with tiny yellow polka-dots, mitigated the outfit’s potential somberness.
Taking a deep breath and exhaling, Jack tried his voice. “Flx?”
“Call me Nick, willya? I told ya, the bird’s history. We’ve gotta move on, old chum. Besides, I went to no small amount of trouble to achieve Nick-ness. I hazarded the guess that when you said William Powell, you were really thinking about Nick Charles. You even said ‘You know, the Thin Man.’, when I said ‘William Powell?’. Even though the murder victim, not he, was the eponymous character. Anyway, whad’dya think?”
“Hell, I can’t think. This is too much. This is way too much.”
“Oh, you’ll get used to it. I’ve gotten very comfortable in here already. This act needed a touch of class.”
“Act? You’re calling what you do with me an ACT? What the hell do you mean by that?”
“Well, that’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. What would you call looking, and sounding, like something other than what you really are? Seems to me that’s an act. What else would you call it?”
“Shit. Hell. I don’t know. ‘Other than what you really are’? What the hell are you, really, then? Don’t you fuck with me like this, Flx.”
“Nick. And I’m not fucking with you, buster. Actually, I showed up this morning to clear some things up with you that’re a wee bit overdue.”
Walking over to the Vincent, Jack threw a leg over it and sat. Now, instead of looking all this nattiness squarely in the eye, he could glance over at this new factor in his life at intervals, just as he would if they’d been riding somewhere. “Like what?”
“Like leveling with you about who I am, where I came from and why I’m here. Little things like that.”
This Broadway patter, Jack thought, absently moving the Vincent’s ignition advance and choke levers back and forth, is gonna take some getting used to. To say nothing of the spats. “Glad I’ve got a comfortable seat,” he said. “Press on, old boy, by all means.”
“Thank you.” Letting a brief, ironic smile escape from under the pencil-line moustache, Nick continued. “First, I’m sure you’ve wondered what I’ve meant when I’ve told you now and then that I’m as human as you are. You’ve accepted that in good humor, along with the feathers and trans-dimensionality that makes it hard to believe. I’ve never had the trouble with you that I’ve had with some other ah, people, trying to get their hands on me, asking a lot of damn fool questions, hell, even throwing things at me, instead of just calmly listening to what I have to say, as you’ve always done. And because you’ve taken me ‘on faith,’ as it were, I allowed myself to put off telling you my little story. That, however, can’t go on any longer. Forgive me if I sound like a bad novelist, but serious challenges await you over the horizon, and you should have no doubts, subconscious or otherwise, concerning why I’ve been with you all these years.” He held up a grey-gloved hand as Jack started to speak. “Hold it for just a minute, pal. Let me get to the first turn; which is to say- forgive the cliché- that I come to you from a time far into the future.”
Jack took a long pause before he said, “Can’t say it surprises me all that much.” He noticed for the first time that a miniature of the Flx figure that Flx/Nick had given him was perched in the buttonhole of Nick’s lapel. “There weren’t that many explanations for all that flying through walls. The first one I decided to throw out was that I was crazy as hell; the next was the standard ‘ghost’ theory, since moaning and chain-rattling weren’t part of the- excuse the expression- ‘act.’ I remembered something Mose told me a long time ago; ‘Forget ghosts, holy or otherwise. You hear “ghost,” it means you’re listenin’ to an idiot, or to somebody who wants to put his hand in your pocket.’ Besides, you were way too real from day one,
Taking a deep breath and exhaling, Jack tried his voice. “Flx?”
“Call me Nick, willya? I told ya, the bird’s history. We’ve gotta move on, old chum. Besides, I went to no small amount of trouble to achieve Nick-ness. I hazarded the guess that when you said William Powell, you were really thinking about Nick Charles. You even said ‘You know, the Thin Man.’, when I said ‘William Powell?’. Even though the murder victim, not he, was the eponymous character. Anyway, whad’dya think?”
“Hell, I can’t think. This is too much. This is way too much.”
“Oh, you’ll get used to it. I’ve gotten very comfortable in here already. This act needed a touch of class.”
“Act? You’re calling what you do with me an ACT? What the hell do you mean by that?”
“Well, that’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. What would you call looking, and sounding, like something other than what you really are? Seems to me that’s an act. What else would you call it?”
“Shit. Hell. I don’t know. ‘Other than what you really are’? What the hell are you, really, then? Don’t you fuck with me like this, Flx.”
“Nick. And I’m not fucking with you, buster. Actually, I showed up this morning to clear some things up with you that’re a wee bit overdue.”
Walking over to the Vincent, Jack threw a leg over it and sat. Now, instead of looking all this nattiness squarely in the eye, he could glance over at this new factor in his life at intervals, just as he would if they’d been riding somewhere. “Like what?”
“Like leveling with you about who I am, where I came from and why I’m here. Little things like that.”
This Broadway patter, Jack thought, absently moving the Vincent’s ignition advance and choke levers back and forth, is gonna take some getting used to. To say nothing of the spats. “Glad I’ve got a comfortable seat,” he said. “Press on, old boy, by all means.”
“Thank you.” Letting a brief, ironic smile escape from under the pencil-line moustache, Nick continued. “First, I’m sure you’ve wondered what I’ve meant when I’ve told you now and then that I’m as human as you are. You’ve accepted that in good humor, along with the feathers and trans-dimensionality that makes it hard to believe. I’ve never had the trouble with you that I’ve had with some other ah, people, trying to get their hands on me, asking a lot of damn fool questions, hell, even throwing things at me, instead of just calmly listening to what I have to say, as you’ve always done. And because you’ve taken me ‘on faith,’ as it were, I allowed myself to put off telling you my little story. That, however, can’t go on any longer. Forgive me if I sound like a bad novelist, but serious challenges await you over the horizon, and you should have no doubts, subconscious or otherwise, concerning why I’ve been with you all these years.” He held up a grey-gloved hand as Jack started to speak. “Hold it for just a minute, pal. Let me get to the first turn; which is to say- forgive the cliché- that I come to you from a time far into the future.”
Jack took a long pause before he said, “Can’t say it surprises me all that much.” He noticed for the first time that a miniature of the Flx figure that Flx/Nick had given him was perched in the buttonhole of Nick’s lapel. “There weren’t that many explanations for all that flying through walls. The first one I decided to throw out was that I was crazy as hell; the next was the standard ‘ghost’ theory, since moaning and chain-rattling weren’t part of the- excuse the expression- ‘act.’ I remembered something Mose told me a long time ago; ‘Forget ghosts, holy or otherwise. You hear “ghost,” it means you’re listenin’ to an idiot, or to somebody who wants to put his hand in your pocket.’ Besides, you were way too real from day one,
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