BriSoc Follies

By Brian Bakos

Follow the personnel of BriSoc Enterprises, Inc. as they navigate life and love in astonishing ways. It all starts when one of them achieves fame. The others try to carve their own paths and find suitable partners for the journey. Humor (sometimes dark) / satire / romantic comedy

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Bakos
• Release date: Apr 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463017074

Brian Bakos

I like to write and travel. I'm from the Detroit area originally and try to see other places as often as possible. My most recent travels have been to China, Ecuador, and Belize. Am thinking of my next destination. It's wonderful how travel inspires the writing process. Attended Michigan State University and Alma College.Not much more than that. Anything else I have to say comes out in my books. If you really want to know more, please contact me through my website, https://www.theb2.net/. May life bring you many blessings!

Book preview

BRISOC FOLLIES

by Brian Bakos

cover art & photos: Brian Bakos

Copyright 2020, Brian Bakos / revised 10–2022

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to anyone else. If you want to share this book, please buy an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to Smashwords.com and obtain your own copy. Thanks for respecting the author’s hard work.

Table of Contents

Prolog

One: Rhona’s Book Club

Two: Motor City Man

Three: Bill Throws a Dinner Party

Four: She’s Crazy About Me

Five: Opportunity Gone Awry

Six: Hanging on Telreaka

Seven: Porch Music

Eight: The Pizza Guy Delivers

Nine: Tell-Tale Hiccup

Ten: There’s a Dog in the Car

Eleven: The Future Lies Ahead

Connect with the Author

Brian’s Other Books

Prolog

A word from the author:

If you’re feeling a bit down or creeped out, possibly from reading my other stuff, this book should help pick you up. If not, maybe a stiff drink can help.*

Cheers!

* The author disavows any intention of offending the sensibilities of any reader for or against alcohol. Also, any sensibilities about race, religion, national origin, political persuasion, sexual orientation, reproductive rights, climate, guns, cultural appropriation, veganism, recreational drugs, etc. If you can think of some other reason to be offended, please fill in the blank.

_________________________________ .

One: Rhona’s Book Club

Each month, Rhona’s Book Club highlights exciting new literary talent. Be sure to tune in Friday for the latest selection! – TV promo

Friday afternoon

Allie sat with her co-workers in the employee lounge, listening to the trash talk. It involved Phil Klacik, the technical writer employed on a contract basis.

He’s not bad looking, in a gangly sort of way, Cher said.

Yeah, but what a dork! another girl said. Did you catch his outfit? Like a varsity sweater from Loser U.

Allie chortled along with the others, though she didn’t enjoy it much. The conversation moved to another topic—the latest movie, or something.

Is this all there is?

Almost a year at BriSoc Enterprises, and Allie was still associating with this low-level group. What about that guy from senior management who’d whisk her off to better things, the one with the sports car and yacht? He didn’t work here, unfortunately.

Cher was her only real friend, somebody who might have an interesting future; she’d gotten stuck with that Tom guy from Marketing, though. What was it with these beautiful girls settling for yo-yos? Sometimes, she wanted to grab Cher’s hand and flee this place together, but where could they run?

They bookended the table and its burden of lesser types. Cher with her long, straight ebony hair; Allie, a natural blond with plenty of body.

Phil Klacik entered the lounge and conversation died, as if people didn’t want their adult-entertainment comments overheard by a fuddy-dud uncle. Amused and sarcastic eyes watched the intruder pour coffee.

Allie looked away. Geez!

To think he’d tried asking her to lunch a few weeks ago. She’d not been tactful blowing him off. Why bother being nice to somebody so far down your ladder?

Gripping his mug of coffee, Phil maneuvered around the little crowd at the table, banging against the recycle bin on his way out. Hot liquid slopped onto his hand, making him wince.

Careful, Jeff said. Don’t let that bin knock you over.

Snickering.

Klutz, somebody muttered.

Allie shook her head. That guy’s hopeless.

* * *

Navigating the rabbit warren aisles between cubicles, brushing against the gray fabric walls, Phil Klacik experienced a moment of empathy for every lunatic who’d ever come to work brandishing a gun.

I’m a klutz, huh?

What would it be like, he wondered, to stroll into the lounge wearing a long overcoat with an Uzi concealed beneath? The gun would feel cold and lethal against his body.

First scene:

The members of the Wise Ass Club hanging out in the lounge smile sarcastically, amused at his odd-looking garment. He pulls out the Uzi, and their smiles disappear.

As they gape through terror-bulging eyes, he sprays the room with bullets. Bodies thud; blood oozes across the floor. Before the pool can spread over his shoes, he departs.

Change scene:

Heads for the elevator bank. People get out of the way. Enters an elevator car.

Change scene:

Exits the elevator and enters the Boss’s office. Delivers a burst of gunfire. The Boss is wearing a white shirt over his ample gut. Bullet holes bloom upon it like death roses.

Phil knew he could never do such horrible things. His personality did not contain room for nihilistic violence. He was more the type to shake the dust off his sandals and depart an unfavorable situation.

One of his characters might be psychotic enough to try, though. Maybe he could write a novel about a guy who gets fed up being the office dweeb and decides to settle the score…

He entered his own cube and the exciting world of fiction disappeared, replaced by dull routine. Phil plopped into his chair, spilling more coffee.

Damn!

He’d been on this assignment four months and had not made a single friend. His early twenties colleagues made it clear that he, mid-thirties, was the old man out of their hip crowd. They regarded him as an eccentric figure better suited to a rarefied academic atmosphere, like a nutty professor wandering the corridors between classes muttering to himself. Definitely not someone to include in lunchtime outings.

Hell, I’m not Norman Bates. Why treat me like an outcast?

In any event, he didn’t fit into the shallow world of his co-workers. Their constant chatter about entertainment, money, and clothes was enough to fatally bore anyone with half a brain. The ostracism still hurt, though.

Phil glanced longingly at the pictures of classic airplanes adorning his cubicle walls—expired pages from a calendar purchased off a bookstore clearance table. He imagined himself at the controls of a vintage biplane, the wind blowing in his face, or hurtling through the high atmosphere in a P-51 Mustang fighter plane, guns blazing.

The phone rang… the Boss. You’ve got the system documentation materials I sent?

Yes. Phil looked glumly at the imposing stack of papers on his desk.

I need all the revisions finished by Tuesday noon.

Screw you! I’ll have them ready, Phil said.

Good.

Click.

Jerk!

Again Phil thought about the sub-machine gun. The plot for a new novel began to form: Creative genius stuck in a dead-end day job cracks and shoots a bunch of people at the office.

He turned over ideas in his mind, sipped coffee, turned over more ideas. No, it wouldn’t work. There simply wasn’t enough there to write a whole novel.

Then he had it!

Somebody else does the shooting and pulls a frame up. The killer wears a ski mask, along with stolen clothing, and witnesses