The future of yesterday.
Dear Readers,
Now that I know there are at least one of you out there reading what I so boldly call, writing.
1 billion 300 thousand things to say and only 30 minutes to type them so I will be brief, yeah right.
I told several of you single reader(s) about a chapter I had added to the story line from "The Business Card" So I will try to get it into print in as close to how I saw it when I thought it up.
........................
The Safe Safe.
My cellphone rang, I put the wine bottle down, and pulled it out of my T-shirt pocket, and opened it up.
"Hi Henry, What's Up?"
"Sir, there are several Police Officers and FBI suits headed to your apartment." Henry the Clerk on the front desk in the lobby of my new digs, said in a bit of a breathless run on word sentence.
" Calm down Henry. It is okay I haven't a clue why they'd be here, but no worries. Remember I have lawyers." I said and laughed so that he could hear my bit of sarcasm at the idea that I would be in trouble for doing something wrong.
But even though I was laughing on the phone, I was also walking toward the wall separating the Loft section from the Main Room and doorway area. On the wall was a series of polished metal squares of various sizes but in the center were three in a row top to bottom.
I was just reaching for these when the doorbell rang and a loud voice said.
"Open up, This is the FBI we have a search warrant!"
"Got to go Henry, Don't worry, tell Douglas that everything is fine and just chill out." Douglas was the building's Doorman and He was rather fond of me, they both were.
"Be careful Sir", he said and hung up.
"Open Up, This is the FBI, We know you are in there!"
"Hold On Already!" I yell back, and under my breath say, "just as soon as I can flush these things. I grin at my own private joke, and I twist the top square a quarter turn to the right, then the next square below it a quarter turn to the left and the final one in the set 180 degrees to the right.
A bright flash from the Loft landing and behind the curtain across the whole edge of the loft, brightens the room around me and the smell of spring flowers flows down from up there and for a few brief seconds you can hear birds singing and what sounds like an ocean surf. It is all gone by the time I reach the front door, at least the smell remains.
"Okay I am going to open the door, stop pushing on it." I tell them because you could clearly see that they were pounding on it like I was about to shred all the evidence right then if they did not get in. I pushed a small button like spot on the side of the face of the door and several clickings and latches can be heard to move and a small but firm Clunk sounds. Then I turn the knob and open the door.
"About Time!" A slightly red faced man says, in the nice Blue FBI jacket made so famous on runways across the garment district.
"I was right in the middle of a phone conversation, if you don't mind. So what is this all about again?" I sweetly say.
He hands me a folded paper and Says, "Search Warrant, anything and everything and step aside." He says as he barges pass me.
I watch as a train of men and a few women come into the apartment, chuckling a little to myself. Most of them end up standing around looking at all the Open Space. I was living a very frugal like lifestyle here. Several had gone up the stairs to the Loft only stand around mumbling things to each other, and looking back down at me, oddly.
The FBI agent who had first handed me the Warrant, was coming back toward me with a nicely dressed lady in tow, and he seemed to be fuming a bit.
"Where is everything!?" He said in a louder than needed voice, that seemed to startle those around us a bit, as it echoed off the Living Rooms open walls.
"What you see is what you get." I said, waving my arms about me at what would otherwise have been a totally empty living room, besides the one Lone Chair, It had this as a nicely printed label on the back of a wire framed lawn chair, you'd see out by a pool. The hammock set just beyond the side wall that went into my kitchen area. The only other thing in the room was large round table, that was only knee high but over 4 feet across, and had a bare shelf under it. I really wanted to go stand up on the table and gloat at all the people in my apartment, but I knew there was one other thing that they would find.
"We want you to open the safe, please." The lady in tow came around him and said, stopping a few feet from me and then pointing to the room underneath the Loft.
"I am sorry I can't do that. If I do that it will just disappear and I really don't want that to happen. But before you all get fussy I would like to know why you are all here." I say, with a bit of a grin on my face. I start to open the warrant and dial my phone at the same time.
"Who are you calling?" The Lady intones, as if she wanted to stop me.
"Mr. George Brooks of Brooks, Dunn, and Farley, my lawyer, okay strike that my Lawyers. You can't stop me from getting legal help can you?" I say with just a hint of snide slurring.
"We still need you to open the Safe." She repeats.
"Hi Tracey, is Mr. Brooks available?" I ask Tracey the really nice looking Office Manager at my Lawyer's office, I had been trying to get her to go out on a date with me for some time now.
"Well they are all in a meeting, do you want me to go get him?" Such a sweet nice southern belle voice, though she'd never been south of Jersey.
" No just tell him when he gets done that there are police and FBI in my apartment.."
"What! I will go get him right now."
"No! Let them finish their meeting. I don't really want to bother them that much. I'd really like to ask you to go to dinner with me though." Catching her off guard like that was a bit sly of me, and with the FBI dude and His Lady friend glaring and gnashing their teeth right here in front of me. It was high time to lighten the mood some, or just make them fume more.
"If I let you pick any place you have always wanted to go, Will you say yes?" I say it in as charming a voice as I can.
Slightly breathless she says, "The Palermo, I have always wondered who all goes in there, and you can take me there."
I push a button on my phone.
"Where is your address so I can come and get you, we will take my Limo."
"I didn't know you had a Limo?"
"I do for special occasions, and this is a special occasion."
I can hear the smile almost, as she tells me her address.
"I will see you at Seven, I have to get back to these people in my hair, just have him call me when he gets out of the meeting. Bye Bye, Waves." I say, hit the button I pushed earlier again and hang up.
Lucky I had just finished my call because almost at the same second, there was a yell from the Safe Safe Room, under the loft.
"What happened to my notepad! I laid it on top of the safe and Now It Is Gone!" A FBI agent was yelling and looking around at the others in the room.
"Um, Don't put anything on top of the Safe! It'll disappear, I did warn you all about that.. Oh Sorry! I didn't get a chance to warn you all about that. Just don't put anything on top of the Safe, or else it will go Poofy. Besides that You can touch other parts of the Safe okay."
The apartment had literally come to a stand still and now almost everyone is looking at me like I am insane, except for the point that a notebook had apparently gone bye bye, in broad daylight, just after being put on my Safe, that They wanted me to open.
"Look," I told the Lady and the Dude, "You are the ones barging in here, you'll have to deal with it, I can not get his notebook back. It is gone. That is a Safe Safe Room. The Safe is Protected in that Room. Come in here and look." I walk around them and go through the archway that is open that leads into the room under the Loft.
The way the whole apartment is set up is that the bulk of the area is a vast open expanse all to the left of the front door. About half of the space is two stories tall and has tall windows, directly opposite of the door are views of Central Park. Windows along the other two story wall aren't as grand but not bad of shorter buildings, and distance sites. Facing the door the right half of the apartment is broken by the tall wall extending out from the door about sixteen feet. A space open to high ceiling and then a lower wall which the kitchen sits behind, on the living room side is the hammock and nothing else till you get out in the room where the "Lone Chair" and the round table are placed. In the area between the Loft and the Kitchen is a small table with four simple chairs around it, and further to other side of the apartment an open Laundry alcove with hookups for a washer and dryer, but there is none there, instead I have a pair of wine racks, filled with lots of bottles facing the room. The kitchen is U shaped facing the dinner table and the Loft and Safe Safe Room, and has no closed in feeling to it. The two bathrooms are both on the central wall side of the room one top, one bottom to the left of the compact stairs leading up. The archway to Safe Safe room is rather wide with no curtain on it and the big black Safe is in the center of the rectangular room looking across the table, through my kitchen at two side by side refrigerators. Which right now have men nosing around in them.
"Hey Dudes, Don't hold those doors open all day those are buckets of milk I am going to be making cheese out of if you don't make them spoil while looking at them. Go one, get a measuring cup and take a sample if you have to, but do close the doors! Okay!."
"Here is the Safe Safe Room," I intone in that lecture hall voice of some bored professor. "The Safe stands on a small wooden table you will notice that the legs of which have several layers of carpet under them but it is not pressed down, as the safe is light as a feather." I point to the legs, where indeed there is 7 layers of different colored rough cut carpet, in different arrangements under each of the 4 legs.
"The random pattern helps the room have a less orderly feel to the otherwise stark Black of the Safe to the White White walls, don't you think?" I say with the nasal voice of a high sounding art director. All the while looking at faces of people in the room, being nearly 14 feet by 30 feet it was large enough to hold several of them. Though it did seem crowded just now.
"Just open the Safe!" The Dude says in a rough commanding voice.
"Sorry I can't do that with you all in here, the Safe is Safe from forced entry, and will disappear if I even touch it." I say. Hoping that they force me to touch it, just to see the startled faces when the Safe disappears just like I am telling them it will.
The Lady touches his arm and says, "We will just let Mr. Jones bring his guys in and they will open it or remove it."
"Hold on one second here folks, That is my safe, you can't just take it, can you?" I start to laugh here and almost bend double laughing at my own private joke that they haven't a clue about just yet.
"Okay, you go ahead and tell Mr. Jones to bring his boys in and try to hack the Safe, but a Word of warning. Do not Put Anything on top of it, it will only disappear before your very eyes, and If you try to lift it, you will find that it weights more than it looks like it does, and I will be seeing about this once my Lawyer calls. I don't think I understand Who you folks think you are."
I wave at everyone in the room and go back out to kitchen where I left my bottle of wine, that I was opening before this all started.
The Dude follows me out of the Safe Safe Room, as the Lady takes out her phone to call someone. Then she looks at her phone, taps it, shakes it, turns and is about to say something. When I start laughing again.
"You can't make any phone calls from inside that room, come out here, It is a Safe Safe Room after all. It has a dampening field on it and you can't take pictures in there or use any other electronic gadget you have ever thought of in that room, not even an old style exposure camera will take a picture of the Safe. But you are welcome to try all that, but don't forget I did warn you about it, when they all do not work."
I grab my wine bottle and start to open it.
"You aren't going to drink this early in the day are you?" The Dude says, with that 'You are really a drunk aren't you voice.'
"I will have you know that This Day is longer than yours. What did you just get up about 3 hours ago, maybe 4? I haven't been to bed for over 48 hours, this is my evening, right before bed relaxation wine. But it looks like my day is just getting started again!" I sigh and open the bottle with a soft pop. On the counter is a clean jar that formally had Orange Marmalade in it and I pour the light rose colored wine into the jar.
He looks at me like I am insane and asks.
"Don't you have wine glasses? You're supposed to be the Richest man in the World, and you live in an empty apartment, and drink unlabeled wine out of a jelly jar?" His words have that scoffing tone to them, as If I really am just some hick that just pulled myself out of a wooden hut in the woods.
"I'll have you know that this Wine is older than New York, city or state, and I like wine out of a jelly jar, it has that feel you just can't get from a wine glass."
I take the bottle and my jar into the living room and set them on the table. I pull up the iron chair, tap the sign I have attached to the back of it with a smile on my face and place it so that I can look at them all milling about in the more filled parts of my home.
The Lady is on the phone to someone talking at once loudly then quite then looking about the empty place as if she'd found something totally strange. I could hear The Dude talking to someone in the Kitchen about getting samples of everything in the buckets in there, and taking pictures of everything. I still did not know what they really were after, but I suspected it was the Safe that most vexed them. After all someone high up had started this ball rolling.
I opened the Warrant to the section where it told about who and why they wanted to be searching my home.
"Sealed By Federal Judge Judy Ross" Was listed for both the Who and the Why spaces. Totally Odd, then again I couldn't remember ever having had a modern day Search Warrant issued to me. In the old days if they wanted a look at your stuff they brought pitchforks and torches and armed men to bash your doors down and just burn you at the stake. Though I had never gotten that awful close to being burned at the Stake, I had had more than once been hunted by raiding parties, not that they had gotten to far into taking me captive. Ah those were the days, when you had to take up swords and fight your way out of your castle. Fond memories indeed.
I opened my phone and hit one button.
"Yes Sir!" The voice said.
"Bring the Purple Limo to town, I have a date tonight. Just park out front, I'll be out when I can. Seems they want the Safe."
"Yes Sir" And the phone went dead.
Good help was hard to come by, I was glad mine had been with me for such a long time, and it didn't take centuries of being together to come to that conclusion, He'd been loyal from the day I met him on that high mountain castle's walls. Warding off yet another pitchfork welding raiding party.
...................
Okay that is all for now, but I will continue this later.
Thanks for the support and May the Peace of the Lord be with you all.
Charles.
Now that I know there are at least one of you out there reading what I so boldly call, writing.
1 billion 300 thousand things to say and only 30 minutes to type them so I will be brief, yeah right.
I told several of you single reader(s) about a chapter I had added to the story line from "The Business Card" So I will try to get it into print in as close to how I saw it when I thought it up.
........................
The Safe Safe.
My cellphone rang, I put the wine bottle down, and pulled it out of my T-shirt pocket, and opened it up.
"Hi Henry, What's Up?"
"Sir, there are several Police Officers and FBI suits headed to your apartment." Henry the Clerk on the front desk in the lobby of my new digs, said in a bit of a breathless run on word sentence.
" Calm down Henry. It is okay I haven't a clue why they'd be here, but no worries. Remember I have lawyers." I said and laughed so that he could hear my bit of sarcasm at the idea that I would be in trouble for doing something wrong.
But even though I was laughing on the phone, I was also walking toward the wall separating the Loft section from the Main Room and doorway area. On the wall was a series of polished metal squares of various sizes but in the center were three in a row top to bottom.
I was just reaching for these when the doorbell rang and a loud voice said.
"Open up, This is the FBI we have a search warrant!"
"Got to go Henry, Don't worry, tell Douglas that everything is fine and just chill out." Douglas was the building's Doorman and He was rather fond of me, they both were.
"Be careful Sir", he said and hung up.
"Open Up, This is the FBI, We know you are in there!"
"Hold On Already!" I yell back, and under my breath say, "just as soon as I can flush these things. I grin at my own private joke, and I twist the top square a quarter turn to the right, then the next square below it a quarter turn to the left and the final one in the set 180 degrees to the right.
A bright flash from the Loft landing and behind the curtain across the whole edge of the loft, brightens the room around me and the smell of spring flowers flows down from up there and for a few brief seconds you can hear birds singing and what sounds like an ocean surf. It is all gone by the time I reach the front door, at least the smell remains.
"Okay I am going to open the door, stop pushing on it." I tell them because you could clearly see that they were pounding on it like I was about to shred all the evidence right then if they did not get in. I pushed a small button like spot on the side of the face of the door and several clickings and latches can be heard to move and a small but firm Clunk sounds. Then I turn the knob and open the door.
"About Time!" A slightly red faced man says, in the nice Blue FBI jacket made so famous on runways across the garment district.
"I was right in the middle of a phone conversation, if you don't mind. So what is this all about again?" I sweetly say.
He hands me a folded paper and Says, "Search Warrant, anything and everything and step aside." He says as he barges pass me.
I watch as a train of men and a few women come into the apartment, chuckling a little to myself. Most of them end up standing around looking at all the Open Space. I was living a very frugal like lifestyle here. Several had gone up the stairs to the Loft only stand around mumbling things to each other, and looking back down at me, oddly.
The FBI agent who had first handed me the Warrant, was coming back toward me with a nicely dressed lady in tow, and he seemed to be fuming a bit.
"Where is everything!?" He said in a louder than needed voice, that seemed to startle those around us a bit, as it echoed off the Living Rooms open walls.
"What you see is what you get." I said, waving my arms about me at what would otherwise have been a totally empty living room, besides the one Lone Chair, It had this as a nicely printed label on the back of a wire framed lawn chair, you'd see out by a pool. The hammock set just beyond the side wall that went into my kitchen area. The only other thing in the room was large round table, that was only knee high but over 4 feet across, and had a bare shelf under it. I really wanted to go stand up on the table and gloat at all the people in my apartment, but I knew there was one other thing that they would find.
"We want you to open the safe, please." The lady in tow came around him and said, stopping a few feet from me and then pointing to the room underneath the Loft.
"I am sorry I can't do that. If I do that it will just disappear and I really don't want that to happen. But before you all get fussy I would like to know why you are all here." I say, with a bit of a grin on my face. I start to open the warrant and dial my phone at the same time.
"Who are you calling?" The Lady intones, as if she wanted to stop me.
"Mr. George Brooks of Brooks, Dunn, and Farley, my lawyer, okay strike that my Lawyers. You can't stop me from getting legal help can you?" I say with just a hint of snide slurring.
"We still need you to open the Safe." She repeats.
"Hi Tracey, is Mr. Brooks available?" I ask Tracey the really nice looking Office Manager at my Lawyer's office, I had been trying to get her to go out on a date with me for some time now.
"Well they are all in a meeting, do you want me to go get him?" Such a sweet nice southern belle voice, though she'd never been south of Jersey.
" No just tell him when he gets done that there are police and FBI in my apartment.."
"What! I will go get him right now."
"No! Let them finish their meeting. I don't really want to bother them that much. I'd really like to ask you to go to dinner with me though." Catching her off guard like that was a bit sly of me, and with the FBI dude and His Lady friend glaring and gnashing their teeth right here in front of me. It was high time to lighten the mood some, or just make them fume more.
"If I let you pick any place you have always wanted to go, Will you say yes?" I say it in as charming a voice as I can.
Slightly breathless she says, "The Palermo, I have always wondered who all goes in there, and you can take me there."
I push a button on my phone.
"Where is your address so I can come and get you, we will take my Limo."
"I didn't know you had a Limo?"
"I do for special occasions, and this is a special occasion."
I can hear the smile almost, as she tells me her address.
"I will see you at Seven, I have to get back to these people in my hair, just have him call me when he gets out of the meeting. Bye Bye, Waves." I say, hit the button I pushed earlier again and hang up.
Lucky I had just finished my call because almost at the same second, there was a yell from the Safe Safe Room, under the loft.
"What happened to my notepad! I laid it on top of the safe and Now It Is Gone!" A FBI agent was yelling and looking around at the others in the room.
"Um, Don't put anything on top of the Safe! It'll disappear, I did warn you all about that.. Oh Sorry! I didn't get a chance to warn you all about that. Just don't put anything on top of the Safe, or else it will go Poofy. Besides that You can touch other parts of the Safe okay."
The apartment had literally come to a stand still and now almost everyone is looking at me like I am insane, except for the point that a notebook had apparently gone bye bye, in broad daylight, just after being put on my Safe, that They wanted me to open.
"Look," I told the Lady and the Dude, "You are the ones barging in here, you'll have to deal with it, I can not get his notebook back. It is gone. That is a Safe Safe Room. The Safe is Protected in that Room. Come in here and look." I walk around them and go through the archway that is open that leads into the room under the Loft.
The way the whole apartment is set up is that the bulk of the area is a vast open expanse all to the left of the front door. About half of the space is two stories tall and has tall windows, directly opposite of the door are views of Central Park. Windows along the other two story wall aren't as grand but not bad of shorter buildings, and distance sites. Facing the door the right half of the apartment is broken by the tall wall extending out from the door about sixteen feet. A space open to high ceiling and then a lower wall which the kitchen sits behind, on the living room side is the hammock and nothing else till you get out in the room where the "Lone Chair" and the round table are placed. In the area between the Loft and the Kitchen is a small table with four simple chairs around it, and further to other side of the apartment an open Laundry alcove with hookups for a washer and dryer, but there is none there, instead I have a pair of wine racks, filled with lots of bottles facing the room. The kitchen is U shaped facing the dinner table and the Loft and Safe Safe Room, and has no closed in feeling to it. The two bathrooms are both on the central wall side of the room one top, one bottom to the left of the compact stairs leading up. The archway to Safe Safe room is rather wide with no curtain on it and the big black Safe is in the center of the rectangular room looking across the table, through my kitchen at two side by side refrigerators. Which right now have men nosing around in them.
"Hey Dudes, Don't hold those doors open all day those are buckets of milk I am going to be making cheese out of if you don't make them spoil while looking at them. Go one, get a measuring cup and take a sample if you have to, but do close the doors! Okay!."
"Here is the Safe Safe Room," I intone in that lecture hall voice of some bored professor. "The Safe stands on a small wooden table you will notice that the legs of which have several layers of carpet under them but it is not pressed down, as the safe is light as a feather." I point to the legs, where indeed there is 7 layers of different colored rough cut carpet, in different arrangements under each of the 4 legs.
"The random pattern helps the room have a less orderly feel to the otherwise stark Black of the Safe to the White White walls, don't you think?" I say with the nasal voice of a high sounding art director. All the while looking at faces of people in the room, being nearly 14 feet by 30 feet it was large enough to hold several of them. Though it did seem crowded just now.
"Just open the Safe!" The Dude says in a rough commanding voice.
"Sorry I can't do that with you all in here, the Safe is Safe from forced entry, and will disappear if I even touch it." I say. Hoping that they force me to touch it, just to see the startled faces when the Safe disappears just like I am telling them it will.
The Lady touches his arm and says, "We will just let Mr. Jones bring his guys in and they will open it or remove it."
"Hold on one second here folks, That is my safe, you can't just take it, can you?" I start to laugh here and almost bend double laughing at my own private joke that they haven't a clue about just yet.
"Okay, you go ahead and tell Mr. Jones to bring his boys in and try to hack the Safe, but a Word of warning. Do not Put Anything on top of it, it will only disappear before your very eyes, and If you try to lift it, you will find that it weights more than it looks like it does, and I will be seeing about this once my Lawyer calls. I don't think I understand Who you folks think you are."
I wave at everyone in the room and go back out to kitchen where I left my bottle of wine, that I was opening before this all started.
The Dude follows me out of the Safe Safe Room, as the Lady takes out her phone to call someone. Then she looks at her phone, taps it, shakes it, turns and is about to say something. When I start laughing again.
"You can't make any phone calls from inside that room, come out here, It is a Safe Safe Room after all. It has a dampening field on it and you can't take pictures in there or use any other electronic gadget you have ever thought of in that room, not even an old style exposure camera will take a picture of the Safe. But you are welcome to try all that, but don't forget I did warn you about it, when they all do not work."
I grab my wine bottle and start to open it.
"You aren't going to drink this early in the day are you?" The Dude says, with that 'You are really a drunk aren't you voice.'
"I will have you know that This Day is longer than yours. What did you just get up about 3 hours ago, maybe 4? I haven't been to bed for over 48 hours, this is my evening, right before bed relaxation wine. But it looks like my day is just getting started again!" I sigh and open the bottle with a soft pop. On the counter is a clean jar that formally had Orange Marmalade in it and I pour the light rose colored wine into the jar.
He looks at me like I am insane and asks.
"Don't you have wine glasses? You're supposed to be the Richest man in the World, and you live in an empty apartment, and drink unlabeled wine out of a jelly jar?" His words have that scoffing tone to them, as If I really am just some hick that just pulled myself out of a wooden hut in the woods.
"I'll have you know that this Wine is older than New York, city or state, and I like wine out of a jelly jar, it has that feel you just can't get from a wine glass."
I take the bottle and my jar into the living room and set them on the table. I pull up the iron chair, tap the sign I have attached to the back of it with a smile on my face and place it so that I can look at them all milling about in the more filled parts of my home.
The Lady is on the phone to someone talking at once loudly then quite then looking about the empty place as if she'd found something totally strange. I could hear The Dude talking to someone in the Kitchen about getting samples of everything in the buckets in there, and taking pictures of everything. I still did not know what they really were after, but I suspected it was the Safe that most vexed them. After all someone high up had started this ball rolling.
I opened the Warrant to the section where it told about who and why they wanted to be searching my home.
"Sealed By Federal Judge Judy Ross" Was listed for both the Who and the Why spaces. Totally Odd, then again I couldn't remember ever having had a modern day Search Warrant issued to me. In the old days if they wanted a look at your stuff they brought pitchforks and torches and armed men to bash your doors down and just burn you at the stake. Though I had never gotten that awful close to being burned at the Stake, I had had more than once been hunted by raiding parties, not that they had gotten to far into taking me captive. Ah those were the days, when you had to take up swords and fight your way out of your castle. Fond memories indeed.
I opened my phone and hit one button.
"Yes Sir!" The voice said.
"Bring the Purple Limo to town, I have a date tonight. Just park out front, I'll be out when I can. Seems they want the Safe."
"Yes Sir" And the phone went dead.
Good help was hard to come by, I was glad mine had been with me for such a long time, and it didn't take centuries of being together to come to that conclusion, He'd been loyal from the day I met him on that high mountain castle's walls. Warding off yet another pitchfork welding raiding party.
...................
Okay that is all for now, but I will continue this later.
Thanks for the support and May the Peace of the Lord be with you all.
Charles.
posted by Charles Edward Owens Jr. at 11:26 AM
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