I was on the verge of crying in my
think-a-hol the other night around last call when Angus, the big-ass
Think-A-Holic Lounge bartender, picked up on my blue mood and made a friendly remark.
"What are you stewin' over?" he cautiously asked me.
"Oh, nothing," I fibbed.
"C'mon, Jonco, I can tell when you're down," the big ol' Scot responded,
"and I can also tell when you're lying. Now give, or I'll twist your ear until you do."I knew that Angus, the big-ass ghost of a dead Scottish poet, was just being kind and polite so I gave in.
"Well," I acquiesced,
"the other day I thought my other ego finally had a fan of his science fiction novels when this guy called Michael about his books and I answered the phone.""Yeah," Angus urged me,
"go on.""Well," I continued,
"he claimed to be a friend of a friend who was the nephew of a cousin I had who died last year. Or something like that.""And?" the ugly old spook persisted.
"And he wanted me to burn some CD's of our e-books and give them to him so he could copy them and put his name on them," I blurted out, filled with anger and righteous indignation.
"He didn't even have a clue that we published paperback novels and haven't done any e-books yet.""Wow!" said Angus, his face and body language showing shock and utter disbelief.
"Wow, indeed," I said.
"And I thought he was interested in buying and reading our books."Angus said nothing. He simply patted my shoulder and poured me another shot of
think-a-hol. And a
double this time.
"This one's on the house, pal," he said. And then he disappeared into the kitchen to leave me alone in my misery.
By the way, I never met the insulting, outrageous caller who wanted me to help him steal my literary work and Michael's sci-fi work and make him a famous writer who would then compete with us. But I imagined that he probably looked something like this (see pic).
I had a dream the other night, after imbibing two shots of think-a-hol and a single bubbly chaser at the Lounge. I dreamed I was being given a ride in the limousine owned by Angus McCloud, the big-ass bartender at Think-A-Holic Lounge. The limo driver was supposed to be taking me home but, for some reason, he appeared to be landing at this particular spot, at the far edge of the space-time continuum. When I told him it looked like he had gone through a wormhole and was dropping me off in Ancient Egypt back on Earth, he responded in a Middle Eastern accent.
