Read Online Gus Openshaw's Whale-Killing Journal by Keith Thomson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Keith Thomson
Ads: Link
And those
folks usually don’t want their whales in ten million pieces. Let
alone build it, I wondered why anyone would even conceive such
a device. So I asked her.
“I’d prefer not to discuss the particulars,” she said, “but in
brief, a whale ate my mother and father.”
P.S. Here’s a scrimshaw Flarq did of Dealer Dan. All of his
employees tell him he looks just like Robert Redford except with
a mustache.
Tuesday, 20 July 2004 4:03 PM
Her Smile
My wife is dead, but not once during the year and change since
she passed have I thought of myself as other than a married man.
Yet more than anything—save the location of the bastard whale
who murdered my wife—I wanted to know about Dealer Dan’s
beautiful intern who’d built the robotic whale-killing squid. And
that was before she’d told me that the reason she was in the
game was vengeance because a whale had eaten her mother and
father!!!
That there could be two of us suffering thusly was
testimony to one of two things:
Providence wanted us to rediscover joy in one another’s
embrace.
Or that salespeople will say anything to close a deal.
The reality of whale-hunting is you kill time, mostly. I
watch a heck of a lot of movies on DVD. So I’ve gotten to know
that only a B-level thespian plays the same note the whole show
long. The intern’s smile I noted—locked in a look of fierce
determination and all—that’s what gave her away. You can’t
blame her for trying though. The stakes—a million-buck sale and
an intimidating boss like Dealer Dan to face if she didn’t make
the sale—were pretty high. I’ve been told fibs a lot worse by car
salesmen.
I sure wanted that S-1 though. I offered two hundred
grand. My thinking: How many folks are there gonna be in the
market for an exploding squid?
“If I were to bring that offer to Dealer Dan, he’d kill me,”
the intern said, “slow.”
“Oh,” I said.
“How about we go to him with five hundred?”
“Three hundred, take it or don’t.”
Her reply was drowned out by a sonic boom. Moses,
who’d never flown a plane (as far as I knew, even as a passenger),
was test-piloting one of Dealer Dan’s ten-million-buck F-15s.
P.S. Here’s a scrimshaw rendition of the S-1 robot.
Tuesday, 20 July 2004 6:34 PM
The Whaling (or trying to at least) News
We’re back at sea. Here’s the latest news, both good and bad:
Good: Dealer Dan accepted my $300,000 offer for the S-1
exploding squid robot and my crew loaded it aboard our secret
brig along with the weapons I’d bought. Also, I got Sybil the
beautiful intern’s phone number.
Bad: Before we went ashore to Dealer Dan’s this morning, Moses
used scotch tape—instead of duct tape—to tie up Stupid George
below deck so as to keep him out of trouble. (Moses had gotten
high on expired milk.) George still had a tough time getting free,
but when he did, he used the desktop computer on the bridge,
logged onto my blog and posted the following:
Tuesday, 20 July 2004 4:10 PM
Deer Tunetts:
Yo ladys its me Rockhed George the famis athleat you met on
Gwava. The captin and evryone went ashwhore to by guns frum
Deeler Dan and left me in command. So I got this hole sweet yot
to my self. Theirs lots of licker and a jackoozee. So sail yore hot
lil poop decks on over to 52° 13’ N/21° 2’ E!!!
Pee Yes: Here is a skrimchaw Flark did of the yot.
That George posted a scrimshaw of our secret brig, along
with her name, Lucky Sue, is obviously not good news. Of
course, in buying a brig with “Lucky” in her name I had been
asking for it. I’d intended to rechristen her either Whalemower
or Slow, Painful Death to Dickhead but unfortunately Moses
drank all of the wine bottles that we could have used to christen
her with, and all of the soda bottles we might’ve used too (drunk,
he thought they were wine bottles).
That brings us to some extra-bad news: George posted latitude
and longitude coordinates, and Dealer
folks usually don’t want their whales in ten million pieces. Let
alone build it, I wondered why anyone would even conceive such
a device. So I asked her.
“I’d prefer not to discuss the particulars,” she said, “but in
brief, a whale ate my mother and father.”
P.S. Here’s a scrimshaw Flarq did of Dealer Dan. All of his
employees tell him he looks just like Robert Redford except with
a mustache.
Tuesday, 20 July 2004 4:03 PM
Her Smile
My wife is dead, but not once during the year and change since
she passed have I thought of myself as other than a married man.
Yet more than anything—save the location of the bastard whale
who murdered my wife—I wanted to know about Dealer Dan’s
beautiful intern who’d built the robotic whale-killing squid. And
that was before she’d told me that the reason she was in the
game was vengeance because a whale had eaten her mother and
father!!!
That there could be two of us suffering thusly was
testimony to one of two things:
Providence wanted us to rediscover joy in one another’s
embrace.
Or that salespeople will say anything to close a deal.
The reality of whale-hunting is you kill time, mostly. I
watch a heck of a lot of movies on DVD. So I’ve gotten to know
that only a B-level thespian plays the same note the whole show
long. The intern’s smile I noted—locked in a look of fierce
determination and all—that’s what gave her away. You can’t
blame her for trying though. The stakes—a million-buck sale and
an intimidating boss like Dealer Dan to face if she didn’t make
the sale—were pretty high. I’ve been told fibs a lot worse by car
salesmen.
I sure wanted that S-1 though. I offered two hundred
grand. My thinking: How many folks are there gonna be in the
market for an exploding squid?
“If I were to bring that offer to Dealer Dan, he’d kill me,”
the intern said, “slow.”
“Oh,” I said.
“How about we go to him with five hundred?”
“Three hundred, take it or don’t.”
Her reply was drowned out by a sonic boom. Moses,
who’d never flown a plane (as far as I knew, even as a passenger),
was test-piloting one of Dealer Dan’s ten-million-buck F-15s.
P.S. Here’s a scrimshaw rendition of the S-1 robot.
Tuesday, 20 July 2004 6:34 PM
The Whaling (or trying to at least) News
We’re back at sea. Here’s the latest news, both good and bad:
Good: Dealer Dan accepted my $300,000 offer for the S-1
exploding squid robot and my crew loaded it aboard our secret
brig along with the weapons I’d bought. Also, I got Sybil the
beautiful intern’s phone number.
Bad: Before we went ashore to Dealer Dan’s this morning, Moses
used scotch tape—instead of duct tape—to tie up Stupid George
below deck so as to keep him out of trouble. (Moses had gotten
high on expired milk.) George still had a tough time getting free,
but when he did, he used the desktop computer on the bridge,
logged onto my blog and posted the following:
Tuesday, 20 July 2004 4:10 PM
Deer Tunetts:
Yo ladys its me Rockhed George the famis athleat you met on
Gwava. The captin and evryone went ashwhore to by guns frum
Deeler Dan and left me in command. So I got this hole sweet yot
to my self. Theirs lots of licker and a jackoozee. So sail yore hot
lil poop decks on over to 52° 13’ N/21° 2’ E!!!
Pee Yes: Here is a skrimchaw Flark did of the yot.
That George posted a scrimshaw of our secret brig, along
with her name, Lucky Sue, is obviously not good news. Of
course, in buying a brig with “Lucky” in her name I had been
asking for it. I’d intended to rechristen her either Whalemower
or Slow, Painful Death to Dickhead but unfortunately Moses
drank all of the wine bottles that we could have used to christen
her with, and all of the soda bottles we might’ve used too (drunk,
he thought they were wine bottles).
That brings us to some extra-bad news: George posted latitude
and longitude coordinates, and Dealer
Similar Books
