NaNoWriMo - TAGTAG - Chapter 1a
So this is really the second half of Chapter 1; looking back I realized we needed to see a bit more of Jonah before we move on to someone else. Also, I can tell that this sort of writing is going to read very episodic. If anyone has thoughts on how to combat this they're welcome to let me know. So, on to it.
The door to Jonah's apartment flew open, streaming light into the dark beyond. Jonah flung his coat and suit jacket on to his faded Victorian chair (originally owned by one King Henry VIII) and stalked into the bathroom. He sighed as he examined himself in the mirror. His face was red and not a little cracked from the cold while his beard hung at awkward angles to his face thanks to the bracing wind. He wrestled with his bowtie and tossed it behind him. It pooled into the claw foot bathtub Florence Nigthingale once used to bathe patients during the Civil War. The mirror had hung in Ford's Theater the night Lincoln died. Every item in Jonah's house had some sort of historical significance. The cast of Antiques Roadshow would cream their collective pants if they saw all of this. These were, in fact, leftovers. All of these pieces were either found incidentally on the quest for other items or simply too damaged or aged for the buyer to ultimately want. * I'm living in the adult version of the Island of Misfit Toys... * he thought as undid his cuff links and button covers and finally removed the shirt as well. Middle age had expanded his middle; not that anyone else but him saw it. He flicked the light off and went into the other room of the apartment. This, the living/dining/bedroom with kitchenette, was piled to the gills with boxes. Some were officially stamped and postmarked, others were haphazardly thrown together affairs with scraps of yellowing paper and worn fabrics peeking hesitantly from the tops of the boxes. He swept a few fast food wrappers off of his coffee table (a Henry Miller prototype) and placed his satchel on the clean surface. He flipped on a nearby lamp and began to examine the sticker.
The sticker itself appeared to be a normal bumper sticker; it was the correct rectangular shape and glossy finish. He pried at the edges to see if it might be easily moved; there was little give. Jonah honestly wasn't afraid of the leather ripping; it was more the ruining of the look of the piece. This bag had earned every nick and scar on it; this defacement was totally undeserved! He tried to think of methods of dissolving adhesives; didn't someone tell him once that nail polish remover would help? Maybe run the blow dryer or his popcorn popper on it for a while? He unzipped the bag and fumbled about inside until he pulled out a small black PDA. Turning it on he tapped in his password and began to log on to his wireless network. The aging desktop computer on the kitchenette's counter whirred and hummed as the connection was made. He went to Google and typed in the words “adhesive remover, leather”. Just as he was about to hit “Search” he paused. He stroked his beard for a moment in thought and then deleted the entry. In its place he typed “TAPTAP”. The first couple of results were for a series of boxes that could repeat rhythms, or something like that. Was this sticker just an advertisement? It didn't make sense to Jonah. He had long since learned to trust his instincts and something told him there was much more to the sticker than that.
He scanned through the next few results when his cell phone ran. He looked around the dim apartment for it and realized it was still in his bag. He set the PDA on the table and scrambled through the bag in an attempt to chase down the annoying ring. Finding the phone he flicked it open and hit “Talk”.
“Hello?”
“Jonah, it's your mother! How are you?”
She was excited to speak to him. VERY excited. She always was.
“Doing fine, Mother. How was the benefit?”
“Oh, just LOVELY darling! Simply wonderful! You know how I've been saying that our oil supplies will soon be running low? Well now the public is GETTING it darling! It's just wonderful!”
* Oh really, Mom? You came up with the idea of Peak Oil? How lucky am I to have such a genius for a mother. *
“Mom, no offense, but you're not selling me anything. You don't have to be so “Up with People”. Besides, it's late here. East coast, remember?”
“Sorry son, sorry. Just seeing people excited about real concerns rather than the exaggerated and misguided ones is the reason I got into the game in the first place. So, how did the party go?”
“The Van Gogh was very well received, thank you for asking. Beverly was the queen of the ball.”
His mother paused for a moment. He could almost hear her eyes shifting back and forth before she whispered into the receiver.
“Were there any... CIA agents? Homeland Security?”
“ There were no government issue CIA tuxedos. I don't know; they tend to be a little secretive when they stalk people. Besides Mom, I told you, the whole got taken care of. Beverly straightened it out. Hell, they owe HER a favor now.”
“True, true, son. I guess you're learning how the game works. How much longer are you in Washington?”
Jonah stretched and leaned back against the couch, stifling a yawn. “Eh, I don't know. I guess I'll see where the next job takes me. The apartment's fine and I am almost halfway through unpacking.”
A golf clap drifted across the line. “Congratulations, Jonah. I believe that's the furtherest you've ever gotten.”
Jonah snorted. “Thanks, Mom. Oh, hey, Senator Kimball says 'Howdy!'”
“Josiah? He was at the party? How is the old man doing?”
“About as good as ever, I guess. Says you should come to DC and say hi.”
“I just might do that, especially if you plan on staying for a while. Well hon, I have to go. Just wanted to see if everything went well. I'll talk to you soon sweetheart. Love you.”
“Love you too, Mom. Bye.”
He was about to click the phone off when he had a bolt of insight.
“Hey mom? Still there?”
She sounded a little startled. “Yes darling?”
“Do you know how to get adhesive off of a leather bag?”
She sighed disgustedly. “Is this your grandfather's bag? Your father would be so upset if he were around to hear about you ruining that-”
“Mom mom mom. It wasn't me. Someone stole my bag out of the coat check at the gallery and stuck some weird bumper sticker on it.” Just saying it out loud made it seem even more absurd.
His mother sighed again and thought for a moment. “Well dear, I believe if you rub ice around it and then apply some vegetable oil it should come off.”
“Ice and vegetable oil? What the hell. I'll give it a try. Thanks, mom.”
“Always happy to help, son. Bye.”
“Bye.”
He hung up the phone and went to the kitchenette. He had no ice made so he punched the ice maker button to get it started. The buzzing of the fridge intensified as he swung the freezer door shut and grabber the vegetable oil and a dishrag. He sat down on the couch again and poured a generous amount of oil on to the rag. He began to rub vigorously around the edges of the sticker. His fingertips brushed the leather as images filled his brain; the day of his grandfather's hire at the newspaper, the say he got his first paycheck and bought a new journalist's kit bag, the wartime correspondence, the dust settling on the bag after his grandfather and father's deaths. Jonah almost got lost in these images when he found that a corner of the sticker had given way. He peeled it back gingerly and found underneath a long blond hair knotted and twisted on the leather. He pulled it loose; it was still a bit sticky from the adhesive yet a little slick from the oil. He turned and held it up to the light of the lamp. It was ordinary enough; probably a woman's hair judging from the length and the fact that it was colored blond; the area nearer the root was a darker, dirty brown. Jonah rubbed the hair back in forth in his fingers and closed his eyes. He tried to see an image, sense a direction, anything. The seconds and then minutes ticked by as he concentrated. Nothing. Hair was never the best for finding people; personal objects almost always worked better for some reason. Jonah rifled through his bag and produced a small plastic bag. Opening it he carefully placed the hair inside and resealed it. He repacked his bag (PDA, cell phone, plastic bag) and zipped it back up. Then he went to work on removing the rest of that damned sticker.
The edges actually came off rather easily with the oil and the ice cubes once they had had a chance to form. However, as he got to the areas where the letters themselves stood he found much more resistance. No matter how he scrubbed and cajoled, the letters would simply not give. Frustrated, Jonah grabbed the dish rag and other supplies, took them over to the kitchenette, and dropped them noisily into the sink. He plucked the paring knife from his wooden knife block and set to work carefully picking away at the edges of the letters with the knife. He managed to get one side open after a few minutes without any noticeable damage to the bag. Satisfied, he began to the cut the bottom of the letters. He got about halfway through when a small object fluttered out from underneath of the bag and settled on the coffee table. Scooping it up by a fingertip, Jonah saw that it was, of all things, a postage stamp. Not just any postage stamp, Jonah noted, but an “Inverted Jenny”, an extremely rare misprint of the USA's first airmail stamp. The tiny airplane in the stamp's image was flying upside down, hence the name. Jonah set the stamp down, handling it much more tenderly than before. He pulled out the PDA and turned it back on to perform a quick database search. The most recent sale of Inverted Jenny stamps had been a pair sold to an anonymous buyer just two weeks before for a whopping five million dollars. Dollar signs erupted like fireworks in Jonah's head despite that irritating tingle on the back of his neck. Who accidentally drops an Inverted Jenny under a vandal's sticker?
Jonah reached over to an open box and rummaged through it, eventually producing a cigarette case. Flipping it open, he eased back the fake cigarettes inside to reveal a small stamp-shaped recess and tiny pair of plastic tweezers beside it. He had a stamp collector as a client a couple of years back and had found this little gem was very helpful in making his way through security checkpoints and especially through Customs. He grabbed up the small tweezers and picked up the stamp, placing it gently into the recess. He closed the case back up and placed it and the PDA back in the bag and zipped it. He finished the removal of the sticker without any other surprises and then laid down on the couch. His body craved sleep; his joints begged to relax and the tension in his neck and back meant that a few deep breaths and a few hours rest were exactly what he needed. His brain, however, kept fluttering like a caged butterfly. The pull from the stamp had been strong; that stamp had a mate, he was sure. Tomorrow morning he'd start to track the anonymous and see if maybe they could tell what this TAGTAG thing was all about.
The door to Jonah's apartment flew open, streaming light into the dark beyond. Jonah flung his coat and suit jacket on to his faded Victorian chair (originally owned by one King Henry VIII) and stalked into the bathroom. He sighed as he examined himself in the mirror. His face was red and not a little cracked from the cold while his beard hung at awkward angles to his face thanks to the bracing wind. He wrestled with his bowtie and tossed it behind him. It pooled into the claw foot bathtub Florence Nigthingale once used to bathe patients during the Civil War. The mirror had hung in Ford's Theater the night Lincoln died. Every item in Jonah's house had some sort of historical significance. The cast of Antiques Roadshow would cream their collective pants if they saw all of this. These were, in fact, leftovers. All of these pieces were either found incidentally on the quest for other items or simply too damaged or aged for the buyer to ultimately want. * I'm living in the adult version of the Island of Misfit Toys... * he thought as undid his cuff links and button covers and finally removed the shirt as well. Middle age had expanded his middle; not that anyone else but him saw it. He flicked the light off and went into the other room of the apartment. This, the living/dining/bedroom with kitchenette, was piled to the gills with boxes. Some were officially stamped and postmarked, others were haphazardly thrown together affairs with scraps of yellowing paper and worn fabrics peeking hesitantly from the tops of the boxes. He swept a few fast food wrappers off of his coffee table (a Henry Miller prototype) and placed his satchel on the clean surface. He flipped on a nearby lamp and began to examine the sticker.
The sticker itself appeared to be a normal bumper sticker; it was the correct rectangular shape and glossy finish. He pried at the edges to see if it might be easily moved; there was little give. Jonah honestly wasn't afraid of the leather ripping; it was more the ruining of the look of the piece. This bag had earned every nick and scar on it; this defacement was totally undeserved! He tried to think of methods of dissolving adhesives; didn't someone tell him once that nail polish remover would help? Maybe run the blow dryer or his popcorn popper on it for a while? He unzipped the bag and fumbled about inside until he pulled out a small black PDA. Turning it on he tapped in his password and began to log on to his wireless network. The aging desktop computer on the kitchenette's counter whirred and hummed as the connection was made. He went to Google and typed in the words “adhesive remover, leather”. Just as he was about to hit “Search” he paused. He stroked his beard for a moment in thought and then deleted the entry. In its place he typed “TAPTAP”. The first couple of results were for a series of boxes that could repeat rhythms, or something like that. Was this sticker just an advertisement? It didn't make sense to Jonah. He had long since learned to trust his instincts and something told him there was much more to the sticker than that.
He scanned through the next few results when his cell phone ran. He looked around the dim apartment for it and realized it was still in his bag. He set the PDA on the table and scrambled through the bag in an attempt to chase down the annoying ring. Finding the phone he flicked it open and hit “Talk”.
“Hello?”
“Jonah, it's your mother! How are you?”
She was excited to speak to him. VERY excited. She always was.
“Doing fine, Mother. How was the benefit?”
“Oh, just LOVELY darling! Simply wonderful! You know how I've been saying that our oil supplies will soon be running low? Well now the public is GETTING it darling! It's just wonderful!”
* Oh really, Mom? You came up with the idea of Peak Oil? How lucky am I to have such a genius for a mother. *
“Mom, no offense, but you're not selling me anything. You don't have to be so “Up with People”. Besides, it's late here. East coast, remember?”
“Sorry son, sorry. Just seeing people excited about real concerns rather than the exaggerated and misguided ones is the reason I got into the game in the first place. So, how did the party go?”
“The Van Gogh was very well received, thank you for asking. Beverly was the queen of the ball.”
His mother paused for a moment. He could almost hear her eyes shifting back and forth before she whispered into the receiver.
“Were there any... CIA agents? Homeland Security?”
“ There were no government issue CIA tuxedos. I don't know; they tend to be a little secretive when they stalk people. Besides Mom, I told you, the whole got taken care of. Beverly straightened it out. Hell, they owe HER a favor now.”
“True, true, son. I guess you're learning how the game works. How much longer are you in Washington?”
Jonah stretched and leaned back against the couch, stifling a yawn. “Eh, I don't know. I guess I'll see where the next job takes me. The apartment's fine and I am almost halfway through unpacking.”
A golf clap drifted across the line. “Congratulations, Jonah. I believe that's the furtherest you've ever gotten.”
Jonah snorted. “Thanks, Mom. Oh, hey, Senator Kimball says 'Howdy!'”
“Josiah? He was at the party? How is the old man doing?”
“About as good as ever, I guess. Says you should come to DC and say hi.”
“I just might do that, especially if you plan on staying for a while. Well hon, I have to go. Just wanted to see if everything went well. I'll talk to you soon sweetheart. Love you.”
“Love you too, Mom. Bye.”
He was about to click the phone off when he had a bolt of insight.
“Hey mom? Still there?”
She sounded a little startled. “Yes darling?”
“Do you know how to get adhesive off of a leather bag?”
She sighed disgustedly. “Is this your grandfather's bag? Your father would be so upset if he were around to hear about you ruining that-”
“Mom mom mom. It wasn't me. Someone stole my bag out of the coat check at the gallery and stuck some weird bumper sticker on it.” Just saying it out loud made it seem even more absurd.
His mother sighed again and thought for a moment. “Well dear, I believe if you rub ice around it and then apply some vegetable oil it should come off.”
“Ice and vegetable oil? What the hell. I'll give it a try. Thanks, mom.”
“Always happy to help, son. Bye.”
“Bye.”
He hung up the phone and went to the kitchenette. He had no ice made so he punched the ice maker button to get it started. The buzzing of the fridge intensified as he swung the freezer door shut and grabber the vegetable oil and a dishrag. He sat down on the couch again and poured a generous amount of oil on to the rag. He began to rub vigorously around the edges of the sticker. His fingertips brushed the leather as images filled his brain; the day of his grandfather's hire at the newspaper, the say he got his first paycheck and bought a new journalist's kit bag, the wartime correspondence, the dust settling on the bag after his grandfather and father's deaths. Jonah almost got lost in these images when he found that a corner of the sticker had given way. He peeled it back gingerly and found underneath a long blond hair knotted and twisted on the leather. He pulled it loose; it was still a bit sticky from the adhesive yet a little slick from the oil. He turned and held it up to the light of the lamp. It was ordinary enough; probably a woman's hair judging from the length and the fact that it was colored blond; the area nearer the root was a darker, dirty brown. Jonah rubbed the hair back in forth in his fingers and closed his eyes. He tried to see an image, sense a direction, anything. The seconds and then minutes ticked by as he concentrated. Nothing. Hair was never the best for finding people; personal objects almost always worked better for some reason. Jonah rifled through his bag and produced a small plastic bag. Opening it he carefully placed the hair inside and resealed it. He repacked his bag (PDA, cell phone, plastic bag) and zipped it back up. Then he went to work on removing the rest of that damned sticker.
The edges actually came off rather easily with the oil and the ice cubes once they had had a chance to form. However, as he got to the areas where the letters themselves stood he found much more resistance. No matter how he scrubbed and cajoled, the letters would simply not give. Frustrated, Jonah grabbed the dish rag and other supplies, took them over to the kitchenette, and dropped them noisily into the sink. He plucked the paring knife from his wooden knife block and set to work carefully picking away at the edges of the letters with the knife. He managed to get one side open after a few minutes without any noticeable damage to the bag. Satisfied, he began to the cut the bottom of the letters. He got about halfway through when a small object fluttered out from underneath of the bag and settled on the coffee table. Scooping it up by a fingertip, Jonah saw that it was, of all things, a postage stamp. Not just any postage stamp, Jonah noted, but an “Inverted Jenny”, an extremely rare misprint of the USA's first airmail stamp. The tiny airplane in the stamp's image was flying upside down, hence the name. Jonah set the stamp down, handling it much more tenderly than before. He pulled out the PDA and turned it back on to perform a quick database search. The most recent sale of Inverted Jenny stamps had been a pair sold to an anonymous buyer just two weeks before for a whopping five million dollars. Dollar signs erupted like fireworks in Jonah's head despite that irritating tingle on the back of his neck. Who accidentally drops an Inverted Jenny under a vandal's sticker?
Jonah reached over to an open box and rummaged through it, eventually producing a cigarette case. Flipping it open, he eased back the fake cigarettes inside to reveal a small stamp-shaped recess and tiny pair of plastic tweezers beside it. He had a stamp collector as a client a couple of years back and had found this little gem was very helpful in making his way through security checkpoints and especially through Customs. He grabbed up the small tweezers and picked up the stamp, placing it gently into the recess. He closed the case back up and placed it and the PDA back in the bag and zipped it. He finished the removal of the sticker without any other surprises and then laid down on the couch. His body craved sleep; his joints begged to relax and the tension in his neck and back meant that a few deep breaths and a few hours rest were exactly what he needed. His brain, however, kept fluttering like a caged butterfly. The pull from the stamp had been strong; that stamp had a mate, he was sure. Tomorrow morning he'd start to track the anonymous and see if maybe they could tell what this TAGTAG thing was all about.