For a Good Time Call...

By Donald Ladew

William Fennimore is bored and depressed. He is a short man trapped in a tall world. While at a bus stop, waiting for his ride, he notices a perfectly written, copperplate script ad on the wall of the bus stop. It is surrounded by illiterate graffiti and stupid advertisements.

On a whim, he calls the number, makes an appointment and meets a beautiful girl who is taller, but then not. Miss Annie Brown, in a peculiar accent, says she works for a company called "For a Good Time Call". Instead of enjoying her bed, he is transported to their offices 9 million miles beyond Pluto and discovers that they are a Galactic Employment Agency.

The agency finds people of different races who can bring new view points to problems that have resisted all attempts to solve.

While waiting for assignment, William spends time with Miss Annie Brown. They fall in love. He receives his assignment and they are sent down to a planet that has been at war for 11 years. She is sent to one of the opposing sides by "accident" and William to the other.

He can only think of finding her. His many adventures crossing a vast, island-filled ocean to the other continent slowly bring him to the point where his 5 and 3/4" height is unimportant, and he does realize that he is having a good time. And so he should, "For a Good Time Call" guaranteed it contractually.

William does finally solve the problem of the war and find his Miss Annie Brown.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781456603090

Book preview

Chapter 1

William sat at the bus stop near the corner of Victory and Hollywood Way, and as usual he was depressed. It wasn’t because the bus was fifteen minutes late, which it was: It wasn’t because the molded plastic roof, recently punctured by vandals, was drooling acid rain down his neck. And it wasn't because the pretty redhead waiting for the bus didn't notice him.

It was because he was five foot four and three-eighths inches tall. That might not mean anything to you or me, but it did to William. When you live your life looking at the navel of the world, three-eighths is important.

Deep depression: He was reduced to reading the ads on the walls of the enclosure. Maybe I'm coming up to boredom, he thought. That would be good.

When William was a little boy, he didn't know he was short. He was happy-go-lucky; he thought he could do anything. Then in his teens he discovered short, and life got mean, and mysterious: It was mysterious because he didn’t understand why things that shouldn’t matter, mattered.

Even the ads on the plastic walls of the bus stop were a mystery, what little he could decipher beneath the spray-paint swastikas, names of local juvenile gangs, and illiterate obscenities.

Someone had taken a serious dislike to Arnoldo. The roof blared triumphantly in international orange, Arnoldo is a Frut' And in Day-Glo red, Arnoldo eets Manoor. Then the final, crushing blow, Arnoldo has a Tinny Dik. Somewhere a crazed Puerto Rican was plotting vengeance on these defilers of his macho soul.

Back to the ads. He yawned. The one next to him was a puzzle. It was a picture of a girl, sixteen or so, draped negligently over the steering wheel of a 1940 Ford pickup. She wore a nondescript shirt, half in and half out of wrinkled jeans. Her straight blond hair was cut short and hung over her eyes: lipstick an afterthought. She had no discernible figure at all.

William didn't get it. Her expression was indecipherable. Maybe it was sullen, or disappointed, or maybe too much stuffed cabbage. Hard to tell. Down near the bottom of the panel it appeared to say, `agel Boy Jens. Cryptic! Maybe it said something else, but some whimsical spray-can artiste had neatly lettered, Elephants Need Love across the Bagel Boys in pale-green, luminescent paint.

Then he got it; it said, Bugle Boy Jeans. He spent a few pointless minutes wondering if there were men anywhere who could lust after this drab, washed out boy masquerading as a girl.

As he continued to Look at these spirited examples of sub-human creativity, he noticed something out of place. On the panel behind the bench, near the very bottom, in perfect copperplate script —gold on black—was a peculiar notice.

For a Good Time, Call...

Cicelle Annie-Brown 347-4140

If I am Far Away

Leave Name and Number

William stared at it in bemused silence for a minute or more. It was so legible, neat, even business-like. For some reason it cheered him up. Then he dozed off, which he was doing when the bus arrived, late as usual, maliciously splashing oily water on his feet. William hardly noticed. He was still intrigued by the strange message.

He lived near a park: No, not the nice one. Looking down from the window of his fifth floor walk-up, down through the chemically defoliated trees, he saw an old derelict sprawled in front of a bench. He must have just fallen off. His hands clutched the earth desperately, as though his world was trying to cast him into space.

Further out into the badlands, near the center of the park, a gang of Puerto Rican toughs in shiny leather pants, tank tops, and cabalistic tattoos, swaggered for an unseen audience. They were like the buses, trains, the under passes and buildings, their bodies covered with graffiti.

Home, he'd heard, is where the heart is. So where does that leave me? he thought. An alien from Arcturus? He was the unwilling effect of life.

He had read about great men who were short, but they always seemed to end their lives slaughtering hordes of harmless people, then getting killed themselves. He left that crap behind when he left the bloody jungles of Viet Nam. He was too good at it, besides it made him crazy.

Then, back in the world, he lost the way. He didn't know how to get there from here, wherever here was, or there. William had his Waterloo in the school yard at Porterfield Jr. High School when he was ten. Somehow he pissed off Pug Swann, the local bully-in-residence, and there, in front of his friends, he got whipped in a battle he desperately wanted to win. It didn't matter that when he finished UDT (Underwater Demolition Training) he could have dismembered the miserable shit, that day in the schoolyard was the moment he knew he was short.

Why, in the cheerless gloom of that shabby flat, he thought of that bizarre advertisement he didn't know. Stranger yet, what made him call. He dialed the number in a haze of boredom and discontent. He wasn't there, he didn't know who called. It sure as hell couldn't have been him!

After two rings, she picked up the phone. Cicelle, speaking. She pronounced it, Seesell, a beautiful coloratura voice with an odd accent—maybe French, or South American.

I...I saw your sign. I...don't...what does it mean? he blurted out all in a rush.

May I know your nomenclature? she asked.

Huh? The Oscar Wilde of Bonefish Park strikes again. His wit is legend.

Nomenclature, nuncupation, appellation, cognomen, namesake, patronymic, handle, name... She sounded as if she was reading Roget's Thesaurus.

Oh, you want to know my name? It's William Holt-Fennimore, with a hyphen, ma'am.

Your pardon, William Holt-Fennimore with a hyphen, I've only had the tapes for a few days. I'll call you William, if I may. It's euphonic, it sings well throughout the frequency band.

Uh...sure, Miss Annie-Brown, he stuttered. He hadn't a clue, but her voice was exactly like every fantasy he'd ever imagined.

William, my ad means what it says. It is my profession to provide a good time. It is my goal for the next ten life cycles.

Huh? God, he moaned, if I could just wrench my foot out of my mouth maybe I could think of something intelligent to say.

Did I not say that correctly, William? Oh, no matter. Would you like to make an appointment? she asked.

What am I doing? he thought. She sure doesn't sound like the hookers patrolling the park.

Okay. He felt as if he was agreeing to radical surgery with a one percent chance of survival.

Good program. Come to the Bellefourche Towers, Suite 1201A at six before sun's end tomorrow, n'est pas?

The line went dead before he could say yes or no. I must be losing it, he thought. I'm going for the truly bizarre. Forget it, Will Fennimore, he muttered, you may be depressed, but you're not a damned fool.

William didn't have many options, or thought he didn't. What the hell, I was crazy to call in the first place, he thought. He finally went to sleep on the couch, listening to the world drizzle on his window.

Chapter 2

William worked as a technical writer for an aerospace firm in the San Fernando Valley. It was all part of the big picture, his big picture. He wrote descriptions of things other men designed. They were all probably over six feet. It made him sad.

After work, sitting at the bus stop, he forgot about the appointment. The redhead sat across from him, and as usual she didn't notice him. He descended into his normal state of apathy. Then he noticed the strange ad again and thought about going. It was crazy. She's probably five feet ten. He was derisive, disgusted. Great! I'll get a close look at the buttons on her dress.

Once back at the flat, things felt strange. He was like two people. One jabbering away how stupid it all was, the other blank, detached. He took a shower, then as he shaved he was further depressed by what he saw in the mirror. Short black hair, light gray eyes beneath straight, black brows split by an inability to avoid the good left jab. A beaky nose which had also suffered from those left jabs. He still had the mustache, a remnant of his Navy days.

He dressed carefully in a pair of gray slacks, white cotton button-down shirt, burgundy tie and dark blue blazer, then put a quick brush on his boots; all the while the other person was yammering on about what an idiot he was, how he'd probably catch some disfiguring disease, or get mugged.

When he was in high school, he overheard the neighbor lady tell his step father it was too bad he had a short upper lip. He didn't stay around to hear what he said. She made it sound like leprosy. If he hung around maybe they'd make him wear a bell or something. Anyhow the image stuck. He was sure it must be bad, so he kept the mustache. She probably had no idea she had added to the dwindling spiral of his self-esteem.

During his second hitch in Viet Nam, a military intelligence type was sent down from I Corps to debrief William and the rest of the team after they went for a little swim in the Rung Sat, one of the foulest swamps in the world.

He took one look at William and said, Who's the toy soldier? William tried to tell the commander he was tired, which was true.

The commander said he understood, but that was no excuse for breaking the guy's legs, then trying to run over him with a truck. As far as William was concerned the intelligence weenie was real lucky he hadn't run over his head. Didn't matter, he still got busted and lost two months pay.

So there he was, trying to ignore all the strange internal comments about the state of his decaying sanity. At five thirty, the other guy got up and went down to the bus stop. A pretty girl from his building was there. She spoke to him!

Hi there. You look sharp, got a hot date? she smiled.

William was so stunned, he mumbled something incoherent and stood there like a deranged department store dummy. Maybe he was hallucinating. Mercifully, the bus came and took him away.

The Bellefourche Towers was located on another park, in the best part of the city. The doorman probably got paid more than William. He told the man he had an appointment with Miss Annie-Brown in suite 1201A. The doorman squinted at something on a clipboard and grudgingly opened the doors, as large as the entrance to the cathedral at Rheims. He pointed to a bank of elevators across a vast expanse of parquet floor.

Make a great roller-rink, William thought.

The one on the left, Mr. Holt-Fennimore, he said.

William wondered somewhat uncharitably, if she's a call-girl she must be working twenty four hours a day. The elevator rose swiftly and silently, with no sickening lurches or sudden stops. There were only two suites on the twelfth floor. He pressed the doorbell and heard the muted peel of musical chimes.

God, what am I doing? he thought. He was getting ready to leave when the door opened.

He saw...a tall woman...no ...a lady about five feet tall. What the...for a moment he was sure he saw a tall woman, now here was this petite girl with lavender eyes and shiny black hair, smiling at him...up at him. She was a wearing a dark green sheath, cut up the thigh in the Chinese style.

Please enter, Mr. Holt-Fennimore. Her voice was as musical as a rare jungle bird.

He'd seen places like this on T.V. They went into a drawing room that was bigger than William's apartment.

Please sit here. She indicated a plush divan, long enough to seat ten abreast.

He sank into the couch until it seemed it would swallow him in one soft, silent gulp. She sat beside him and her dress rode up her thighs provocatively. He tried not to look. Fortunately he failed. William felt gauche and uncomfortable.

Why did you call, Mr. Holt-Fennimore? she asked.

Huh! Oh, well, I didn't have anything else to do...I mean I was bored...what I mean is, well it was such an interesting ad...

He tried to sink further into the couch. Maybe he'd run out of ways to insert his foot in his stupid mouth.

All good reasons to call, Mr. Holt-Fennimore. Before we begin, it is necessary that I gather personal data. She brought out a strange machine. It was modern and shiny. She disconnected a pair of metal plates from it, and moved toward him. He wasn't having any of that.

Hey, wait a minute, what are those? I don't fool around with machines. What are you, some kind of psychiatrist? I don't associate with those freaks.

Maybe this is what the shrinks call a rural electrification project, he thought.

It isn't dangerous, Mr. Holt-Fennimore. This is a Persolyser, a personality analyzer. I must be certain I tailor your good time as close to your real wishes as possible. This device will help me do that. It is painless, and there are no unpleasant after-effects at all. I assure you, sir, I may not give you a bad time. I am not trained for that. That sort of thing is handled by another company.

Christ, this is too weird, he thought. You must be from another country, he said. I don't recognize your accent. Are you from Europe?

She gave him a sweet smile. I come from far, far away. Is my accent unpleasant? she asked.

Oh, no, Miss Annie-Brown, it's beautiful. It just sort of popped out, and he felt himself blush.

Her eyes glittered with pleasure. Thank you. May I attach these? He was so captivated he would have let her attach them to his eyelids.

Oh, sure, if you have to.

I do.

She attached them gently. They were cool against his temples. She flipped a switch and William went to sleep. When he woke up, he didn't realize he'd nodded off. Well, he hadn't been asleep, exactly. His throat felt dry as though he'd been talking for a long time. Miss Annie-Brown sat across from him watching intently.

When are you going to use the machine? he asked.

She grinned deliciously. Ahhh, but I have, Mr. Holt-Fennimore, for three of your medium time divisions.

Oh, I'll be damned. Do you have anything to drink? I'm bone dry.

Would you like liquid stimulants, sweetened water, or water as essence? she asked.

Huh? Oh, I get it. What sort of liquid stimulants do you have?

She went to one side of the room, and rolled a tray over to where they were sitting. She removed a bottle of champagne from a silver ice bucket. Holy Toledo! Dom Perignon 1975. William had had a summer job in a wine shop.

She handled the bottle like the maitre 'd at the Chez Larousse on South Street. He sipped slowly. Gods be praised: effervescence, liquid sunshine, a hint of apple. She must have one great expense account, he thought.

Miss Annie- Brown drank hers as if she had stock in Moet.

Look, Miss Annie-Brown, William said, I'm not stupid. I've been acting a little foolish, but I'm not stupid.

You are not stupid! Your intelligence quotient is 43:12:AA:65 on the Grizz-Zimma scale.

Damn right! I know everything has a price, and I'm sure yours is way beyond anything I can pay. He figured he might as well get a few things settled right off the bat.

You are right, Mr. Holt-Fennimore. There is no such thing as a free breakfast. Did I get that right?

Sure, absolutely. He finished his third glass and she immediately poured another. Besides you haven't really told me anything. Just what sort of good time did you have in mind? William felt as if he was leering like a pervert in a girl's school.

I can't tell you here. We must go to the briefing locus. Do you mind rapid travel, Mr. Holt-Fennimore? He didn't miss the impish grin.

Her statement had a hint of challenge, and he was feeling the booze. Anyway, that was his excuse. In reality an odd phenomenon was taking place. He wasn't bored. He was interested.

No, he answered confidently, I don't mind rapid travel.

She stood sinuously, stretched, and smoothed her dress down over her hips. Will you follow me please?

Hey, now we're getting somewhere, he thought. She moved gracefully across the drawing room, and the silken dress moved lovingly over her shapely bottom. He reached out and snagged the half empty bottle of champagne and followed, never taking his eyes from that delightfully undulating rump.

They went into a bedroom...but there wasn't any bed! Against one wall was a dressing table, and other articles one might expect to find in a wealthy woman's boudoir.

Instead of a bed there was a shiny metal plate about six feet square in the middle of the floor. It was surrounded by a series of ceramic tubes pulsating with a pale green light. He felt an energetic tingle, like too much electricity in the air.

Pretty kinky, Miss Annie-Brown, he thought. You want to do it on an electric plate, that's okay with me. William was really beginning to feel the champagne.

She stepped over the glowing pipes and held her hand out to him. The way he was feeling, he'd have walked across a bed of red hot coals to take that dainty hand. It was warm and soft. He stumbled slightly, but managed to get on the plate.

Please stand in the center, Mr. Holt-Fennimore.

He didn't let go of her hand. He stood where she told him, and waited with anticipation for the next phase of this strange evening.

She carried an object in her hand that looked like an extra-wide belt. She reached around him and fastened it. Her hair in his face felt soft and fresh, with a hint of exotic perfume. She was like the Dom Perignon, delicious and intoxicating.

She reached down and pushed some raised studs on her belt, then did the same to his. Small square lights glowed on each. Then she looked up at him and smiled enigmatically.

A baritone humming began. It was more visceral than audible. The cool light from the tubes around the stage got brighter, pulsing up and down every half second.

He started to get a queasy feeling. It didn't make sense, not on three glasses of Dom Perignon. Great wines don't have that effect. Headaches are the product of northern California chemistry sets, sometimes called wineries, sluicing out the juice of the grape faster than the North Slope pumps oil.

The feeling of electrical energy became increasingly apparent. There was a nimbus of flickering blue-light around Miss Annie-Brown's hair, then an unbelievably loud snap, and William found himself on his knees in a clinically white room with a tinge of sulphur smell in the air. It was similar to the after-effects of summer lightning.

Miss Annie-Brown was gone. William was slightly drunk, and had the bottle clutched tightly in his left hand. He took a healthy pull and looked around. At first glance the room was entirely featureless. There were no square corners. It was basically a box with rounded corners.

Mr. Holt-Fennimore, can you hear me? A voice, a man's voice. He couldn't tell where it was coming from.

That's me. What's happening?

Welcome to locus 41-10Y. A chair-like object began to rise magically out of the floor in the center of the room.

William looked at it with surprise. Hello, where'd you come from?

The place was hilarious. He giggled foolishly and couldn't seem to stop. Screw it, who cares, he thought. He took another drink from the bottle. Then as he was trying to sit in the chair, the wall in front of him slowly became clear, like a picture window.

Behind it, in a chair similar to his, sat a middle-aged man in a brown suit with bushy eyebrows and a friendly smile.

Mr. Holt-Fennimore, I am the director of For A Good Time Call in this quadrant. It's time to get down to business. Would you like to have a good time? He had a mellow, salesman's voice.

Sure, why not? Where's Miss Annie-Brown? Now she's what I call a good time.

Let me ask you a few questions, Mr. Holt-Fennimore. Are you happy in your current existence?

Damn! What a shitty thing to ask, William thought, this guys going to ruin a perfectly good dream.

It all came back, the boredom, the disconnection from life. A short body trapped in a six-foot world. He hadn't had a purpose since he was in the Navy, and that was a pretty rigid view of what life is supposed to be.

Not much, Mr...

You may call me Mr. Carson. How far would you be willing to go to change your life? he asked.

Christ, I feel like a character in one of those plays where the hero sells his soul to the devil, William muttered.

Are you the devil by any chance? he asked.

Carson laughed. I'm afraid not. May I call you William?

Sure.

William, Miss Annie-Brown is not your good time. We could provide that experience well enough, but what about tomorrow, or next week, or next year? No, our concept of a good time is something that lasts a good deal longer than one evening.

The little man with bushy eyebrows was very sincere. William began to sober up.

Look, what's going on here? Is this some kind of secret government installation? You CIA guys into those crazy drug experiments again? I told Miss Annie-Brown, I'm not stupid. I know the state of our current technology, and there's nothing like this anywhere on earth.

Mr. Carson smiled and said nothing.

Exactly where am I? Is this some secret base out in the desert? You don't mind my saying so, it looks like a George Lucas movie set. In the back of his mind he knew where he was, but he couldn't confront the answer he was getting.

"I will answer your questions, William. Your current location is approximately six million miles beyond the planet you call Pluto. This is not a secret government installation. It is