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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 84: Cooper 27
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 311
“Get on back,” The Eagle said, and Mister Justice straddled the motorcycle and hung on with his feet on the knobs of the back wheel’s axle, just an inch away from the tire which soon was spinning faster than any fan blade. Going downhill, The Eagle leaned, and holding on to his walking stick, Cooper tried to do so as well. The first curve was scary. The second, well, apparently The Eagle thought if he had not fallen off already, they should just lean all the way over, keeping their knees in tight to avoid them scraping on the asphalt, and then accelerating as they came out of the curve to hit speeds that had at least three digits. Downshifting, they went around the next curve, sliding as they went, and picked up more speed, slid all the way around the wider curve, and shot forward with The Eagle shouting something about ‘finally, can put on some good speed’ before they hit the bridge, and bounced on the approach, on the third part, and the half part, and took the rest with a screech of tires to zoom into the city.
The benefit of the city streets being mostly flat was offset by the traffic, which The Eagle whipped around with casual abandon. The first place they stopped was the railroad station. Here Barrelmaster picked up the rest of his gear. Then circling part of the arc of downtown, they slid into the Paris Motel on the outskirts of the city, but in a different part, about six miles from where he first arrived, Cooper thought. Shakily he got off, and noted the score of small brick cabins and the center grass area with a pool with a single diving board. About half the cabins were occupied, and he heard the screams of playing children along with splashes from the pool.
“You did not scream once. You’ve got grit. Now you just need to learn how to ride,” The Eagle said and motioned for Cooper to follow him. The duo went into the main lobby to find a middle aged bleached-blonde woman smoking a cigarette behind the counter.
“Hey, Dorothy.”
“Eagle; Mister Justice.” She straightened up and smiled. “Is there a problem?”
“No, nothing serious. My friend needs a room for the night; I’ll cover it. And we need to feed him. Have you got a room service menu handy?”
She handed The Eagle the menu, and he perused it briefly. “Is there anything you can’t or won’t eat?” he asked, obviously addressed at Cooper.
“Oh, a cheeseburger would be fine.”
He nodded. “The cheeseburger deluxe, fries and coleslaw, and what do you drink?”
“I suppose milk? Or what kind of fruit juice do they have?”
Dorothy put in, “Apple, orange, or tomato.”
“Apple juice will be fine.”
“And breakfast,” The Eagle continued. “He’ll call you from the room in the morning to order something.”
“Very good. Would you like a wakeup call, sir?”
Realizing a beat late that this was addressed to him, he stumbled, “Oh--what time is checkout?”
“Don’t worry about that.”
He nodded. “Nine o’clock?”
She made a note, filled out some paperwork, and produced a room key. Scooping up the key with its plastic diamond key fob, The Eagle turned to Cooper. “Dorothy will get you set up for tonight. Lance’s Gold Emporium is honest for tomorrow,” and he handed him the key. “Anything else?”
“Um--no, I think that’s everything. You’ve been more than kind; thank you so much.” The superhero left with his motorcycle roaring away, and soon its sound was lost in that of city traffic.
“The Eagle saved my life once, so now he drops off what he calls his ‘nestlings’. Don’t worry, he pays as well. But if you need something, food, or a book, or a newspaper. You know if you’re a time traveler.”
Cooper blinked.
“Time traveler?” he asked after he found his voice.
“I’ve never had one here, but I keep hoping. Did have two different aliens. For one of them I had to close the pool because he was a merman from Atlantis. I mean, that’s not from another star, but I think that’s alien enough, right?”
Cooper allowed that a merman was pretty alien. He listened as Dorothy babbled, getting a pillow, towels, and a bathrobe, and took him to Cabin Seven. Despite her talkative nature (and he had to do little more than grunt or nod) he noticed that much of what she was saying was useful bits of information for a traveler from out of town.
“I’m a big pulp reader, y’know. So if you like E.E. Doc Smith or Doc Savage, just drop by the front counter.
“I’ll get Bobby Junior, that’s my son, to watch the front counter while I get you that burger.” She turned around in a cloud of smoke, and Cooper entered Cabin 7 with his key. One thing immediately hit him in the face. The room reeked of smoke--but, considering it was the 1950’s in America, probably everywhere did to his nose. He had just spent the last weeks in mountain air with wood smoke, and Nagaworld had some smoke from fires made from the grass, but his home Earth had concluded a surprisingly successful campaign (considering the failure of Alcohol Prohibition) to drive smokers to the fringes of society, which meant his nose was not ready for a room with a glass ashtray on the nightstand. Needs must, he reminded himself, as he found and opened any available windows.
Putting his armloads down with relief, he checked out the bathroom and took a very quick shower, not sure how long Dorothy would be. The television was large, did not have a remote, and had four channels, ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS. He turned it on and surfed the channels unhappily. The shows were a laugh track sitcom, a familiar comedy movie with unfamiliar actors, a live variety show with an unfamiliar host, something called Powers of Father which looked like Father Knows Best with some of the same actors and the added wrinkle of father being a superhero, and My Cat is a Superhero. PBS was covering the life of lions in the veldt, and he was relieved to leave it at that. 50’s sitcoms were far better than later ones, but they were still sitcoms and demanded too much attention while giving too little reward. Thirty minutes later, dry and clad in his somewhat dirty clothes, he heard a knock at the door. He slipped on his face mask, and went to it, and there stood a young man, perhaps seventeen, with messed up curly black hair, and a brown paper bag in his right hand.
“I’m Junior. Mom said to give you this. Don’t worry, it's free. You’re in Lucky 7, named for Captain Eagle who slept here once.”
Cooper nodded, and thanked him, not wanting to betray the fact that he had no idea who Captain Eagle was. Apparently the man was not The Eagle, whom he had just met. Also, why was Captain Eagle ‘Lucky 7’? Going inside, he sat on his hard lumpy bed, prayed, and opened the grocery bag. Inside was a note.
Please leave the plate and fork outside the door for housekeeping to pick up.
Below that was a white ceramic plate filled with a huge cheeseburger, a large pile of heavily salted French fries, and a chafing dish filled with cole slaw. All of it was covered bulgingly by Saran Wrap. The food’s appealing scent hit his nose. Obliging his rumbling stomach and twitching nose, he unwrapped the plate and lifted the two-hands-required burger to his mouth. The coleslaw was fresh, and the tomato had the taste of something vine ripened rather than processed cardboard. This revealed two cold glass bottles of apple juice, and he grabbed one, resolving to save the other for later.
The plate was more than he needed, and after filling up, he put it aside. The news came on, and he switched to one of the three major channels. The big news of the night was that of the loss of the old Mister Justice, and the ‘taking up of the mantle’ of the new one. A retrospective with some film and some still shots of TCIII in his costume detailed his career. The previous one also came in for mention. He’d held the job for a longer time span than his recent predecessors, nearly twenty years going back to 1937. Clearly, it was not a safe profession.
World news focused on the Korean Conflict. Tired from his long day, he snoozed, only to wake up hearing a threat.
“All right, don’t move or I'll shoot.” He froze in place and then heard more words.
“Burr, you won’t get away with this. The sheriff will hunt you down.” Cracking open his eyes, he saw that the television was playing a western drama. Laughing lightly at the release in tension, and at himself, he got up, stretched, and while finishing the rest of the food watched the end of the movie. After that, as the test pattern came on with its accompanying high-pitched squeal, he turned off the television, rinsed the dishes in the sink and set them out front, prayed, and went to sleep for real.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #509: Character Challenges. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
