AlexPGP's Corner

I had my phone to my ear and was just leaning back in my chair when Sam picked up at his end.

"Hey, Sam! You there?" I asked, after a second or two of silence.

"Don't shout," he croaked, and there followed the scrape of a match being lit. A moment later came the sound of a long exhalation, after which he said "I was on a stakeout all night. You woke me up. What can I do you for?"

"I just called to talk," I said. I tried to sound casual.

"Better watch it, sonny," he said, "you're starting to sound like that Gutman character, with his 'I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk' gobbledygook. Spit it out! You in a jam?"

"Sort of," I said.

"Get to the point, then. What's the deal?"

I took a deep breath. "Well, I'm supposed to introduce someone I don't know and have never met to a bunch of other people I mostly don't know and haven't met."

"Aha. Why am I not surprised? And you're supposed to do this with this computer thing you keep telling me about?"

"Yeah," I said. A moment passed. Another exhalation.

"That's the screwiest thing I ever heard of," he said.

"Screwier than having an imaginary phone conversation with a character from detective fiction?" I asked.

"Point taken," he said. "So, do you know anything about this person you're supposed to introduce? Like, maybe, a name?"

"The LiveJournal name's kf4vkp, but her real name is Jessica," I said.

"A pretty enough name, but that first mouthful sounds like..." he paused, as if trying to remember something. "Like one of those call signs amateur radio operators use," he said.

"It is and in fact, she holds a General Class license," I said.

"That doesn't mean much to me, but since you mentioned it, I guess it's significant," he said. Before I could explain, he asked "What else do you know about her?"

"Raised in Georgia, went to public schools in Jasper. She's got a degree in biochemistry. She lists about as many interests on LiveJournal as I do, but only three of them mesh with mine."

"How fortunate for her," he laughed a little. "You got anything else?"

"She was born on the same date as Mother Teresa and Macaulay Culkin."

"Well, since it's always 1930 here at my end, you'll understand when I say those names don't mean anything to me." Another pause, another exhalation. "So far, all you've told me that makes sense is that Jessica is from a small Southern town and is technically inclined. I take it she's a working stiff?"

"Yeah. How'd you know that?"

"I'm a trained investigator. Now tell me more."

"Jessica's a chemist. Seems to do pretty routine stuff for a company in the calcium carbonate industry, and says she wants to do more on the research side. In her personal life, Jessica seems to have a lot of plates spinning, if you know what I mean."

"Knowing you, that could mean anything," he said, "but I can guess. So she's also in this 'idol' thing you keep blabbing about?"

"Yeah, it's a shortened version, but it's still the same guy in charge, so it's bound to be a pretty wild ride."

"You can say the same thing about life in general," said Sam. "Which means that if you, or me, or Jessica, or whoever wants to do something—and I mean really wants to get something done—you're almost certainly going to have to make the time to do it." I could hear Sam mash out his cigarette. "You getting this all right, sonny, or am I going too fast for you?"

"I got it, Sam," I said, "but I still don't know how to do the introduction."

A match scraped, followed by another exhalation.

"The best I can offer is to just set it out the way you set it out for me. The result might be excellent or it might be crummy, but Mrs. Spade didn't raise any children dippy enough to give out advice on how to write. What I can say—and I got this from a guy you might've heard of, named Hammett—is that writing's something you can't do judiciously, unless you keep in practice. And that's true for more than writing—trust me on that."

"Okay," I said. "Thanks for the advice, and sorry to have awakened you."

"Any time," said Sam, "and it was time I got up anyway. I'll have plenty of time to sleep when I'm dead." A moment later, he hung up.