Email to:Life Lesson: Coping with BIG trouble. FULL story just in!
Credit: Pilar 1967 -flickr
Today, you are exploring your relationship with BIG trouble. How do you define BIG trouble? Do you cope with BIG trouble – or not at all? What’s the biggest BIG trouble you’ve ever been in? Can getting into BIG trouble be fun? Even addictive? Think about these issues as you read our little parables. Note: If you start feeling uncomfortable for any reason (eg you don’t like the style of writing) DO NOT give up. It’s important!
* Everyone who’s PART 1 & PART 2 - just scroll down to PART 3…..
BARLOWE: PRIVATE DETECTIVE (Pt 1) by staff writer
Of all the flea-bitten, down at heel gumshoe offices she had to walk into mine, P.J Barlowe, Private Investigations, Smoking Permitted, Please Enter….
She was blonde, small-framed like a Degas, and she had large blue eyes you felt like diving into to cool off from the summer heat, and hair in which you could get lost for a month.
What can I do for you, sugar? I asked this babe from the blue, a damsel dreams are made of………
You’re cute, real cute.
I get cuter by the minute, angel. What’s the problem ? Your Pekingese gone missing? Your sugar daddy staying out late and coming home with red on his collar that definitely ain’t blood?
She pulled out a pack of filterless Camels like Tom Mix drawing his six-gun on an enemy in the Badlands and flicked one between her lips, redder and hotter than a scrub-fire.
It seemed polite for a gentleman detective to light her fire for her.
What’s your problem, sugar?
Nothing you can’t fix.
She threw back her long hair like a whip, and sat on the single wooden guest chair as if she was Queen of Sheba, and I was Solomon visiting for a one night stand.
Look angel, I ain’t got all day. Whatever’s bothering you, you better come clean right now. It’s two Cs a day plus expenses.
Perhaps we could do a deal, a contra deal. An exchange of professional services.
Forget it, angel. Two Cs a day. What’s troubling your sweet little mind, sugar? Cat got your tongue?
The potential client uncurled herself like a python at the zoo or a spring in a child’s toy.
It’s Ginger. Gone missing.
Sure, sure, sure, sugar. You come home, open the bourbon and the maid’s stolen your ginger ale. Look, you better come clean, angel. It’s been a long day, and some fellers have been kindly trying to give me some rest with The Big Sleep.
Suddenly she threw herself into my arms, her blue lamps now filled with tears.
You gotta help me, Barlowe. The Ginger Man’s in heaps of trouble.
The Ginger Man? What’s he got, currants for eyes, a gingerbread body and raisins for buttons?
At close quarters she smelt like Vermont in the Spring.
He’s a secret agent. He’s gone missing after investigating a popularity poll that went crazy. Barlowe, you gotta help me.
I disentangled myself from the lovely visitor. It was tough to do, but business is business.
Two Cs a day and expenses.
Suddenly she produced a small revolver and pointed it at my chest, just below where the white handkerchief poked out of my coat pocket. It took but a moment to snatch it from her.
No need to get smart with me, sugar. I do not need any gentle persuasion to take a case.
You’re cute, real cute.
I get cuter by the minute, angel. Wait till I get my fedora, and we’ll be on our way.
This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.
BARLOWE: PRIVATE DETECTIVE PART 11 by staff writer
In the car, she babbled like a beautiful brook………..
Stan Lee, the artist, is missing from his mansion: is he murdered? Marvel Comics are on fire, I am being followed by Blair’s henchmen, Spider-Man has fallen from a city building, my husband has been found floating face down in a swimming pool on the Boulevarde, I found a bomb in a carton on my living room floor and last night a Filipino carrying a knife escaped from my bedroom window, and my cat has just died.
credit: Auzigog.flickr
I lit a cigarette and smiled.
Are you coming clean with me, angel? You’re not being cute with me, are you?
She threw back her hair, and it covered the back of the passenger seat. She was the stuff dreams are made of, but this was turning into a nightmare.
You’re the one who is cute, especially when you’re mad.
Seems I get cuter by the minute, sugar.
When a car overtook us and began raking the side of our convertible with machine gun fire, I was not surprised.
Get down, angel. Get down.
Angel dropped to her knees.
Not now, angel. Keep your eyes on that car, Are they still following?
As we left the assailants behind I knew we were heading for Paradise, her apartment.
She had lost her keys, she said, so I had to use my skeleton keys.
Angel, I’m not sure you are coming clean with me. You can cry me a river if you like, I don’t care. Your tears can flow like wine, sugar, but they don’t mean a hill of beans without the truth. How do I know that The Ginger Man exists?
She produced an empty bottle of absinthe. It was in a paper bag marked Reno Liquor Store and Bar.
credit: John Bolin. flickr
Within minutes I was there pressing a sawbuck into the hand of the proprietor.
Have you seen The Ginger Man?
Sure, shamus, try the cake shop on the corner.
I slammed him against the wall.
Wise guy, huh? Don’t get fresh with me. I’ve got two things in my pocket. A gun with bullets with your name on them, or half a C that could be coming your way. What’s it to be?
He’s in the El Morocco Wine Bar at the corner of Fifth and Ninth. Please don’t hurt me.’
I left him slobbering in a corner and headed for the wine bar. Nobody gets cute with Barlowe. Nobody.
In a dingy part of the bar a juke box was blaring Lil Ol Wine Drinker Me. I could spot a shadowy figure behind a curtain in the back.
Things were turning up roses. Then whack!! Blackness closed in and I fell to the floor.
BARLOWE: PRIVATE DETECTIVE PART 111 by staff writer
The fog lifted from my eyes like a heavy mist over the Hudson.
I was tied to a chair and my wrists bound with cable wire.
A bucket of water splashed over me and my mind cleared.
Opposite me was a silver haired American gentleman, also bound to a chair.
An Irishman was mumbling to himself. Absinthe. Absinthe. He was also a captive.
He came to his senses.
Why is everything So Bloody Green?
Into the room came the Lovely carrying my gun.
You’re not so cute now, Barlowe.
Give me the gun, angel. Give me the gun and we’ll call it quits.
No way, Barlowe. No way.
I felt it was time to give her the facts of life.
Stan Lee isn’t dead, that’s him over there. That Irishman is your ginger fruitcake. Marvel Comics are not burned down. All for the popularity poll, you have turned, girl. I think it’s time you came clean with me, sugar.
The poll, the poll, the poll ! I needed votes, and now I need readers!
I guess you think you think you’re pretty cute, Barlowe. I can be cute too, and Nothing but Nothing will stand in my way! I will get readers!
You know, angel, you’re kinda beautiful when you’re mad. It shows up your cheekbones.
Don’t get smart with me, Barlowe. This is the end of the line for you and the rest.
The Irishman began to mumble again his appeal for a drink of absinthe.
Shut up The Ginger Man. There’s a bullet here with your name on it, if you don’t shut up!
The old siver gent spoke for the first time.
If you give a man enough rope….
SUDDENLY a man in red and blue crashed through the window, his tongue flicking and his eyes blazing through his goggles.
His rope furled along the room and ensnared Lovely as cops burst into the room.
As they took her away, she screamed
I need readers! Nothing will stop me!
Look angel, the party’s over for you for a long time….
Who is this stranger?
The old gent spoke again: Stan Lee here, True Believers. This is Spidie. Anything is possible if you have faith in Spider-Man.
Stan, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship…….
How do you feel? Nervy, free-floating everything but you just can’t put your finger on it, upset but you don’t know why? Congratulations, you HAVE discovered much about YOUR relationship with BIG trouble…..
The TIME to talk is NOW and the place is HERE…..I will answer any questions in the interests of nothing less than your mental health. Love, KJ.
Just click on the ‘comment’ thingo and follow the simple instructions. The place to write your gems is at the bottom of the last published comment. *A little bit of counsel for people new to this caper. Your email (just called ‘mail’ in this case) address does NOT come up on site. And just ignore the ‘website’ space – not necessary!
Tags: barlowe PI, big trouble, life lessons
Prawn Cutlet Award
January 19th, 2009 at 6:31 am
Perhaps Barlowe, private detective, can help people with yearnings like Heidi Clarke, who is on YouTube searching for the handsome young man who got her breakfast by mistake, then exchanged it. So far the mystery man has not responded to the public appeal by the drop dead gorgeous female. Why?
We have to start with the centre of things, Jane Austen. Then all becomes clear.
KJ – Pandora, in Leeton, a very long time ago, a fella rang to ask me out. I was thrilled. When he turned up he said something like: I got the wrong name! It was your beautiful dark-haired sister that I wanted to go out with…..
Just like that n’er-do-well with the wrong brekkie, my quasi date made a mistake – and exchanged me. To this day, Pandora, I believe he cost me at least 80 marks in the HSC. Such was the level of my continuing distress……
January 19th, 2009 at 7:06 am
You’re cute. Mr Barlowe.
Here’s your first clue:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/lifeandstyle/a-lost-jacket-mystery-man-and-a-stolen-heart/2009/01/17/1231609053191.html
January 19th, 2009 at 7:07 am
I keep getting cuter by the minute, sugar.
January 19th, 2009 at 10:12 am
DON’T try muckin’ with KJ – NO ONE leaves here WITHOUT learning anything….. got it? NO ONE!
January 19th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
I don’t think you are coming clean with me, sugar…….
Angel, maybe you too get cuter by the minute. But of all the flea-bitten, down at heel gumshoe offices you had to walk into mine, P.J Barlowe, Private Investigations, Smoking Permitted, Please Enter….
In the light of a red fluorescent sign with three sections missing your cheeckbones are a piece of work, sugar.
One more thing, as Columbo would say. Where were you, angel, when that man tried a new style of the Australian Crawl, like floating face down in a swimming pool?
Mr Barlowe….don’t talk like that, don’t talk like that….. THAT man was my husband. He was 82 with a real bad heart condition. I loved him a lot….when I felt like it…
January 20th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Angel, you get cuter by the minute. I ain’t mad at you, sugar. It’s just that of late a number of wise guys have been tryin’ to persuade me to take The Big Sleep.
I just want the facts, angel. Facts are important, like the fact that those lights over the drugstore are showing up your cheekbones like you was Venus de Bilo or something.
So, the old guy was ready to shuffle, so that ginger feller was affected by too much moonlight, and you had a little too much moonshine. It doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.
Of all the flea-bitten, down at heel gumshoe offices you had to walk into mine, P.J Barlowe, Private Investigations, Smoking Permitted, Please Enter…..
We know that the man in the wine bar killed your old man, that Stan Lee is part of a world network of bad guys trying to give me The Big Sleep, that the spider feller is frightened of people bearing insect sprays, that tonight the Yankees have all bases loaded, and you, sugar, are innocent, pure as the driven slush on Broadway, speaking of which did you know Damon Runyon and did I see you in No Orchids for Miss Blandish, and, say, you look kinda cute in the soft light coming in through the broken venetians.
It’s time to come clean, time to come clean, angel. Tell it to Uncle Barlowe and you’ll feel real good.
KJ – Take it easy Mr Barlowe, take it easy….you AIN’T the first guy to say I look good through broken venetians, ya know….and ya keep mentionin’ my fantastic cheekbones…..yeah Mister Barlowe, I gotta be the only girl that never had no use for a blusher stick…..I need readers and I’m gonna get ‘em Mister Barlowe. Is dat such a bad thing…….Mister Barlowe……is that sooo wrong Mister Barlowe? Come to think of it, you don’t look so bad with the lights off……not so bad at all….
January 20th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
You’re scaring me, Mister Barlowe. You’re scaring me.
Jane Austen would never talk like that in Pride and Prejudice.
January 20th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Pandora, it’s an open and shut case of the money or the box.
Look little lady, just call me Mr Adversity and laugh in my face.
Come to think of it, what were you doing at eleven o’clock? And don’t give me that malarky about being curled up with Jane Austen. Maybe you were chewing the fat, having palaver with a man who was about to become a cadaver. Come clean, sister, tell Uncle Marlowe, you’ll feel better getting it off your chest.
January 21st, 2009 at 6:44 am
Mister Barlowe……you keep ya hands off Pandora….you keep ya hands offa her! She’s a READER and ya know Mister Barlowe what Gwennie (mum) always said about readers……..?
Readers don’t have ya cheeckbones KJ….but they’s special people…SPECIAL people. So KJ, if ya ever get a READER, treat ‘em nice KJ, treat ‘em real nice…..
January 21st, 2009 at 10:35 am
KJ,
Look sugar, there’s something about this whole kaboodle that doesn’t jell.
Sure, you’re cuter than cute, but so was the dame who came into……
P.J Barlowe, Private Investigations, Smoking Permitted, Please Enter….
saying she was looking for some palooka.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/biztech/retailer-kills-heidi-web-appeal-revealed-as-campaign/2009/01/20/1232471353415.html
She had this palooka’s jacket, see, and she had breakfast with him, see, and they had each other’s eats, see, and she fell for him like a ton of bricks as they exchanged eats.
So this palooka walks out on her, leaving his jacket behind.
The dame, who hasn’t got your cheekbones, but has hair you could get lost in for a week comes into my office and tells me she’s a Cinderella looking for her Prince Charming.
I tell her, you’re cute, angel, but you better come clean with Uncle Barlowe. You’ll feel better then. What’s your name, sugar?
She tells Barlowe she called Heidi.
Sure, I tell her, my granny in Brooklyn used to read me Heidi Grows Up.
I wanted to read the funnies, see, but she wanted to read this stuff about some Kraut kid wandering around Switzerland.
The only thing that jells with me about Switzerland is clocks and cheese.
A good looking tomato like yourself goes well with cheese, sugar.
I knew that Heidi wasn’t coming clean with me.
First, she didn’t smoke.
But I spotted a tube of tooth whitener and a pumice stone poking out of her purse,
Have a filterless Camel and tell Uncle Barlowe the facts, angel. You’ll feel better.
Second, she had this palooka’s jacket.
I mean – from Leeton to Los Angeles – what dame is going to let a palooka she likes get out of her mitts and just leave the wrapping?
It’s like Heidi loses her toys after Santa’s been.
Who does this palooka think he is anyway? Obama putting on the Ritz?
Dressed up like a million-dollar trooper
Tryin’ hard to look like Gary Cooper (super duper)
Come let’s mix where Rockefellers
walk with sticks or um-ber-ellas
in their mitts
Puttin’ on the Ritz.
The jacket looks like Nothing from Nowhere. It’s the kinda thing Mom packs for you for the youth camp.
Heidi starts smoking and talking, talking and smoking, and not before time.
She’s not Cinderella and the palooka is not Prince Charming, nosirree.
This dame loves moolah, and she’s in the jacket racket.
I tell her to give me two Cs and blow.
Of all the two bit dames why did this one have to walk into…….
P.J Barlowe, Private Investigations, Smoking Permitted, Please Enter….
January 21st, 2009 at 10:55 am
Oh, KJ,
You know you have readers aplenty. Don’t fret. Glad to see Spidie and TGM have reappeared.
Story 1 rather M & B. I’ve now read 39 in the last 3 weeks so I should know!
January 21st, 2009 at 11:12 am
Meg, sugar, of all the flea-bitten, down at heel Web Blog offices you had to walk in here. Smoking Permitted, Angel, Please Enter….
You ain’t going nowhere. Not with those cheekbones and hair, sugar…
Ya don’t mind if I lock this door?
You ain’t going nowhere, Angel.
For one, you’re a reader.
For two, you’re getting cuter by the minute.
This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.
January 21st, 2009 at 11:36 am
Meg, my dear,
Once again your wonderful posts carry a code.
Your Navajo Code defied all my Bletchley Park skills.
Now you mention ‘M&B’?
At first I thought you meant the M&B tablets we were issued with to prevent wound infection.
But when I looked at the Bletchley Decoder I realized it decoded as:
Mills & Boon!
There’s a difference……………
Mills & Boon has over 3 million regular readers in the UK annually………….
We have Meg.
That’s all we need my dear.
TGM
January 21st, 2009 at 11:51 am
Meg, where have you been? How we have missed you.
You are part of the companionship of true sisters like Jane Austen.
Strange that you should mention Mills & Boon.
I did a weekend writing course with M&B.
I have an Unpublished Manuscript.
Would you like me to share some of it with you?
January 21st, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Dear Pandora – I’ve had this little something in the back of my ’special occasions’ knicker drawer for some time……may I?
There’s this little ‘townie’ from a working family – Nikki. She’s beautiful in an interesting way. She’s captain of the volunteer fire brigade, is the Leeton Cannery’s first-ever qualified female fitter-and-turner and SPEAKS her mind.
One day, a dangerous scrub fire breaks out on the property of the biggest rice growing family in the district. Nikki arrives in Appliance No 1.
Chad, the man who’ll inherit (and intends to onsell the water rights of the biggest rice farm in the Murrumbigee Irrigation Area at an obscene profit) is fighting the blaze. He has a tea towel wrapped around his sweating face and is beating the ever-spreading flames with empty rice bags. He is a man possessed….his dark hair is singed, and one of his big, strong hands has been burned.
Nikki, her lithe body still visible under her yellow overalls, runs towards Chad (who NEVER comes to town, NEVER….not since 2003 when his new wife, Emma…………..) shouting:
Get away from it, GET away from it. What do you wanna do, KILL yourself?!!!
I WILL own THIS this place ONE DAY and NO TELLS me what to do……KNOW ONE…TEL…TE…
Chad collapses…
QUICK Brendan quick….get me the triage kit from the Appliance….QUICK!!! And Trent and Jason, get WATER on this FAST….this place is as dry as a plate of rice cakes left out at a Weight Watcher’s Open Day…..
Nikki drags Chad away from the flames, tears the National Party Conference 2002 souvenir tea-towel off his face and administers deep mouth-to-mouth.
CHAD comes to: NO-ONE asked you to do that….NO-ONE!
…………and away we go!!!!!!!!
January 21st, 2009 at 7:05 pm
I recall this dame, Emma, coming into P.J Barlowe, Private Investigations, Smoking Permitted, Please Enter……saying someone was trying to bump off her husband.
Ground glass in the coffee, brake linings on his truck vandalised, grease on the stairs, a snake under the pillow, a funnel web spider in the toilet, a boa constrictor in the ceiling, a saltwater crocodile in the spa.
I told her, look angel, this is is a private detective agency, not marriage guidance counselling.
KJ: Oh my God, oh my God!
Nikki, her lithe body still visible under her yellow overalls, runs towards Chad – who NEVER comes to town, NEVER….not since 2003 when his new wife, EMMA…………..
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:46 am
So this palooka comes into P.J Barlowe, Private Investigations, Smoking Permitted, Please Enter….
to tell me this town has balls.
Sure it has I tell the palooka weren’t we Seventh in the Final for Best Blog in the South West Pacific?
Tell me something new, buster or there’s the door, all you havta do is turn the handle and pull.
No says the palooka, he means balls where the fellas dress in black and the women in bright colours and everyone dances the night away, like million dollar troupers – super duper.
So…
The palooka who is looking nervy asks me if I’ll act as Security for the Volunteer Fire Brigade Ball at which a lot of rich gents will be trying to look like Gary Cooper-super duper.
It’ll cost you two Cs plus expenses for Putting on the Ritz…..
The palooka tells me, shamus, moolah is not a problem.
He says his wife is so excited about the ball she is ransacking her special occasions knickers drawer.
But I gotta a problem.
You cannot wear a fedora to a ball. Besides I look stupid in a tux.
At that moment, my new assistant, KJ, comes into
P.J Barlowe, Private Investigations, Smoking Permitted, Please Enter….
Thank God you’re here KJ. This palooka is having problems with his balls.
I want you to take this case. Thank God you’re here, KJ…
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:38 am
Pandora,
Thank you for asking. I have been out of skyways communication. Missed reading of the many happenings on the life of KJ. I did however have Violet Winspear and Emma Darcy to keep me company. Take note of the latter name, Pandora. Lots of fantastic things occur ON the covers of M & B. They tell you about those dark and hairy chested men spruiked about inside. Blonde and waxed visuals.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:54 am
Dear KJ,
I need your expert advice. Last evening I consumed a great deal of beetroot. My stools this morning were vermillion. Is this normal? I have searched the net for advice and note you come with high recommendation as a scatologist by crikey.com
KJ: Dear Vermillion Letter……if there’s one thing I usually LOVE doing – it’s offering advice. However, there are TWO tracts that make me more than a little queasy – the REPRODUCTIVE and the GASTROINTESTINAL.
So, I am referring you on, if you don’t mind…..to another site!
Click here – try do!
http://www.uwm.edu/Library/special/exhibits/clastext/clspg143.htm
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:20 am
Pandora,
YES I’d love to read your weekend efforts at M & B style.
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Dear Meg,
Thank you, thank you. I’ll fish out the MS. It’s in my special occasions knickers drawer along with a printout of Wikipedia re Jane Austen.
What is it with knickers drawers and secrets? KJ has opened up a big topic here.
KJ: Who on earth DOESN’T have a ’special occasions’ knickers drawer!!!? All of JA’s biographers speak of her ’special occasions’ calico bloomers drawer……