Ovid 11: The Bigot free porn video

Ovid 11 - The Bigot By The Professor It was the most exciting spring of my life - either life. I was a mother! Well, technically, I was already the mother of a set of twins, but this was the first time I had given birth. The twins have been and will continue to be the light of my life. I feel as if I bore them even though I remember that they were really two of my fraternity brothers. Now a young boy and a young girl, they have no inkling of their past lives. The same is true of my husband, Jerry. But as I was saying, in spite of what most people in Ovid believed, I had just borne a baby for the very first time. She was a precious little girl, a little blue-eyed blonde like her mother. We named her Ashley. It was so strange, I thought as I held little Ashley to my breast. One minute I had been a college student - a male college student - and the next minute, I was changed into a woman. It had taken me time to feel as if I really was a woman. But if there was ever a moment that I felt more like a woman than any other, it was while I fed little Ashley. I had followed the stories of other nursing mothers, but this was my first time to experience it, and I didn't regret it for a moment. I had given birth to Ashley in early March, and it was now nearly May. I had returned to work after just three weeks - at least part time. My job was to basically be a living record for the new lives of those people changed by the Judge, the powerful god-cum-magistrate who had created and populated Ovid with the help of other classical gods. To his credit, the Judge had been most indulgent when Ashley was born. He assured me I could take as much time off as I needed. I had appreciated the offer, but wanted to get back to work quickly. I really enjoyed my job, and there was too much going on in Ovid to miss any of it for long. The Judge had also showered our new baby with gifts - nearly everything we could need with a newborn. As a result, we had not needed to buy a crib, a stroller, or a car seat, as well as several baby outfits and toys. To make the Judge seem even more magnanimous, I should point out that he did the same thing for Susan Jager, my best friend and the one lawyer who practiced before the Judge. Susan had given birth to her baby boy, Joshua, within an hour of Ashley's birth. But the most thoughtful gift of all in my opinion had been the gold identity bracelets he had given each child. They were far too large for the babies, but he told us to give them their bracelets on their sixteenth birthday, and we agreed. The bracelets were beautiful, formed from hand-shaped gold. Inside each bracelet was the child's name in ancient Greek characters. "Is she asleep?" Susan whispered from the couch across my den. "Almost," I replied. "How about yours?" Susan nodded, pulling the sleeping baby away from her own breast. "Where shall I put him down?" "Just use Ashley's crib," I told her. "Ashley likes to sleep in her stroller." When both babies were tucked in, Susan and I retired to the kitchen for coffee. Jerry had taken the twins to the park, and Stephen, Susan's husband, had tagged along to keep Jerry company. They had done it to let Susan and I have a little time together. It was the first time we had done so in weeks. "So do you think she'll show up?" Susan asked, sipping her coffee. "Diana? Of course," I giggled. "She seems to know when just the two of us are here. She'll want to catch up on the Judge's latest cases." "What story do you think she'll pick?" Susan asked. I thought for a moment. "Probably Patricia." "Damn!" Susan said. "That was going to be my choice, too. I thought we could make a bet on it or something." "A bet on what?" There had been a faint pop as air was displaced. Suddenly sitting at the table with us was an extremely beautiful woman. She was dressed like us, in T-shirts and shorts - but her body was exotic - a cross of Middle Eastern dusky skin and dark blond hair. Circasian was I believe the name of such a mixture. Whatever the name, she was beautiful. The goddess Diana had joined us. "So what name are you using today?" I asked her, sliding a cup of coffee laced with cream and sugar - just the way she liked it - in front of her. "Oh, what's in a name?" she sighed glibly. "You may call me Di today. It seems to fit for some reason." "You seem very mellow today," I commented as I watched her daintily sip her coffee. "Oh, it's just such a relaxing day," she said dreamily. "And after a lovely evening at a new club in Rome, I decided I'd better wind down in Ovid before going to bed." I raised an eyebrow at that. I hadn't known the gods slept. Of course, come to think of it, she hadn't said anything about sleeping. "I assume you wanted me to relate a bedtime story," I laughed. "Well, it might get me in the proper mood," she replied in a sensual tone. "How about the case with the two prejudiced men?" Susan and I looked at each other and together said, "Patricia." "So who won the bet?" Di asked wickedly. "We both did," I told her as I began to slip into my trance... ***** "Life would be a damned sight better if it wasn't for the lousy Japs." It was Brooks who said it, but I had to agree. "Amen, brother." Brooks lit up another cigarette from the tip of his last one. I never could figure our how he could smoke that much. A pack a day was all I could handle, but Brooks smoked at least twice that. And even when I smoked, I often left a half-spent cigarette in the ashtray. Brooks smoked his cigarettes right down to the filter. I think he'd smoke the filter too, if he could keep it lit. Then about half the time, he'd light another one off the spent cigarette. When Hertz got its rental car back after we turned it in back in Tulsa, it would take them a week to fumigate it. "I mean, we build a hell of a car right here in America," he went on, settling back in the passenger seat of the rented Ford Contour since I had volunteered to drive. "Why the hell would anybody consider a Honda Civic over a Ford Taurus?" I shook my head as I kept my eye on the road. "Beats the shit out of me. Seems like people have short memories." Brooks grunted in agreement. I didn't have to give him the whole tirade. People have short memories, I would tell men like Brooks. They forget about how the Japs sneaked up on us at Pearl Harbor. Hell, my grandfather even lost a leg when a sneaky Jap shot him at Iwo Jima. I learned to have a distrust for the Japanese sitting on my grandfather's remaining knee. He'd tell me all about them, about how they were mindless little monkeys, and I believed every word. Why shouldn't I? Hadn't those sneaky slant-eyed bastards cost my father his job as an electrical engineer for RCA? With all the Sony and Panasonic TVs being dumped in the United States at cheaper prices than the Japs could buy them at home, how could an electrical engineer in the United States who specialized in consumer electronics hope to keep his job? "Buchanan's the answer," Brooks went on confidently. How he could go on like that with the hangover he had to have was beyond me. "We get him in the White House, we won't have to worry about any more of this 'one world' shit." "I couldn't agree with you more," I told him, feeling a sudden painful jolt in my head from my own hangover. How the hell could we have gotten so drunk the night before? Then I remembered exactly how. Brooks and I had just finished a day of training for the staff of the largest Ford dealer in Tulsa. That was what we did - we traveled around the country training the Ford dealers' service departments and evaluating them for the home office. It was the kind of stuff the zone offices did most of the time, but Dearborn was getting a little nervous about the service reputation at the car stores and thought a home office team needed to check up on the field every now and then. In a way, we were checking up on the local zone offices as much as on the dealerships. Had the reps gotten too buddy-buddy with the dealers? Were they letting things slide? With Honda and others challenging Ford every year for leadership in the mid-sized car market, we were an important part of the team. Anyhow, we had gotten to know the service manger at the dealership pretty well. A muscular guy, he looked like he could pick up an F-150 truck in his bare hands. Tony - that was his name - was divorced and liked to party. Well, Brooks was divorced and so was I - and come to think of it, we both liked to party. At closing time, we said the hell with dinner and headed for a bar Tony knew. "What's the action like here?" Brooks asked him as we stood at the bar, long neck beer bottles in hand. He reached for another handful of pretzels - our dinner that evening. Tony shrugged. "Not bad." He nodded at three girls sitting together at a nearby table. All were dressed for action. There was a blonde, a brunette, and an Oriental girl. "Three of us - three of them. It looks like a plan." Tony started to move, but I stopped him with my hand on his arm. "Wait a minute, Tony. Who gets stuck with the Jap?" Tony's brow furrowed and he looked down at my hand as if a bird had shit on his sleeve. "Jap? Oh... you mean Jodie. She's not Japanese - she's Chinese." Brooks snorted. "See? She's a Chink - not a Jap." "Yeah," Tony said. There was an unpleasant note in his voice. "Jodie Chang. She works for the Pontiac store next to us. What's the problem?" Hell, I had started it. Me and my big mouth. I had been hanging around with Brooks so long I had forgotten how to be politically correct. But I wasn't so drunk yet that I didn't realize I had offended Tony somehow. "No problem," I told him. "You know how it is, Tony. We work out of Dearborn. Japs - uh, Japanese aren't too popular back there in the auto community." "Yeah," Tony mumbled. "And those guys in Dearborn can all go piss up a rope. My brother's married to a Japanese girl. She's good folks." "Yeah, right." That was from Brooks. I silently groaned. Tony and I had been busy talking, and I hadn't realized just how drunk Brooks was getting. When he drank, he had to watch it or he'd start getting belligerent. I had made no secret to guys like Brooks that I didn't like Japs very much, but I kept my mouth shut the rest of the time. Too many people were "politically correct" these days. Unfortunately we had just run afoul of one of those people, and it looked like we might be headed for a fight. Brooks was too drunk to sense the danger. I could see it in his eyes. He was about to bait Tony, and I could see Tony wasn't going to take it lying down. "Japs, Chinks, Nips, Slant-eyes, Gooks, it's all the same," Brooks commented with an evil little grin. "All the slant eyes in the world aren't worth one American job and you know it!" "Okay, big mouth!" Tony yelled and lunged for Brooks. I was in no position to stop him. I had been leaning back in my bar stool and couldn't have jumped in the middle of them if I had wanted to - and to be honest, I didn't want to. Tony made two of me. Besides, I've never been much of a fighter. Fortunately I didn't have to step in. Before the first punch could be thrown, a tall blonde guy stepped in between them. Tony was bigger than the guy, but he held his punch. It was almost as if he couldn't throw the punch for some reason, his fist hovering in midair without moving forward. Then the blonde guy smiled. "No need for this," he said in a voice that while calm brooked no argument. Now it was Brooks' turn to play the macho game. He tapped the big blonde on the shoulder and demanded, "Just who are you to break up a private conversation?" The blonde smiled even wider. "The name's Apollo, and the management pays me to keep conversations from getting out of hand." Apollo, huh? It sounded like a phony name - like a stage name. I had seen him before, though, and it wasn't in a bar. But I couldn't quite place him. He looked like the sort of guy you see in those sleazy flicks on Cinemax late at night - the kind that have bimbos in bikinis and guys in Speedos who end up screwing all over the beach. Well, if he ever had been in one of those flicks, maybe being a bouncer in a bar was a step up in the world. Then he looked at me. "You kNow friend, I think your pal has had a bit too much to drink. Do you suppose you could take him back to your motel so he can sleep it off?" I nodded. "Good idea." I wasn't sure quite how I was going to accomplish that, though, but for some reason, the fight seemed to have gone out of Brooks. We left Tony behind and I got Brooks back to the motel without further incident. It wasn't until I was in bed myself that I started to wonder how the bouncer knew we were staying in a motel. "Where the hell are we going anyhow?" Brooks asked suddenly, bringing me back to the present. He had been dozing and I had been driving without really thinking. I looked around. When had I turned off the Interstate? I looked ahead for highway markers. We were on a good two- lane blacktop road, but I didn't see any markers. "I'm not sure," I muttered. "Where the hell is the Interstate?" Brooks muttered. "How the fuck did you manage to get us lost?" The hangover pain in my head took away any answer I might have formulated. Then I saw a sign ahead. It was a familiar-looking blue and white sign, a little faded, and it looked as if it had been there for years. At least it might be advertising something in the next town. That would help me get my bearings. "Forester Ford," Brooks read, proving his vision was a little better than mine. "Then it says Ovid - Five Miles. You ever hear of Ovid?" I shook my head. "Not as a town. I think we studied an Ovid back in college. He was some sort of a Roman poet. And I've never heard of Forester Ford. Is it on our list?" We had a list of all the Ford dealers in the country with us. Brooks scanned the list. "Nope. It's probably an old sign. Most of the dealerships in these little tank towns have been closed for years." Then he looked at the map. "I don't see any Ovid listed either. It must just be a wide spot in the road." But it wasn't. We drove over a hill and found ourselves in a valley surrounded by rolling hills. Farmland stretched out before us, crops just pushing up in the early spring sun. And in the center of it all was a town. It looked to be fairly good-sized - maybe ten or fifteen thousand people. Towns that size in the Midwest usually depended on agriculture and maybe some light manufacturing to support themselves. This town looked like no exception. "It's big enough to have a Ford dealer," Brooks commented. "In fact, I'd be surprised if a town that size didn't have a Ford dealer." "Yeah," I agreed as we approached the town. "So why don't we have it on our list? And why isn't this town on the map?" Brooks didn't bother with an answer. It was just as well. We both knew the chances of both the map and our list being wrong were slim. The sign had said there was a Ford dealer in Ovid. Well, I had a funny feeling the sign was right. I had another funny feeling that there was something odd about Ovid. Just driving toward the town made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. If we were smart, I thought, we'd turn around and head back toward the Interstate. As we got closer still, Ovid appeared - to my relief - to be a typical Midwestern town. The road widened to four lanes with the usual collection of gas stations, farm implement dealers and other roadside businesses. There was nothing unusual about that. What was unusual was how neat, well groomed and prosperous everything looked. Many farm towns have fallen on hard times, what with the price of many farm products low. That affects the communities that depend upon agriculture. That being the case, the town looked just a little too prosperous. "Look! Did you see that?" Brooks pointed at a man filling up his car at a self-serve pump. I turned to see what he was talking about and nearly ran off the road staring. The man pumping gas appeared perfectly normal if you glanced at him, but there was something about him that made him seem almost transparent, like a double-exposed picture. "You see it, too?" I asked. Brooks nodded. Then he pointed ahead. "There's another one!" There was an attractive woman standing on a street corner, a pretty little girl of maybe four or five holding onto her hand. Both were wearing shorts, and the little girl's blonde hair matched her mother's in color. The strange thing was that while the little girl looked perfectly normal, her mother had that same transparent look. A ghost? No, the woman wasn't as transparent as that. It was as if I tried very hard, I could see through her. The little girl noticed nothing odd. She even smiled at her mother. "Maybe it's a trick of the light," I suggested. Brooks took a long hard look at me. "You don't really believe that, do you?" I glanced over at him and shook my head. "So what do we do now?" I asked as I stopped for a red light. If we were smart, I thought, we'd just scoot right out of town and forget that we ever heard of Ovid, Oklahoma. But curiosity doesn't just kill cats. I had worked with Brooks long enough to know that he was a curious person. So was I for that matter. But even curiosity has its limits. When surrounded by something as strange as Ovid, you tend to seek out the familiar. "Where's that Ford dealer?" Brooks asked. It was the same place I would have sought. "Well," I speculated, "it's a small town. I'd say it's either out here on this highway strip or it's downtown." "Let's find out," Brooks said, pushing the rented car further into Ovid. The Ford dealer wasn't on the highway. We went from one end to the other and found nothing but bars, fast food, motels and gas stations, plus a few other local businesses. That left downtown. We followed the signs directing us to the business district. I couldn't speak for Brooks, but I was wondering if the transparent people weren't just the aftermath of the previous night's drinking. I saw a few other people, and they looked normal enough. In fact, the whole town looked normal. It looked like it ought to have one of those banners you used to see flying from a light post declaring the town to be an All-American City. As we drove into the business district, I noticed not everyone had that transparent appearance. Frankly, most of them did, but not all. The interesting thing was that no one seemed to notice if the person he passed on the street had that aura of transparency. I saw a teenage couple holding hands - the boy was transparent and the girl not. It was the same with another mother and child. Only this time it was the mother who appeared solid. I was about to suggest to Brooks that we drive out of town as quickly as we could when he called out, "There it is!" There was a typical blue and white sign on the corner at the far end of the business district. "Forester Ford" it said. Behind it was a modest salesroom and a number of bays stretched out along the back of the building. The whole lot took up half of the block. In front, a row of gleaming F-150 pickup trucks sat proudly, looking like rugged sentries protecting the colorful rows of Contours and Tauruses behind. It wasn't a huge store, but it was impressive for the apparent size of the town. "When we get back to Dearborn, I'm going to have a long talk with the people who maintain our database," Brooks growled as he scanned our dealer list. "I've checked this three times and still can't find a listing for this place." I pulled into a visitor's parking spot and watched with amusement as two salesmen jumped up from their desks in the showroom and raced each other to greet us as we got out of the car. The winner of the little contest to see who could wait on us smirked at his coworker, then turned back to us, his hand extended. "Hi, welcome to Forester Ford," he said with practiced ease. "I'm Jim Carlsbad." I took his hand in spite of the fact that Jim was one of the transparent people. So was the other salesman for that matter. I was surprised to feel Jim's hand. It was as solid as my own. "Allen Ripley," I said. Then with a nod at Brooks, "And this is Dan Brooks." "Just call me Brooks," he said, reluctantly extending his own hand. I could tell from his expression that he had been as surprised as I had been to find the salesman's hand solid. "So what can I do for you?" I explained, "Brooks and I are with Ford out of Dearborn. Is Mr. Forester around?" I could see the disappointment on the salesman's face. There might be something odd about his appearance, but he acted just like almost every other salesman I had met. His visions of a live prospect evaporated. "We weren't expecting you," Jim said apologetically. "Well, there was a little mix-up," I replied vaguely. "As long as we're here though, is Mr. Forester available?" "What? Oh, yes...sorry. He's out in the service bay. Come on, I'll take you there." I was impressed with Forester Ford. The showroom was immaculate and the cars displayed simply but effectively. The staff was neat and dressed more formally than I would have expected in a small town - coats and ties for the men and skirts and heels on the women. It was almost as if someone was getting ready to shoot a TV commercial there. It looked like the showrooms in our ads. The Service Department smelled of oil, rubber and exhaust, as all auto service departments do, but it too was neat and clean. The mechanics moved about with a professional air of NASA technicians, their neatly pressed blue work shirts and pants a tribute to their professional demeanor. It was almost too good to be true. Hell, it really was too good to be true. "This place looks like it's bucking for an award," Brooks muttered to me. I agreed. Most dealerships didn't look this sharp even when they knew we were coming. Many dealers tried to impress us, but most fell short. We had seen the best and we had seen the worst. Forester Ford was impressing us without even trying. Oh sure, there was an oil spill here and there or something out of place, but lot boys seemed to be everywhere, cleaning up spills and replacing tools as fast as possible. "So you boys are from the Home Office!" a booming voice called out. Brooks and I had been so busy admiring the service area that we hadn't noticed when Jim had left us to find the boss. We turned to see a large overweight man of perhaps forty-five. He wore a tasteful gray suit and sincere tie around his thick neck. His thinning blond hair was well-trimmed and the smile on his round face was friendly. If he hadn't had that unsettling air of transparency about him, he would have looked like any of a thousand Ford dealers around the country. "Bill Forester," he announced, extending a large hand. With what I hoped was no hesitation, I took the proffered hand. It was as solid as I now expected it to be. Brooks followed suit. "You boys should have let us know you were coming," Bill Forester told us. "We would have rolled out the red carpet for you." It was a little bit of a joke. Ford's leasing program was known as a Red Carpet Lease, so we had heard it before. We chuckled anyway. "So what are you two boys doing here?' he asked in a friendly tone. There was no suspicion in his voice - only curiosity. Brooks scratched nervously at his moustache, an obvious sign that he expected me to come up with the answer. We had worked together so long that we knew each other's mannerisms by heart. I was up to the task. "We're making an unannounced tour of Ford stores in Oklahoma and Arkansas," I said glibly. I hoped my face wasn't red. I didn't want him to know how screwed up our database was. He smiled. "Well, always happy to have folks from the Home Office show up. We don't get folks out here from Dearborn very often." Well, I supposed since they weren't even in the database, that wasn't too surprising. I wondered how they even managed to get new cars in. Production had to be on a different database. When I got back home, I was going to have serious words with the people who maintained our data. Bill Forester spent the rest of the morning showing us around. Brooks and I felt pretty honored by the attention. Usually we got shunted off to the care of some flunky while the dealer did more important things - like setting up his tee time. Bill seemed rightly proud of his operation though, and was anxious to personally show it off. By the time the tour was done, I had practically forgotten that most of the employees I had met had had that odd transparent quality. "You don't suppose it was something in the drinks that caused us to see these people so funny, do you?" Brooks asked when we were alone for a few minutes. The look on his face indicated he didn't really believe that himself. "I don't kNow" I admitted. "If you hadn't noticed it too, I might have written it off as some sort of trouble with my eyes. I mean, I can't really see through them." He nodded. "I know what you mean. If I don't think about it, they all look perfectly normal. Then, if I concentrate, it's as if I can see what's directly behind them - sort of like a double exposure." We didn't get a chance to say more. Bill hurried back to join us. "You boys must be hungry. I'll tell you what - let's go get ourselves some burgers and talk about any training you want to do." Bill promised us the best burgers in the state for lunch, and I have every reason to believe he made good on his promise. Rusty's Burger Barn wasn't fancy. It was one of those places with plastic upholstering on the booths and chairs and linoleum on the floors. In fact, it looked like something out of the past - the sort of places you went for a good burger before McDonald's sprung up everywhere. The neon sign in front declared "Rusty's Best Burgers". And they were the best. "You want to bring me another choc malt, Michelle?" Bill called out to the cute waitress in the institutional pink dress. "You bet, Bill," she called back, practically yelling in the ear of a customer sitting at the lunch counter. "How about your friends?" "Nothing for me," Brooks groaned. "I'm stuffed." "I'd take another Coke," I called back in what I hoped was as folksy a tone as Bill had used. After all, I had grown up in the Midwest myself. I could be folksy when I wanted to be. "On its way," she called back. When our drinks were delivered, we all settled back in the booth. Bill stared across at us with a big friendly grin. "So what do you think of our little operation?" Talk during lunch had been confined to baseball and the weather. Now it was time to get down to business. "To be honest, Bill," I began, "you've got about the sharpest operation I've ever seen - especially for a small town like Ovid." Bill grinned happily. "I've got to level with you though," I went on. "There's a glitch in our database. We found you by accident." Bill chuckled. "You aren't the first folks to tell me that." "We aren't?" Brooks blurted out. Bill shook his head. "Nope. It seems like mapmakers are always forgetting about us. You buy an atlas - one of those nice Gousha jobs - and we're not in there. It used to kind of bother us, but nowadays, we just think it's kind of funny." "But doesn't the Chamber of Commerce get a little upset?" I asked. "Not really," he answered. Brooks and I waited for an explanation, but none was forthcoming. It wasn't as if Bill was being coy with us. Rather it was as if he saw nothing particularly unusual about a thriving town that simply wasn't on the map. It didn't make a lot of sense. But then again, I was starting to notice a number of things about Ovid that didn't make sense. Ovid was almost too good to be true. Oh, it was normal I supposed, but it was somehow on the plus side of normal. Things were a little too good. For example, Bill's dealership was not run like a small town operation. Salespeople in small town operations wore open shirts and - often as not - wrinkled pants. Bill's salespeople wore neatly pressed sport coats and ties, and their shoes were shined as if they were going to a military inspection. The building was modest but it was spotless. The landscaping was a little greener than I might have expected so early in the spring. Come to think of it, Ovid seemed a little warmer and more pleasant than I would have expected on such an early spring day. "Your service people don't look as if they need much from us," Brooks told Bill. "Frankly, they look as if they could teach what we have to give them all by themselves. Probably the best we could do is give them a little update on what's coming out this fall and a little look at future products." "I should do the same for your sales force," I added. Bill nodded, obviously pleased. "We'll set everybody down right after work today," he resolved. "You both don't mind if I invite somebody from the paper over, do you? This would be good press for us." We agreed. There was nothing we had to say that was company confidential. The odd thing, I thought, was here was a man who wanted press attention and yet wasn't concerned that his town wasn't even on the map. "Have you noticed something funny?" Brooks asked me as we waited in one of the offices while the staff prepared for our little talk. I looked up from the notes I had been reviewing. Bill had given us the Sales Manager's office to work out of, so I had plenty of room to spread my notes all over his desk. "I've noticed a lot of funny somethings," I told him. "What did you have in mind?" "There's something funny about Bill and most of the others," he began. I nodded. "Yeah, we can almost see through them." "So why aren't we worried about that?" Brooks asked. "Worried?" He leaned on the desk, facing me. "Yeah. Why didn't we just turn tail and run the first time we saw somebody who looked transparent?" "But they're not really transparent," I argued. "It must just be the hangover or the heat in the car or..." "It's not the hangover, pal," he interrupted. "You've had hangovers before and didn't start seeing through people. And as for the heat in the car, we aren't in the car now. Besides, this is the most comfortable day of any season I've ever spent in this damned state. Yet we aren't upset about all this." "You're upset," I pointed out. He shook his head. "Nope. I'm curious. There's a big difference. Something's going on here, and I think the company may have something to do with it." "Ford has something to do with people being transparent?" I asked, my voice spilling into nervous laughter. "Now where did you come up with that one?" Brooks looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was eavesdropping. "There's a company here in town called Vulman Industries." "I kNow" I told him. "I overheard the receptionist talking about it. Her husband works there. It's some kind of defense contractor." "That it is. But did you know Vulman also makes parts for Ford?" That I didn't know. Brooks correctly interpreted my silence. "So Ford knows all about Ovid, but they won't admit it." "What do you mean they won't admit it?" "I called up a friend of mine in Purchasing," he explained. "Vulman is a supplier for Ford. The company makes fuel pumps for some of our vehicles. But Purchasing says the company is in Tulsa." "Maybe it is," I argued. "Maybe the headquarters are there and Ovid is just a manufacturing plant. You need to take it easy, buddy. The next thing you know you'll be telling me that there really is a face on Mars and the CIA put it there." "I'm just saying we need to be careful," Brooks clarified. "Let's just do our presentation and get the hell out of town before sundown." "You think they all turn into bats and drink blood after dark?" I teased, laughing. To my surprise, Brooks didn't join me in my laughter. "I don't know what I think," he said ominously. "I just know what I kNow and I know there's something weird about Ovid." Yes, there was, I admitted to myself. I returned to my notes and tried hard not to think about it. The presentation went well. Of course it did. Bill's staff were model employees. Like everything else in the dealership, they were almost too good to be true. They listened attentively, asked just the right questions - politely of course - and displayed remarkable intelligence. And there wasn't a solid person in the crowd. As I finished my presentation I was beginning to think that Ovid was a town populated by space aliens or something. "Great job, guys," Bill said, patting us on the back as his employees drifted off to wherever seemingly transparent people went every evening. "Everybody really enjoyed it." I nodded in agreement. The smiles had been genuine and the applause warm. I could see Brooks nodding, too. "Now I've got you boys a couple of rooms over at the Ovid Inn for the evening," he went on. "Oh, that's not necessary," I said, beating Brooks to the punch. "We'll just head out this evening and get back to Tulsa." "Nonsense!" Bill said with a stage frown. "It'll be dark soon and some of these roads around here are a little tricky at night. You can get a good night's sleep and start out fresh in the morning. Try Nellie's Grill out on the highway for breakfast. She makes some fine biscuits." Our next round of protests were weaker. To tell the truth, it had been a long day, and hangover days always seemed twice as long. I was tired and getting a little hungry again, and I had worked with Brooks long enough to know he was in the same boat. Now part of me wanted to get out of Ovid quickly, but part of me wasn't looking forward to dark roads in my exhausted condition. Besides, maybe the locals really did turn into bats at night, and I sure didn't want to meet them on the road. Just joking. The Ovid Inn wasn't exactly the Hilton, but it was pleasant enough. It was situated on the main highway through town, surrounded by gas stations, convenience stores, fast food joints, and a lesser motel or two. The lobby was clean but plain - probably a preview of the rest of the place. It consisted of a bulletin board with the names of local restaurants and attractions, a couple of cheap chairs that I thought at first were only folding chairs, and a reception desk sporting a pen, a bell, and a name plate that read "Z Proctor, Proprietor." Z Proctor was a slim man who appeared to be approaching his mid forties with little grace. His hair was graying and thinning at the same time, and his small bushy mustache added at least five years to his apparent age. "Folks call me Zee," he told us as we filled out the registration cards. "Been runnin' hostelries for... well, seems like forever." "Uh-uh," I muttered, not really listening as I filled in the blanks on the registration card. "Now if there's anything wrong with the bed, you let me kNow" he said with measured concern. "Sure," I responded, picking up the key while thinking he was really a weird old duck. Now why had I called him old? I was just a few years over thirty, and Brooks was closer to forty. Yet there was something about Zee that made him seem almost ancient. "Looks like we're side by side," Brooks commented, looking at the numbers on the doors. "Want to clean up and see what kind of night life Ovid's got?" I felt my head throb just a little. "How can you talk about partying after last night?" "You ever hear of the hair of the dog that bit you?" he asked with a grin. "Yeah, right," I groaned. "I'll tell you what - I'd settle for a burger and a beer. Give me a few minutes to clean up first." This was not going to be a night of drinking and debauchery, I told myself as I washed my face and lathered it up to shave. Last night in Tulsa had been a near thing. We had been lucky we hadn't gotten ourselves in a nasty fight. If that big bouncer hadn't stepped in, we'd probably be in either jail or a hospital by now. Dearborn wouldn't look favorably on that at all. This was going to be a one beer night. Period. I really liked Brooks. He and I had been traveling together for the better part of a year. Although I always suspected he had a private side he never allowed me to see, we had become almost like brothers, seeing eye to eye as we did about so many things. We both had the same view of the world, and had our dislike of the Japanese extended to other races, we would probably have grabbed a couple of guns and headed for the northwest with the white supremacists. But we didn't really think that way. Blacks and even Mexicans were okay with us. But Orientals? Well, to be honest, we had both been raised to think of them as sneaky little foreign bastards. Don't like it? So sue me. Sue us. But it was more than that that held the two of us together. We enjoyed the same things. We liked cars and hated our ex-wives. We liked women though, with Brooks preferring brunettes and I blondes - which meant we seldom went after the same girl. And we both liked to toss down a few brews. The only difference was that Brooks could toss down a lot more than I could. Three or four beers and I was wasted. Brooks had twenty pounds on me though, and a seemingly unlimited capacity for beer. So far, that twenty pounds had stayed off his waist, but that was coming, I was sure. He undoubtedly had a long evening planned in a local watering hole. So okay, I'd have one with him while I ate and take the car back to the motel, leaving him to take a cab. But could I really do that? I thought as I finished shaving. He had nearly gotten himself beaten up the night before. I didn't want him to get in any trouble. So okay, I'd stay with him, but I'd just nurse my beer. Or maybe I'd turn to (shudder) soda pop or something. My thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. "You ready, Allen?" "Coming." We ended up at a place with the unlikely name of Randy Andy's. We had both expected a strip club, but were disappointed to find it was just a local tavern. It seemed like a popular joint though. The place consisted of two rooms. The first sported a long bar with typical bar stools padded in dark blue or black plastic - with the dim lighting I couldn't tell which. There were few tables along the opposite wall, leaving a wide aisle in between. The second room was actually a little larger than the bar. It consisted of more tables uniformly arranged, some booths along the far wall, and a large pool table lit by a fancy pool table light advertising Coors Beer. I can't say the joint was jumping, but business looked fairly good for a week night. A Shania Twain song was rocking along in the background, but not so loud as to mask the din of conversation or the clicking of pool balls. Brooks and I chose a table near the pool table determined to play a couple of games when the two would-be cowboys at the table finished their game. Things started looking up when the waitress came swiveling over to us. She wasn't exactly beautiful, but she was damned attractive, her long dark hair and evenly tanned skin made her look as if she'd be more at home on a warm beach somewhere rather than a small town like Ovid. She wore a short white minidress that did little to disguise her full breasts and long trim legs, and the way she walked easily on her high heels was enough to make a married man leave home. "What'll it be, guys?" she asked with a sultry voice. "How are the burgers?" Brooks asked, his eyes resting on her cleavage. "Good," she replied, watching Brooks with amusement. "Want one?" "With cheese and whatever's on tap," Brooks responded. Then, "What's your name?" "Sly," she said, not missing a beat. From the casual way she responded, I could see she was used to being hit on. I could also tell she was choosy about her men. "I'm Brooks. What are you doing after you get off?" So okay, it wasn't the best pickup line in the world, but I had seen it work for Brooks more than once. Not this time, though. "Well, after my boyfriend picks me up, I thought I'd go home and see how my son was doing," she said blithely. Then she turned to me, a mischievous twinkle in her eye, without giving Brooks another thought. "I'll take the same," I said meekly. "Damn!" Brooks muttered as she walked away. "I'd like to be her boyfriend. I'll bet she drains him dry every night." I nodded in agreement. This was the way Brooks and I had spent many an evening on the road. We had become connoisseurs of barroom burgers and big-chested waitresses in a couple of dozen states. I suppose looking back on it that it wasn't much of a social life, but it seemed to satisfy us at the time. "So what do you think?" he asked after Sly had delivered our drinks. "About what?" Brooks snorted. "About what? Look around here, Allen. We're sitting in the middle of a town that isn't on the map calling on a Ford dealer that isn't in our database surrounded by transparent people." "They aren't really transparent," I pointed out. "They're - " He waved away my comment with his hand. "I know - you can't really see through them. It's more like..." His voice trailed off as Sly placed two platters heaped with a sizzling burger and a mountain of golden fries in front of us. "You guys need anything else?" I smiled. "We're doing fine." Sly surprised us by hanging around to talk. The way she had rebuffed Brooks, I figured she'd give us a wide berth. "So what do you think of Ovid?" "How do you know we're not from around here?" I asked, taking a sip of my beer. She laughed at that. "Ovid is a small town. Everybody pretty much knows everybody. Besides, my boyfriend is a salesman at Forester Ford. He told me all about the two of you." Brooks looked at me as he munched a bite of his burger. I could see he was thinking the same thing I was. Sly seemed willing to talk, so maybe she could answer some of the questions we had. "So how long have you been living in Ovid?" I asked casually. Her answer was cryptic at best. With a shrug she told us, "I guess you could say I've kind of lived here all my life." "Kind of?" I prompted. "You'll find out what I mean eventually," she replied with a smile. "It's a little hard to explain though." "It seems like a nice town," Brooks said laconically. "Oh it is," she agreed. "It's like Disneyland." When she saw the confusion on our faces, she laughed again. "You know what they call Disneyland - 'the Happiest Place on Earth'. Well, I think maybe that could describe Ovid, too. Although you might not think so at first." My God, I thought, we're talking with a crazy woman. What was she talking about? I wanted to ask her more, but my thoughts were interrupted by shrill feminine laughter. Brooks and I looked up to see two young women - twins - walking into the room. They were not the most attractive women I had ever seen with their dull blonde hair and sharp features, but their identical short pink dresses showed very memorable figures. I could feel a little interest between my legs. Sly looked over her shoulder. "Like them?" I must have nodded without thinking about it. "They're the Borland twins," she told us. "Jean and Tina. You want me to introduce you?" And introduce us she did. Jean and Tina - I never could figure out which was which - were poster children for dumb blonde jokes. Between the two of them, they had about enough brainpower to be a low grade moron. But what they lacked in intelligence, they made up for in... other things. So okay, taking to bed two ignorant farm girls who weren't smart enough to charge for their services might not be something to be proud of. I mean, I hardly felt as if I had proven my romantic prowess by bedding a girl who practically ripped my clothes off on the drive back to the motel. Those girls were bound and determined to get screwed that night - and probably every night for all I knew. Still, when you're a road warrior like Brooks and I, you take sex where you can find it. "I feel like shit," Brooks mumbled over breakfast coffee. On Bill Forester's suggestion, we had hunkered down for breakfast the next morning at Nellie's Grill. The girls had left after they had drained us, leaving Bill and I to toast to our success with a bottle of bourbon Brooks kept at all times. We may have had a few too many, because morning came far too early. We had checked out of the motel already and tried to reach Dearborn. Unfortunately there was something haywire with both our phones. "A cell must be out somewhere," Brooks muttered. "Or a satellite," I suggested when he had tried again at Nellie's. "That's okay," he sighed. "We've got open tickets, so we can either head off to where we were going yesterday or go back to Tulsa." "I vote for Tulsa," I said. That was the good thing about our jobs. We planned our own routes and were left pretty much alone by headquarters, communicating mostly by phone or e-mail. "I'm ready to get out of Oklahoma and rest up for a few days." Brooks nodded, his eyes so tired I thought his eyeballs might fall out. "Me, too. Tulsa it is." At least Nellie's biscuits put us back together again. Or maybe it wasn't just the biscuits. We each had a big country breakfast with ham, bacon, eggs, and that Southern delicacy known as grits. Brooks ate my grits, too. I never could stomach those things. "On the road again," Brooks muttered. Then he looked a little puzzled, as if there was some ritual he hadn't performed. "What's wrong?" I asked him. "It's funny," he mused, "I couldn't find my cigarettes yesterday. Nobody seemed to have a light anyhow." And the lighter in the car wasn't working, I noted to myself. I had tried it before we went to Randy Andy's and couldn't get it to light. "Come to think of it," he continued, "I haven't had a cigarette since we got to Ovid. It's almost as if I didn't have the urge to smoke one." "I know what you mean," I told him, suddenly uneasy. How could two men who had smoked since they were teens suddenly lose all desire for a cigarette? But I felt the same way. It was as if I had no urge to light up. Brooks and I had worked together long enough that some things could go unsaid. He was thinking the same thing. What was it Sly had said? Something comparing Ovid to Disneyland... Oh yes - the Happiest Place on Earth. So did that mean the Happiest Place on Earth suppressed desires like smoking? "And I haven't seen a single cigarette machine, have you?" I shook my head. "Maybe selling cigarettes is against the rules around here." "Whose rules?" he snorted. "I've bought cigarettes out in little tank towns in Utah. Utah, for God's sake! Even the Mormons sell cigarettes." "I don't know the answer," I admitted, "but I think the sooner we get out of this town, the better I'll like it." "Amen to that, brother." It was Brooks' turn to drive. I was just as glad. The way my head felt, I didn't think I could concentrate on the road. As we started down the highway through town, I think we both had feelings of trepidation. There was something very wrong with Ovid - something not natural. And I kept thinking about some of the things Sly had said. She kept saying we'd find out things eventually, talking as if we wouldn't be leaving Ovid any time real soon. Maybe she was telling us not that we wouldn't leave Ovid, but rather that we couldn't leave. Well, I thought, she was wrong about that. The last outpost of Ovid, a tiny service station, was now behind us. Brooks put the pedal to the metal and... My heart was somewhere around my back molars when I heard the sudden wail of a police siren. "Oh shit!" Brooks muttered. I turned around to see what he had already seen in his mirror - a police car. No one likes to see the flashing red and blue lights of a police car behind them, and Brooks was no exception, but there was something in his eyes that denoted more alarm than usual at the sight. I'm sure I had the same look in my eyes as well. My mind reeled back to a story I read in high school where a strange town - I think it was supposed to be in New England - barbecued speeders. Surely I didn't expect to be barbecued, but I had a strange premonition that the faceless cop just getting out of the police car wasn't just going to issue us a ticket. The familiar mantra wasn't long in coming. "Step out of your vehicle please." The cop was tall and lean. He looked like he ran marathons to work up a light sweat. I couldn't see much of his face, though. In the brief time that he had leaned over to talk to Brooks, his eyes had been masked by a pair of mirrored sunglasses. Brooks stepped out with a resigned sigh, carrying his driver's license and the rental agreement for the car with him. I slumped down in the seat of the car, making myself small. It didn't work though. The cop leaned over to address me as well, managing to keep an eye on Brooks as he did so. "Step out of the car please." My hand shaking, I opened the car door and slowly slid out of the car. The cop motioned with his head that I was to come around and stand next to Brooks. Now I've watched a lot of cop shows, and I have to say that considering he had no backup, he didn't seem to be terribly concerned about facing two mean in the prime of their lives. Something told me he didn't have to worry about what we might do though. "Do you know how fast you were going?" he asked Brooks, not bothering to look up from the license. Brooks shrugged nervously. "I'm not sure. Fifty? Fifty-five?" "Fifty two," the cop confirmed, then added, "In a twenty-five mile per hour zone." "Twenty-five!" I blurted out. "But we're a mile out of town." "Not really," the cop replied laconically. "City limits extend out a little beyond here. It's twenty-five to the city limits." "It's a damned speed trap," I muttered while Brooks tried with a small head shake to quiet me down. Yeah, I was out of line, but I knew a speed trap when I saw one. "Follow me to the City Hall," the cop told Brooks, ignoring my outburst. "Officer, will this take long?" Brooks asked politely. I thought I saw a thin smile cross the cop's lips. "Not long - not long at all." "Damn you, Allen," Brooks growled as he pulled out behind the cop. "Are you trying to get us thrown in jail?" "Sorry," I said, meaning it. "He just pissed me off. I mean, we were a mile out of town - or at least a mile away from any buildings. He was waiting for us - or somebody like us. He knows damned good and well that strangers wouldn't know where the town speed limit ended." "Well, there's no sense in bitching about it," Brooks told me as we re-entered Ovid. "Let's just hope we can run through this process quickly and get back on the road. Have you tried to call Dearborn again?" "Just tried," I replied. "I still can't get anything on the phone." "They probably think we've run off to join Toyota or something." "Fat chance of that," I laughed. We turned off the highway and headed toward the business district. A block west of the main drag, we came upon a gray granite building with impressive columns in front. The words "City Hall" were carved into the granite above the columns. As small town city halls went, it was a decent looking building with the Oklahoma flag flying next to the US flag in the grassy area in front of the building. Except for the state flag, it could have been the city hall of almost any small town in America. We pulled in next to the cop in a part of the lot labeled "Police Business Only." The cop didn't even bother to turn around to see if we were following him. We were though, until he came to a stop at a desk at the entrance of the police department. The desk was manned by a very attractive black woman dressed in a police uniform. I could see the name Hazleton on her nametag. "Good morning, Officer Mercer," she said primly. In spite of her formality with him, there was a friendly smile on her face. "Good morning, Wanda," he replied in his deadpan voice. I thought though that I detected a little friendly warmth in his voice - just a little that is. "Book these two please while I see the Judge." "Wait a minute!" I demanded. "What am I being booked for? I wasn't driving." Officer Mercer just shrugged and walked away without answering me. "You'll be booked pending charges," the black officer explained. "And you friend here will be booked for speeding." Brooks and I looked at each other. Again, the unspoken communication between the two of us kicked in. The expression on Brooks' face said we were in deep doo-doo. I couldn't have agreed more. "Look," the woman said, "the Judge will probably see you in just a few minutes. Just relax and stay calm. It will all be over in a few minutes." Her words were meant to be comforting, but somehow they carried a warning in them. Part of my mind was telling me this was just another small town speed trap. We'd just pay the fine and move on, sadder but wiser with a vow never to return to this strange little town. Part of my mind was telling me there was something else going on. Oh, I didn't really think we'd be barbecued or anything like that, but I had an odd premonition that my life - and Brooks' life - would soon change radically. "You boys want some coffee?" Officer Hazleton asked as she strolled over to the coffee pot to pour herself a cup. "Please," we both said in unison. Coffee might calm my nerves a little, I thought. "Anything in it?" "Black for both of us," Brooks volunteered. The conversation was so mundane that it was practically surrealistic. "Here you go, boys," she said, handing us each a cup. The coffee was good, and it calmed my nerves enough to ask, "Officer Hazleton - " "Call me Wanda." "Wanda," I began again, "what's going on here?" "Going on?" "He means this town," Brooks said. "What's going on here? This town isn't on the map. There are people running around that you can almost see through - not you, but others. The Ford dealer here isn't in any Ford database. And Now we get picked up for speeding - almost as if somebody doesn't want us leaving town." If I was expecting her to look at us as if we had just lost a load of brain cells, I would have been surprised. Instead she just smiled and said, "It's sure a mystery, isn't it?" "It sure is," I agreed. "Well, just let me give you a little advice," she said as she leaned back on a desk and sipped at her own coffee. "When you see the Judge, be respectful. If you're real careful, this will all come out a lot better than you think." It was cryptic advice. If it wasn't for the color of her skin, she and Sly at the bar could have been sisters the way they talked in riddles. I didn't have time to ask her anything else though. Officer Mercer had returned. "The Judge will see you Now" he intoned, almost as if it was a mantra. I now know how condemned prisoners feel. We were led down an institutional hallway toward the courtroom. I had this odd feeling that we weren't going to end up with just a fine and a strong admonition from the magistrate. It's funny how those feelings can hit you. There was no basis in fact for the feeling. By all rights, I should have expected a mundane court appearance. Maybe it was the day Brooks and I had spent in Ovid that gave me the feeling. If we had just been picked up sailing through town, we wouldn't know about the transparent residents and the women who spoke in riddles. We wouldn't have had a full day to let our imaginations get carried away. We wouldn't be wondering why we had lost the urge to smoke and why our phones didn't seem to work. We wouldn't both be as weak-kneed as we were when we were led into the well-appointed courtroom and directed to a table before an imposing bench. An attractive brunette woman awaited us at the table. Her gray business suit and tailored jacket and skirt identified her as a lawyer. She turned as we approached, sparing a moment to smile at an attractive blonde woman in the gallery - the only spectator in the room - before turning to us. "Susan Jager," she said, holding out her hand. I took it, surprised at how firm her handshake was. Most women never seemed to be able to manage a firm handshake. After Brooks and I had introduced ourselves, she explained, "I'm your court-appointed attorney for this case." "Excuse me, ma'am," Brooks began, "but do we really need an attorney for a traffic case? I mean, I thought we'd just pay the fine and move on." "There are...special circumstances in this case," she replied. Great. Just what we needed - another woman who spoke in riddles. "Look, Ms. Jager," I began in an exasperated tone, "we know there's something... different about Ovid. We need to know what the hell is going on here so we can deal with it. All we want is just to leave this town." She favored me with a small smile. She was a very attractive woman when she smiled. "Well, Mr. Ripley, your appearance here today will go quite a ways toward telling you what's going on. As for leaving Ovid, that's another matter entirely." I started to tell her I was tired of answers that weren't really answers when she stopped me by continuing, "I know that isn't what you wanted to hear, But believe me, you two, the Judge is very upset about this case." "Upset?" I asked. "Over a speeding charge?" "No," she replied. "Over your recent conduct. He thinks you both have a lot to learn, and he plans to teach you. Now if you're smart, you'll take my advice. Answer his questions honestly and completely - even if you don't think they have any bearing on your case. If you wise off or defend any unsuitable conduct, you'll find yourself in more trouble than you can handle. I know you don't understand why I'm saying this to you, but believe me, the rest of your life is in the balance." It was a sobering lecture. She was right. I had no idea why she was telling us all of that, but I had a sneaky hunch it was good advice. Brooks looked equally serious. Neither of us said a word. Susan nodded at us and said, "Good, you're learning. Maybe there's some hope for you." "All rise!" a voice called out. I turned to see Officer Mercer had entered the courtroom and was the acting bailiff. "The Municipal Court of the City of Ovid, Oklahoma, is now in session, the Honorable Judge presiding." My knees trembling, I rose to my feet with Brooks and Susan flanking me. I nearly passed out from relief when I saw the Judge. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was relieved at how... normal he looked. Imposing - but normal. He appeared to be middle aged - perhaps fifty or so - with dark hair had only a tiny hint of graying that was still to come. He had a neatly trimmed beard which was still dark but flecked with bits of gray giving him a rather distinguished look. He wore gold-rimmed glasses which somehow made him look more like a college professor than a magistrate. His black robe was impeccably neat and pressed as if he had taken it right out of the dry cleaner's bag. It was then as I was just deciding that things were pretty normal after all that I realized Officer Mercer had not mentioned his name. Instead, he had simply called him "the Honorable Judge" as if that was sufficient. Well, chalk it up to one more oddity about Ovid, I told myself. With any luck at all, we'd pay a substantial fine but be allowed to leave town without further ado. Sure. "Be seated," he intoned, taking his own seat at the bench. "First case." "The City of Ovid versus Daniel Brooks and Allen Ripley," Officer Mercer declared formally. The Judge looked down at a report set before him. He read it slowly, grunting occasionally. Then, looking at our attorney, he asked, "Ms. Jager, how will your clients plead?" I suddenly realized she hadn't even bothered to ask us how we wanted to plead. For that matter, I didn't even know what I was charged with. Now I knew how Alice must have felt when brought before the Red Queen. I wanted to jump up and protest, but I remembered what Susan had told us. What was going to happen was going to happen, and no lame protest from either Brooks or me was going to make it any better - and it just might make it worse. "In the matter of speeding, guilty, Your Honor," she said. "In the additional matter, I have had the opportunity to review their files and find their conduct to be less than ideal but hardly reprehensible enough to warrant extreme measures." What in God's name was she talking about? What conduct? What extreme measures? This whole affair was taking a nasty turn, I told myself. "Mr. Brooks!" the Judge boomed, causing Brooks to jump nervously to his feet. "Yes, Your Honor?" "Isn't it true that you were nearly involved in a fight in a bar two nights ago?" Now how did he know about that? "Uh...yes, Your Honor." The Judge's eyes narrowed as he leaned forward. "And are you aware of what the outcome of that fight should have been?" "Should have been, Your Honor?" The Judge didn't bother to speak. Instead he waived his hand and the entire courtroom suddenly disappeared. Somehow I was no longer sitting. Instead I was standing, a bottle of beer in my hand. Behind me, a Faith Hill song blared through loudspeakers. I gasped and was assailed by cigarette smoke - something I hadn't smelled since my arrival in Ovid. I looked around, realizing I was back in the bar in Tulsa that Brooks and I had gone to with Tony. And yes, Tony and Brooks were both there. Tony looked just as he had before our near fight. Brooks on the other hand looked as startled as I. Then Brooks seemed to lurch to attention as he asked mechanically, "What's the action like here?" Then, as if forced, his hand reached out for a handful of pretzels. This wasn't like the dream sequences you see on television. There were no echoing voices or people moving in slow motion. When I turned my head, I saw solid walls - not the out-of-focus stuff from some television director's attempts to be arty. This was real - or at least it felt real. Had the whole Ovid thing been some sort of a dream? Had I tripped out from too many nights of drinking and smoking into some sort of little pocket mental universe? Tony was shrugging - just like before. "Not bad." He nodded at the same three girls sitting together at a nearby table. There they were again - a blonde, a brunette, and an Oriental girl. "Three of us - three of them. It looks like a plan." Tony started to move, but I stopped him. I tried to stop myself first, but I couldn't. I was about to utter the same stupid comment that had started the whole altercation. "Wait a minute, Tony. Who gets stuck with the Jap?" There it was. It came out of my lips even as I tried to stop it. It was as if I was nothing more than a passenger in my own body. It's funny, but although I had never liked Orientals - particularly Japanese - the comment I had just made sounded... stupid. At the time I had originally made it, it had seemed like a perfectly logical comment. After all, I knew some guys who didn't like, for example, redheads. If the third girl had been a redhead, one of those guys might have said, "Who gets stuck with the redhead?" Now though, there was something wrong with the remark. I parsed it in my mind in that moment between my comment and Tony's response. Stuck. That was a bad word to use. It implied the Oriental girl was inferior goods. Jap. Well, okay. A lot of my ancestry was Irish. What would I have thought if someone had called me a Mick? Like I said, in retrospect, the comment sounded stupid. Tony's brow furrowed. "Jap? Oh... you mean Jodie. She's not Japanese - she's Chinese." Brooks snorted, "See? She's a Chink - not a Jap." Please, Brooks, I thought to myself. Let up. I know I started this, but it'll just get worse if you don't shut up. But I knew he had the same problem I did. The Brooks inside the one I saw had been standing next to me in an Ovid courtroom only moments before. He, too, had been sent back to relive this time. But why? "Yeah," Tony said. There was that unpleasant note in his voice again. "Jodie Chang. She works for the Pontiac store next to us. What's the problem?" "No problem," I told him. Please, somebody back down this time, I thought to