Tonight's Episode: Plot Complications

Starring: Matt Bomer as Guy Handsome, Jared Leto as Joe Handsome and Special Guest Star Rosario Dawson as the Goddess Pele.

Guest Star:  Tom Selleck as Nebuchadnezzar, PI

Blick's Cafe Novocaine promised that when you left, you would be feeling no pain.  It was one of those  places that looked like a disreputable hole in the wall from the outside, and was worse once you entered.  A den of iniquity.

How bad was it?  You might well ask.  Aside from the fact that they admitted people who were inappropriately attired (and I am not speaking of polka dot shirts and plaid shorts, although there was a fellow wearing  Birkenstock knock-offs and black socks, with that horrendous combination,) they chose their brand of beer based upon which bottles were the hardest to shatter, just to cut down on the amount of glass they had to dig out of injuries.

At the very moment that the Handsome brothers happened to enter the bar, the Cantina music from Star Wars started up on the juke box,  http://www.thesoundarchive.com/play-wav-files.asp?sound=starwars/Cantina1.mid which added a new dimension to an already surreal experience.

Then they saw... him.  Craggy, mustachioed visage, with a slouch that indicated a devil may care attitude, and eyes shaded by heavy, albeit not quite menacing brows.  He wore a silk floral shirt, unbuttoned, with a pukka shell necklace that caught the small amount of light thrown by the inappropriate yellow glass candle on the table.  White plastic mesh that looked like a refugee from the produce department of the Piggly-Wiggly decorated the glass of the candle holder.  He caught their entrance and leaned back in his booth, one arm raised slightly above his head, and the other hidden beneath the table.  “You boys the Handsome brothers?”  He asked.  His voice as graveled as his visage was craggy.    “Of course you are.”  He said, his mustache twitching in something that might have been a controlled burst smile.  “Sit.  Beer?”  He held forth a Coots bottle.  It was an empty Coots bottle, and he had been scratching at the label, but despite that the word Coots was still visible.

Joe scootched into the booth first.  He was not at all certain about meeting this person.  The only thing worse would have been if he happened to have an eye-patch, which – thankfully –  he did not.

Guy sat next to his brother and said, “that's a joke right?  Coots?”

Cut to commercial: Ghost Story, the most recent addition to the Dresden Files novels by Jim Butcher.  Buy it, read it, thank me later!

“Never kid a man about his beer.”  The man said.  Like everything he said it came out an admixture of laconic and axiom.  They had the distinct impression that, had there been a spittoon, the man would have made use of it for punctuation.

“Sure, a beer would be nice,”  Joe replied politely.  Courtesy was a useful tool for times when you were in an awkward social situation.  He decided that he would probably rate this among his top three awkward social situations.  Number one was the time he woke up in the fountain on campus dressed as Dr. Frankenfuter. Number two was the time his mother had set him up on a blind date with a female contortionist who only spoke a rudimentary Engrish, and his misinterpretation of the phrase: “wordo you riku foruk?”  (As opposed, he later found out, to chopsticks.  He would have otherwise gladly eaten with chopsticks.) And now, this was his number three.  So far.

“Good.”  The man said and he beckoned to a waitress who could have given an ugly stepsister a run for her money.  “Three, Honey.”

“Yes, I can see that.”  Honey replied.  “Big Jim and the Twins.” She winked a heavily false eye-lashed lid at them.

Guy couldn't help the nervous laugh that escaped him at her observation.  He looked at his brother, which proved a mistake, as that set Joe off as well.

For his part, the Craggy Man rolled his eyes.  These were good eggs.  And good eggs always meant only one thing:  Trouble.

Tonight's Episode: Subterfuge

Starring: Matt Bomer as Guy Handsome, Jared Leto as Joe Handsome and Special Guest Star Rosario Dawson as the Goddess Pele.

Joe didn't consider himself paranoid.  Not in the least.  Still as the time approached when he would be making his sojourn to the Actuarial Association Annual Antics he began to believe that Pele was watching him more closely.

In fact, Pele was watching the brothers more closely.  Not because of the reasons Joe was entertaining, but because their approach to life amused her.

Certainly as a child you watched the comings and goings of some lesser beings?  Ants, perhaps.  For Pele, whose life moved at geologic speeds, the daily doings and the thoughts and rushing to and fro of the people who lived upon her sloping shoulders held that same fascination.  Especially when they looked like Guy and Joe Handsome, and had no shirts on.

Now, some of you, dear readers, have wondered why the brothers were not made to be bereft of pants, as well.  As an ancient goddess, Pele simply was not impressed by a man's least impressive parts.  (She tended to view things from the ground point of view.)

Still others of you have wondered about the lack of shirtless women, and I can only address that by saying that you need to write your own stories.

Guy, scowled at the author and rattled his newspaper so that things could move along, as they were almost to the commercial and he had not yet had any lines.

“I've been concerned,”  Both brothers said to each other at the same time.  Then they both paused politely to allow the other one to go first.

“You,”  They both said at the same time.

“No, you,”  The both said at the same time.

There followed a pause.  Then Guy said, “we need subterfuge, in case we are being overheard.”

Joe could not have agreed more.  “Yes.”

Cut to commercial:  Ciphers can be so much fun, here is the dancing men cipher.    https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuUb95QqFsLByMccvipLlAPlgasWqIOpDveEjtWj0QZELX9ftIwZhfq4LIndgf1UPUpAb2NYrlgknfskSJl5a1AvZPWQ4lXUMk6hWZIF8BkQqMTRDyuut3cUKysGVmiK4VONf_2nMAe_35/s320/encrypt04.jpg