more shining reflection than shy half-smiles as the train of the unrealistic role models rolled along it's red shag track into it's final stop of the night. If not for the handsome fee Giovanna's agent paid up front Ace would have spent the entire weekend far away from the Megatorium and even Ciderville fishing and drinking the days away at a cabin on the far side of the reservoir bought in the name of his dead cousin.
Ace knew that sometimes being unable to be reached is the purest form of rest.
As soon as Mr. Gedfontane laid out his client's payment up front Carafe knew that he would be neck-deep in celebrity within the hour. The number of zeroes before the decimal point on the check already signed by a Miss Giovanna Brevara froze up Ace's reason centers. The same could not be said of his center of speech. Private detective Ace Carafe accepted Miss Brevara as a client before getting a hint as to why she needed someone in his profession.
Giovanna Brevara's face graced the cover of every rag a housewife in line to buy her groceries pretends to blow off with disdain but secretly obsesses over. Brevara is pregnant. Giovanna's miscarriage tragedy. Her eating disorder, her massive weight gain, her secret marriage to her costar, her secret affair with her co-star's wife, and her extraterrastrial parentage all adorned the walls of her agent's office. Any publicity is good publicity in Giovanna's case, as long as it stays well away from the truth. The beautiful young star of televised afternoon drama, prime time situational comedy, and box office violence did not win any talent competitions. She wasn't a child actor in Fact cereal commercials, or a guest-star on a family-oriented comedy on the thinly veiled Christian values channel. One night Brevara was providing physical distraction to anyone who looked nonthreatening and could pony up thirty bones, and the next she was the sexy young physicist paired with the gruff handsome treasury agent trying to track down and prevent nuclear secrets from being sold and exploited every Thursday night on channel seventy-four.
Every actor longs for the big break, the discovery. Giovanna's break was approaching the limo with Prasi Magone in the backseat. Magone was not an organized crime boss or a regular gang banger. He held a relatively small contingent of intelligent dark man in his thrall and lorded over the drug trade in Ciderville with almost supernatural efficiency and violence of the sort that would make the hardiest gore-addict's stomach turn. Rumors of his involvement in various massacres and corroborating photos hung like smoke in shady speak-easies all over Ciderville but Magone remained untouchable. His wild eyes and glinting behind lensless spectacles obscured by wild braids hanging out from every direction fueled rumors of strange symbol carvings and blood-letting rituals that cemented his position as the narcotics czar of Ciderville. When he laid those wild eyes on a grimy Giovanna Brevara he fell in love almost immediately and made use of his considerable power, both physical and other-worldly, to make all of her dreams come true.
Giovanna had only one dream: to be a star, not a whore.
Within two years Magone was able to claim responsibility for putting a cleaned up Giovanna's face before all the eyes in Hollywood that mattered. Within three years Brevara able to secure rolls without Prasi's involvement. Within three years and six months Giovanna Brevara sent her agent, Olbere Gedfontane, to sever all ties with Magone. Gedfontane returned with drug lord's consent but shy one index finger on his left hand. Prasi Magone does not take bad news with any sort of grace.
The night Ace Carafe finds himself standing behind a decorative bush trimmed in the shape of a bugle outside the Ciderville Megatorium is nearly five years after Prasi Magone introduced the country's sex symbol and sweetheart all wrapped in one provocative and unreachable package to her public. Carafe's charge is to try and prove that Magone or whoever is threatening and stalking the celebrity. Carafe accepted a packet of letters and trinkets from Gedfontane's mutilated left hand less than a week before the Celebrity Showdown was scheduled to begin. None of the notes were signed, and both missive and trinket were devoid of any traces that could identity the sender. Not a fingerprint, or hair was present and all of the notes were printed, though none from the same printer. That last bit of info was gleaned from a contact of Carafe's in the Ciderville PD's forensics department. Carafe refretted using the source because he was now bound to covertly chaparone the cop's teenage daughter on her dates for the next two months.
The starlet had her share of fans and obsessives, but was convinced that the mania expressed in the letters she received could only have come from her benefactor, Prasi Magone. Brevara was scheduled to compete against a no-name soap opera star in a foam joust match for some random charity in this evening's showdown, but was concerned about the content of the most recent letters from her anonymous admirer. The stalker promised to meet her after her competition and to reacquaint his(her?)self with Brevara's womanhood. Carafe figured it was just the usual delusional's fantasy, but a paycheck is a paycheck so he skulked outdoors using a phony press pass issued by the event coordinator as a favor to Mr. Gedfontane.
All in all, the evening was a success. Celebrity sychophants and rich would-be philanthropists got their money's worth watching their on-screen favorites humiliate themselves in stunt after stunt. The highlight of the evening was an Lifetime Achievement Oscar winner bobbing for Kleenex in a tub of baked beans. In other words, entertainment in its purest form. Giovanna had already knocked her opponent off of her platform and onto the paper-thin mat supposedly protecting the talent from the harsh floor of the stage and was changing out her spangled unitard into her street clothes. Carafe stood watch near the buffet table and noted that things had gone unusually smooth. There was no overflow of screaming fans who managed to bribe their way backstage. There was even no sign of the pushy stage manager who seemed obsessed with organizing all of the participant's activities in the Megatorium even after they had completed their onstage antics.
Spooning another mouthful of complimentary gumbo into his mouth Ace contemplated the lack of backstage chaos and thought they maybe he should be concerned. The only occupied dressing room was in use by his client and there were no grips, or techies, or hangers-on, or damn was this gumbo spicy! Carafe's nose began to run and his eyes began to water as he helplessly took another bite. Cool air washed over his perspiring brow and in were it not for his blurred vision and crisis of tastebuds (also his drug-addled mind) he would have noticed the contingent of young black men all sporting the yellow and black colors of Magone's crew filing into the backstage area from the unattended service area. The last thing Carafe though before falling to the floor was of his hemorrhoids when the spicy dish exited him and the welfare of his client. Survivors of Magone's home brewed sedatives often noted their inability to prioritize properly before losing unconsciousness.
Ace Carafe retained few memories of the period between passing out at the backstage buffet table and waking in a recovery suite at Ciderville Memorial. There was laughter. At one point he opened his eyes for a moment and saw unfamiliar runic figures painted onto what appeared to be the ceiling of a subground room. He was unable to view more of his surroundings before the candle smoke stung his spice-addled eyes causing him to grimace in pain. His captors must have noticed Carafe's wakefulness. An internal supernova behind Ace's eyelids guided the way back to unconsciousness. His only other memory was the rough feel of a crude blindfold on his eyes and gag in his mouth. And burning. Burning, searing pain...
from his crotch.
When Ace awoke in Ciderville Memorial Hospital it was to a prick in his arm as the night nurse took a sample of blood. When he inquired as to the nature of the blood test the nurse replied that he had been admitted with a measure of unknown narcotics in his bloodstream. The last few samples seemed to indicate that the narcotic cocktail he had been fed was breaking down over time, but the police crime lab wanted samples, and the hospital needed to test his blood to ferret out any lasting effects on Carafe's system. The knowledge that he had indeed beend drugged, and the dull ache from his scrotum proved too much for Ace to take and he again slept into an unnatural shocked doze.
A shiny silicon-coated human claiming to be a news anchor was reporting the discovery of Giovanna Brevara's body from the Ciderville reservoir when Ace Carafe finally regained wakefulness. The announcement of his client's death instantaneously wiped out any sense of grogginess that shock and narcotic might have left in the private investigator. He frantically grasped for the remote and turned up the volume of the hospital suite's wall mounted television, much to the chagrin of his elderly suitemate.
Giovanna Brevara's body was found nude, swollen, and with lurid declarations of her pre-acting profession and activities carved in minute script on almost every available surface of her flesh. An enterprising photographer had managed to bribe his way onto the coroner's vehicle carrying the celebrity's body to the morgue and snapped off hundreds of photos of her ruined beauty. Ace sat up with a start upon viewing all of the insults carved into his client's corpse. His keen detective's eye had spotted something amiss amongst the litany of filth etched into her flesh, but the dull tendrils of pain rising up from his manhood and into his abdomen derailed his train of thought. Collapsing back against the hospital bed Carafe raised up the bedsheets and lifted his gown to find his undergarments amiss and his genitals swathed in gauze. He had enough time to register the dull burning, his lack of appropriate anxiety, and the IV tube snaking from the crook of his elbow to the bag covered with illegible script hanging from a rack next to his bed. Ace was very near to using his keen power's of observation and deduction when two nurses followed by the attendant physician entered his room, drew the curtain around his bed and informed him that it was time to change his bandages.
Ace Carafe was only able to view the damage down to his scrotum for a few brief moments before his dressings were changed. The hospital staff was very efficient. However, his highly trained detective eyes were able to observe and retain the patterned incisions and clots on his sac. After the doctor assured him that he was healing very well and his contingent of nurses left his room, Ace laid back and closed his eyes to reflect upon the words that someone's honed blade had carved into his beanbag in a very familiar small, neat script that made the best use of the limited, yet elastic palete the villain had chosen.
"Breaking a mirror is bad luck for seven years."
"Do not walk under a ladder."
"Never let a black cat cross your path."
"If you spill salt, throw a pinch of the spilled salt over your shoulder."
"If you find a penny, pick it up. For the rest of the day you'll have good luck."
And all that was just on the bit of his scrotum that Ace had had the chance to see while his dressing were being changed. Little bits of old wive's tales. A client's murder. Cloudy memories of dark rooms and darker runes. Rage filled Carafe's heart and blood oaths were sworn to himself with only his soul as a witness.
Ace Carafe would avenge Giovanna's murder.
He would bring down Prasi Magone.
Someone would answer for this very superstitious writing on his balls.
That's all there is of this bit. One day I was at work, and not working, and had a horrible pun come into my mind. That pun was the last line of this little tale. I thought that maybe I would just put the one-liner in my LJ and leave it at that. It wouldn't be the first time I had wasted bandwidth on something really, really dumb... but this time I wanted to flex a little. I haven't actually spun a bit of fiction in a while and I thought that maybe a bad pun could be made a little worse by drawing the reader into what could potentially be a story only to end abruptly with a punchline that doesn't deliver in the slightest. When I started I knew I wanted a PI yarn, I knew the last line, and I knew I wanted to start with a vision of spotlights in the night sky. Everything else came up as I was typing it out, so please to excuse any typos, misspellings, grammatical errors, and/or tense mismatches. This isn't the New Yorker, this is my LJ and I will damn well fuck up some writing while I'm writing.
Yep, that there is proof positive that when I write, I write for me.
So if you got this far, thanks for reading.
Also, as you might have noticed, I have a real real hard time coming up with names. The only name that I didn't come up with off the top of my head was Ace Carafe. That was my Denny's alter-ego in high school. And no, I'm not going to explain that because it's very stupid and this entry has more than it's fair share of stupid.