Never trust a Gazeltreeb.

I was in charge of the Time Travel Shop for only a few days before I had my first Galactic. It was standing in front of my counter when I opened, which startled me a tad, until I got a good look at it.

The alien was all in white, from top to bottom, with fluffy white wings and long white hair. It's features were vaguely human, at least it's eyes and nose and mouth were in the right place. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

"Good morning, sir." It said. "You wouldn't happen to have a Froktone, would you? I would be ever so grateful."

Froktone, Froktone. It rang a bell. Then I remembered. One of the last training sessions the Boss had put me through, before leaving me on my own. I remember it had been a surprisingly abrupt departure from the routine....

**********

"You wanna see the worst buying mistake I ever made?" my Boss asked, out of the blue.
"You're gonna wanna know this...."

He led me to the store room, swung open the inner door, and we stepped into a warehouse that as far as I could see, stretched into infinity. (You know, as far as I could see.) I once started walking in a straight line, and the horizon never diminished. I went on until I got hungry and thirsty and headed back. Someday, I figured I'd throw some supplies in a backpack and see how far I could get.

Meanwhile, I was busy with the store. (And in the back of my mind, I suspected I would always be 'busy' with the store. It was hell to keep employees....)

We walked a fair distance, and circled back, and then stepped two corridors over. At the end, we were only a few feet from the entrance. I didn't bother to ask why we'd gone such a circuitous route. Logic in the storeroom didn't apply.

The Boss stopped in front of the most complicated gadget I'd seen yet. Knowing it was alien, I could see that it contained dimensions that were beyond my human brain to comprehend. There was something both repellent and attractive about it.

"Never trust a Gazeltreeb. No matter how much they beg, no matter how much they plead, never listen to them. A more vile and nefarious creature the galaxy does not contain."

"What is it?" I asked.

"Hell if I know," Boss said. "I had a Gazeltreeb come in day after day after day asking for me to order it. But when I heard the price, (he mentioned a price that I knew was a hefty way toward the value of the entire shop) I demanded a downpayment. Finally, the little bastard wore me down. I ordered it just to get rid of him.

My bosses huge shoulders lifted and dropped and he let out a heavy sigh.

"I've never seen him since."

"Can't you sell it to anyone else?" I asked.

"There are only two Galactic species that can use the Froktone. The Gazeltreebs and the Angelous. Angelous are so rare, that I don't expect to ever see one. Gazeltreebs are unfortunately common and uniformly untrustworthy.

"Never trust a #$%$@# Gazeltreeb, son," he finished.

***********

The creature before me fluttered it's white wings, and blinked slowly. He had a smile on its face that was contagious.

"You know, I do have a Froktone," I said.

"You DO????" the creature exclaimed. "Oh please, can I see it? Please?"

"It's very expensive, you know," I said, doubtfully. But inside I was ecstatic. This sale would make my month.

"Matters not," the white clad Galactic said, softly.

"Simmons," I shouted at my newest assistant. He'd been with me about a week, which was just about enough time to leave him alone in the store. "I'll be in the storeroom!" I bowed to the Galactic, whose smile if anything had broadened. "I shall return shortly."

Easier said than done. The hidden dimension of the Fragtone made it unusually heavy, and it was at least twice as bulky as it appeared. Finally, I retraced the route that the Boss and I had made a few weeks earlier, and that seemed to do the trick.

When I came back to the counter, Simmons was engaged in a animated conversation with our alien customer. "Such a nice old guy," he whispered to me. "I think he's a minister or something."

"Here it is," I proclaimed triumphantly.

The Galactic laughed with a sound that resembled bells. "You have one," he said, reverently. "I can scarcely believe it. Thank you."

It started to walk away. "Wait! Don't you want it?"

"Oh, I'll be back. Soon." It's smile no longer seemed so infectious, but....kinda creepy. It's tone no longer seemed softly warming, but unctuous.

"Wait a minute," I said. "You're not a Angelous are you?"

"Whatever made you think so!" it said. "Hang onto it for me, I'll be back!"

The moral of this story?

Never trust a #%$%$# Gazeltreeb.

Being a Writer.

***Note***

Repeat of an entry I made on my Best Minimum Wage Job a Middle Aged Guy Ever Had blog. But I thought it pertained here.

*****

I've always had the nagging thought that I should've kept trying to be a full-time writer.

It's been 20 years since I finished my seventh and final book. I liked it quite a lot, I was very fond of it. But I barely marketed the book, before I shelved it.

My first three books were published, and it's startling to google Duncan McGeary and find more than 200 listings -- not about Pegasus Books, or The Best Minimum Wage Job a Middle Aged Guy Ever Had or anything else I've done for the last 20 years-- but about STAR AXE, SNOWCASTLES, and ICETOWERS.

The books are still percolating, thanks to the internet; still selling, in places diverse as Australia, Sweden, and England. They've even been put online.

So I wonder.

I tend to be relentless in anything I set my mind to. This blog is an example of that. Daily postings for 27 months straight, often more than one a day. Pegasus is another example, getting close to the oldest survivor Downtown under the same ownership and in the same location. Married for 25 years. Living in only two places in the last 30 years. And so on.

So....I might have been able to make it work.

I thought of three reasons why I didn't continue.

1.) I was disgusted with the publishing process and the publishers. Long, long waiting times; editors who changed their minds; hot and cold agents; etc. etc. Whereas, when I bought the store, my creative decisions were immediately rewarded. I got instant feedback. (Much like this blog.)

2.) I could see that MOST writers made very minimal livings, if at all. It would have been a gamble, and I would have spent the requisite time living in the garret, living hand to mouth, pursuing my 'dream.' Again, the store immediately paid off for my efforts.

3.) Biggest reason: I got married, had an instant family, and bought a business.

Turns out, I wasn't one of those writers who could work on my writing in the off hours; a few hours in the morning or evening, while I worked a job, dealt with the family, etc.

Oh, I could write something. This blog is proof of that. But my mind had to be totally into the 'fictional dream' of what I was writing. I was ALWAYS thinking about my books when I was writing them. Daily life was a distraction from my real life of writing.

But age and wisdom has taught me a (4.) reason that I didn't become a writer, and I wasn't ever really tempted to go back.

It wouldn't have been personally good for me at all.

I tend to be an isolated person. A loner. Isolation breeds isolations. What would've happened is that I would've relied on Linda almost solely; every couple of weeks I would've gone to writer's group where I would've been so intense I would probably have scared people.

I would've had very high highs, such as when a book was published. And most of the time I would have been terrified and depressed by the slow progress. I would've had a hard time marketing myself, after spending hours and hours in my room every day.

I was still very phobic back then, and I probably never would've broken out of that.

The store forced me to get out, everyday. Meet people. Talk to them. Tell stories, jokes, exchange experiences. While I may not be terribly socially smooth, I'm no where near the klutz I was 20 years ago.

In other words, my life has been much more enjoyable and entertaining and -- despite the years of debt and toil -- more stable and satisfying.

I've lived a real life, so to speak, instead of self-absorbed fantasy life.

That said, I do enjoy the creative process of this blog. It isn't a chore to write, and I'm happy to find that a few people actually read it once in a while.

Time Travel Shop, Chapter (3?)

"Is it here yet?"

I knew before I turned around who it was. I'd heard that question every month for, oh, about my whole life.

I sighed. "No, Lorrp. It hasn't arrived yet."

When I was simply a clerk, Lorrp's aspect had been of a typical comic slob. Black t-shirt, baggy shorts, dirty tennis shoes. Maybe a bit bigger than the average. What was unique about was is timeliness. Every month for the last century (Or so I was told) he had asked the same question...

"Is it here yet?"

Once, early on, I had asked the owner why it was taking so long.

"It's coming from a slower than light travel culture," he shrugged. "It should get here in...." he pulled out a calculator and punched in some numbers. "...about 5000 years or so."

Now that I could see Lorrp as he really was, he still came across as the typical comic slob; even though he was a perfectly round sphere, floating in space, featureless except for a couple of fat lips right in the center -- at least I hoped they were lips, it's where the sound came from....

"Look, Lorrp," I offered for the hundredth time. "Give me a number to contact you and I'll let you know when it arrives."

He puffed his lips in exasperation. "No, thanks. I'll check again." Then it appeared as thought he was deflating into a smaller and smaller globe until he vanished with a small bubbly pop.


I asked (the owner) once why they didn't just board the ship and take the package.

He looked at me in shock. "Are you kidding me? They're going waaay too fast for that. Einstein was right about that law, at least. No one can go faster than the speed of light. Einstein was out of this world...."

"Einstein was an alien?"

"What? No, or course not. Though he did create quite a stir in the galactic community by coming up with a set of time/space theories. Of course, they were upside down, backward, and sideways. But, not bad for an Ape, as my aliens friends would say. These days, we just ignore those laws."

He shrugged. "Anyway, we don't have anything fast enough to catch that ship. Once set into motion.....

He looked thoughtful. "Newton was out of this world....." he murmured.

"Not bad for an Ape?" I asked.

"Huh? You can't possibly think Newton was human. He was a gold bug; thought earths alchemists had the answer...."

Next morning, after my sisters headed for the mall, I snuck downstairs to their rooms.

Mom was having an Allied Arts meeting, in the living room, down the hall. Waves of women's voices rose and fell, at the peaks sounding as though every single woman was talking at the same moment, and then disconcerting moments of awkward silence. It bothered me a little, because I couldn't tell how many women were there, but it was also reassuring because I knew my Mom would be too busy to come looking for me. She hated that I spent so much time to myself, reading or just thinking, though it was O.K. if I went into the woods, because at least then I was outside.

Disappointingly, I found only 2 keys in my sisters' 23 drawers, though I did find Terry's diary underneath her underwear. I'd be back for that.

My brother had only 6 keys, which gave me a total of 97. Somehow, before the day was done, I was going to get to 100. If nothing else, I'd wait until Mom and Dad were in bed and sneak a look in Mom's purse. I knew she kept duplicates, because she was always losing them.

In the meantime, I had a project in mind.

I grabbed my old backpack out of the closet, dumped out last summer's toys (Mighty Morphin Rangers? Why had I ever liked those?) and snuck into the kitchen. Mom always had cookies and soda and other goodies laid out for her meetings, which were forbidden, but which she never noticed were missing. I loaded up my backpack and headed for the woods.

KEYS: (cont.)

"Freak!" my middle sister, Patsy, 12 years old, exclaimed .

"O.K. Genius," my oldest sister, Terry, 14, said. "How many peas do I have on my plate?"

I stared at the pile for a moment, and the figure just came to me. "23"

She counted them with her knife, rolling them one at a time from one side of her plate to the other. "Holy, Crap! He's right!"

"Watch your language, honey," Mom said. But her heart wasn't in it. She was looking at me with a distracted look in her face. I wasn't paying much attention. I was planning how I was going to search my sisters' dressers tomorrow after they went off to do whatever it was that girls do, to find more keys. I wanted at least 100 keys; I knew I would want more, but I needed 100 keys.

My brothers junk drawer promised to be a bonanza. He was off that summer, his senior year, clearing debris and fighting rattlesnakes at the Cove State Park, with its wonderful 413 foot cliffs, so it could be turned into a reservoir.

"What a weirdo," I heard Patsy say. I heard Mom admonishing her, but, really, it didn't seem all the different at the time than any other dinner.

KEYS (cont.)

I was on my own that summer. My best friend, John, had moved away at the end of the school year, 143 miles away to Portland. My other best friend, Gary, had been dropped back a class, and either he or I were too embarrassed to hang out together. It was the year before I I became friends with Steve and Jay and our obsession with mini-bikes. I'd dropped out the swim team; too small and skinny to compete with the likes of 'Jumbo' McCarthy, who could almost lap me in an Olympic-sized pool. (164' by 82')

So once I got Mom's planned activities for the summer -- horse rides and art classes -- dutifully out of the way, I was on my own. I was free to explore the West Hills, back when they were still juniper trees and lava rock instead of McMansions and golf courses. 323 steps from my back door, and I was in the wilds. Miles and miles of fire roads ( four that went east, three went west, and two went north and south (or up and down the hills).

But most importantly, I was free to read, read, read. My sister's called me the 'read wraith' because they would come chattering into an room, spilling their heartlorn secrets, and not notice I was in the corner reading. I was so engrossed in the book, that I never actually heard any of those secrets, but I let them think I had. I read 46 books that summer, for the reading program at school, and at least 20 of them were real books, not filler.

That night at dinner, I was quiet as usual. I never had to say much, because between my sister Terry, and my Dad, someone was always talking. I started to spoon some sour cream onto my baked potatoe, when I heard my Mom ask, "How many spoonfuls of that are you going to take?"

"Six," I said, and as I withdrew the spoon and plopped the last of it, I added, "and a half."

Mom and Dad were both staring at me. My sisters laughed, nervously.

"Six ..." my Dad muttered, "...and a half."

He looked at my Mom significantly. I wasn't really paying much attention to any of that. I was neatly cutting my steak into 12 bite-sized chunks. But for once, my Mom wasn't willing to ignore it.

"How many plates do we have, Damien?"

I looked at her in puzzlement. "You mean on the table? 14.... We've got 58 total plates in the kitchen, though."

Again, there was a silence, and this time my sisters didn't even laugh. They just looked at me strange.

KEYS (cont.)

I watched from the attic window as my Dad drove away to work in his expanded cab pickup. (I remember the 'expanded' part, because that space behind the driver's seat was mine; Mom and Dad were too big, my sisters wouldn't have squeezed their way into that rectangular box for anything --well, maybe a cute boy -- and even then my brother was too dignified. It was all mine.)

I counted the keys. 86. I hurried over to my junk drawer, and found 3 more keys from previous school year lockers, and lovingly attached them to the chain. I hopped up, and went down the spiral of stairs (15 first level, short drop of 5, 15 more to the basement, and then 3 more to the sub-basement.)

Upstairs, Mom was having a League of Women Voters meeting. Keeping my ears attuned to the layers of women's voices rising and falling above me, I tried one key after another, and finally, on the 43rd key, my Dad's toolbox opened. The Holy Grail for an 10 year old boy -- power tools!

I satisfied myself with just staring at them. Then closed the lid, and relocked the padlock, and savored the feeling of power that washed over me. I could come back any time, heck, I could go anywhere and open any door!