SHORT LONG JOURNEY NORTH #59: July 25, 1946

This series is a little bit biographical and a little bit imaginary about my dad and a road trip he took in the summer of 1946, when he turned fifteen. He and a friend hitchhiked from Loring Park to Duluth, into Canada and back again. He was gone from home for a month. I was astonished and fascinated by the tale. So, I added some speculation about things I've always wondered about and this series is the result. To read earlier SHORT LONG JOURNEY NORTH clips, click on the label to the right, scroll down to and click OLDER ENTRIES seven or eight times. The FIRST entry is on the bottom of the last page.

“Where you goin’ then?” Freddie Merrill asked.

“Home,” said Arnie Volz, truck driver and boyfriend of Edwina Olds, Lieutenant, WACS (ret.) – who was, until moments ago, Freddie’s fantasy woman.

“Where’s that?" asked Tommy Hastings.

“Minneapolis – around Loring Park,” he glanced at them. “You ever hear of it?”

The boys looked at each other, mouths hanging open. “Uh,” said Tommy.

“Uh,” said Freddie, who recovered quick enough to say, “Can’t say as we have.”

“Too bad. I was born and raised there.”

“Tell us about it,” said Tommy, picking up Freddie’s stupid act.

Arnie, who was a nice guy, make no mistake, started to talk and after that didn’t pay any real attention to the boys, regaling them instead with tales of his exploits in the Roaring Twenties when he grew up there as a child of the Prohibition. He didn’t need them, commenting on his own stories and laughing at them, too.

Tommy leaned over to Freddie and said, “Where’d you learn to lie so good?”

“Comes from me havin’ to say whatever it was Dad wanted to hear just so he’d stop beatin’ on me.”

Tommy nodded then said, “Why’d you do it, though. Maybe we could o’ rode with him all the way back home.”

“If that was where he was going.”

“Huh?”

Freddie dug his elbow into Tommy’s ribs, “He’s a G-man, nitwit! You really think he’s goin’ to Minneapolis? If we ask to go with him, he’ll probably have to kill us before he gets there!”

“He’s not the mob!” Tommy hissed. Both boys glanced at Arnie, who was gesturing and talking still as if they were listening. “He doesn’t even seem smart enough to tie his own shoes.”

Freddie elbowed him again and Tommy shoved him against the door, “Stop it!”

Arnie didn’t notice as he was saying, “Oh, that reminds me of another story! You’re gonna love this one...” and kept talking as the boys shoved each other back and forth.

Finally, Tommy said, “Fine. We won’t talk about it anymore. We’re just gonna sit here until we get to Duluth. Then what?”

“Don’t look at me, I’m not the brains of this outfit.” He nodded to Arnie. “And neither is he.”

“Fine then. We go home the opposite way we got here. We go to the creamery, hitch a ride…”

"We don’t have to stay with the crazy farmer and shoot rats again, do we?”

“No. We won’t even talk to Charlie even if we see him.”

“Why would we do that? Charlie was cool,” Freddie said.

“OK, we’ll talk to Charlie, ask him for a ride back to wherever he lived...” Tommy said, shaking his head.

“Fairlaine.”

“Nah, that was the name of their dairy.” Freddie gave him a long look and opened his mouth. Tommy was pretty sure it was to agree, but Tommy said instead, “You’re probably right.”

Freddie closed his mouth, eyes going slightly wide. Finally he said, “What did you say?”

Tommy shrugged. “I didn’t see no sign for the town. Ever since we left the city, you been seeing stuff better than me.” He poked his friend’s bicep adding, “You probably saw what you saw and I didn’t. Maybe you’re even stronger than me.”

“Me?”

Tommy shrugged and said, “Or not. You can decide.”

Just then, Arnie leaned forward and stopped talking. “You boys know anyone in a big flatbed truck with a fence around the back – I think Ed called them Chevy One-and-a-half tons...” The truck was slowing down.

Freddie and Tommy screamed, “Don’t stop! Don’t stop!”

In surprise, Arnie hit the break and the Finns poured out of the truck that had pulled over to the side of the road.

Image: http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data/836/medium/15.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 157

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them.

Change of pace for a bit – I’m going to look at elements of EXTREMELY popular SF, F, and H; break them apart and use each element as a jumping of point for a story idea…

Popular Science Fiction Story/Series: Dune

SF Trope: Artificial Intelligence is a “crap shoot”

Current Event: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/01/the-new-york-times-artificial-intelligence-hype-machine.html

Logan Andrist called out after Gichigami, the Ojibwe man, “Wait!”

Nkokoyanga Pomodimo spun on him and knocked him down.

“What’d you do that for?” Logan exclaimed, scrambled to his feet, fists at his sides.

“You’re surrendering everything we’ve worked for.”

“‘We’, who? We’re supposed to be for the planet!” Logan said.

“We already are! Aren’t you? I sure am,” Nkokoyanga said.

“I am – but who’s to say that our way is the only way? How does dumping more iron into a lake that already has tons of iron sunken on its floor,” he drew a shaky breath, “How is that going to help?”

“It will! You know the science. I don’t need to sketch it out for you. It’s a proven methodology. We’ve been trained...”

“Trained in what? The plans of a single group of people. What if there are other ways to approach the recovery of Lake Superior? What if what we’re doing is wrong?”

“You’re just thinking of this now?”

“We’ve never met Gichigami before now.” He scowled, stared at her for a bit, then said, “It doesn’t bother you that in all the classwork we’ve done; all of the ways we’re out to change the world; that we’ve never talked about more than one way of doing this? ‘Dump iron filings and kill the spiny water fleas and the holopedium!’ Hasn’t anyone ever thought of another way? Are there any other ways?”

“We’re not smart enough to know that,”  Nkokoyanga said.

“So you’re stupid?” Logan fired back.

She folded her arms over her chest, lifting up her breasts slightly. Logan squinted as she said, “No more stupid than you.”

“Then I accept that I’m stupid. Gichigami lives here! He looks out over Superior every day. He’s named after the lake!”

She shook her head, saying, “So someone tells you they’re named after a lake and then mutters some hocus-pocus and you’re ready to give up science and follow them?”

“If they offer a proven alternative to what’s already being done.” He paused. “How long has EGov been dumping iron into Lake Superior?”

Nkokoyanga shrugged, but turned away. “We’re continuing work begun in the late 2020’s.”

“Has the lake changed since then?”

“I’d have to review the data.”

He tossed her his scanner and said, “There. Review the data. There aren’t any other files under Lake Superior reclamation. This is all they’ve been doing. Check the dates – then cross reference and let me know if the original phytoplankton has made a comeback.”

While she worked, she said, “Thirty years isn’t a very long time for something this big to take effect, Logan! It make take centuries for us to rebalance the lake.” She lifted the scanner and read. A few moments later, she looked up, “There’s been no statistically significant change in the Holopedium gibberum population in the years since iron fertilization began thirty-eight years ago.”

“‘No change’,” he echoed. “You’d think there might be some fluctuation, don’t you? You’d think after nearly forty years the domeheads down in MSP Vertical would have tweaked the process or added another or something, don’t you?”

He lips had thinned to near invisibility. Then she thumbed off the scanner, handed it to him and said, “I’ll listen. That’s it. Listen. I will not abandon a methodology that has a solid research foundation and has proven effective in the past for some Noble Savage mumbo-jumbo…”

Names: ♀ Popular African American name, Australian Capital Territory, Common African American last name; ♂ Popular American name, Brazil; Ojibwe name of Lake Superior

Image: http://ak3.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/1973602/preview/stock-footage-massive-lake-superior-waves-crash-on-the-breakwater-in-grand-marais-mn.jpg

Slice of PIE: How Do You Turn A Mental Image Into A Story?

“…the idea for Harry Potter simply fell into my head. I had been writing almost continuously since the age of six but I had never been so excited about an idea before. To my immense frustration, I didn't have a pen that worked, and I was too shy to ask anybody if I could borrow one… I did not have a functioning pen with me, but I do think that this was probably a good thing. I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, while all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard became more and more real to me.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._K._Rowling)

“Pembina is in the northeast corner of North Dakota, tucked in the angle between the Minnesota state line and the Canadian border. Residents claim it to be the coldest place in the country. It may be. During the winters, smoke occasionally sticks to chimneys. Inhabitants try not to die between Thanksgiving and the start of spring training because the ground is simply impenetrable. Most people make it a point to stay home over the Fourth so they don't miss summer. The town has a population of about 600. It's walled off from rolling prairies by a screen of trees. Looking out from the west side of this screen at night, one can see no artificial light anywhere. The landscape is dark all the way to the horizon.” (http://www.sfwa.org/members/mcdevitt/StrangePlaces.html)

“‘Beggars in Spain’ was one of my first stories dealing with genetic engineering, a topic that has absorbed me ever since. And it has to do with the engineering of people who don't have to sleep. This came out of sheer jealousy. I need nine hours of sleep a night and I resent it bitterly, because I see people getting by with four or five and they can accomplish so much more.”  (https://www.sfsite.com/10b/nk91.htm)

I’ve had some really great images in my head before. I’m working on one right now that may or may not defeat me. It’s been floating around in my head since 2004 and I even sketched the image: a man in a parka sitting on an ice block next to a coffin carved out of ice. His son is in the coffin. From that moment, the title was there, too: “The Stars Like Nails”. It has taunted and titillated me ever since. I put it off for a long time because I didn’t think I was skillful enough to write it. I knew it had to be a deep story. I knew it had to be a collision of a future technology and the beliefs a man has – but it had to harken back to an ancient struggle. In this case it’s something I’ve struggled with forever: the deeply held belief that I am responsible for the bad decisions the people I care for make. I KNOW I’m not, but that actually doesn’t matter as much as this foundational belief.

Another image I had, came from a real incident. When I was in college, my roommate was wakened one morning by a phone call (it was on an black Bakelite® wall phone in our dorm room, so that gives you a time frame!). I’d always thought the phrase “seeing  the blood drain from his face” was hyperbole. It wasn’t. His father had gone hunting for the deer opener. A girl had gone horseback riding at the same time. He shot her. Didn’t kill her. Badly wounded her. She recovered.

Several years later, the image of an adopted Vietnamese kid walking into a morning-dark driveway and dropping a steel thermos on his way out to go hunting with his best friend leaped into my mind. It took a while – LOTS of research into hunting from a deer stand, what the county sheriff’s deputy would do in an allegedly accidental shooting during deer hunting season. Lots of people helped me with it, lots of people’s names were included in the story, and “Dear Hunter” was published in the January/February 2000 issue of CICADA

Magazine (one of the Cricket Group).

What came between the image and the published story? You will find NO surprises here, in fact it’s pretty standard stuff. But this time it netted me a publication in a major magazine and a HUGE check!

Incident

Image (related to the incident but totally different from it)

Protagonist (I have always tried for non-stereotypical ones!)

The Friend (you need someone for the protagonist to talk to)

The Setup (I couldn’t do the exact same story, I also had never been in a deer stand in my life…but my brother had)

The Incident Shaped to fit the new story

The Ramifications (in this case very specific, legal ones; for which I interviewed a county sheriff’s deputy and asked very specific questions)

The Climax (what would a teenager be thinking after he shot a girl? I wasn’t certain, so asked some teenagers what they would be thinking)

 The Dénouement (my protagonist fell apart, he needed to be healed but him lying on a couch seemed a sort of dull way to end the story, so I lighted on a letter in the To The Editor column)

I sold it, it was published – and I got my first FAN letter!

My problem now is repeating this. Can I? Will I? No idea, and my only hope is to keep working at it!

Resource: http://listverse.com/2011/02/26/5-famous-books-inspired-by-dreams/

Image: http://www.crazy8press.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/frankenstein-or-the-modern-prometheus-by-mary-wollstonecraft-shelley-screenshot-1.jpg

LOVE IN A TIME OF ALIEN INVASION Chapter 14

The Cold War between the Kiiote and the Yown’Hoo has become a shooting war.  On Earth, there are three Triads one each in Minneapolis, Estados United; Pune, India; and Harbin, China. Protected by the Triad Corporation, they intend to integrate not only the three peoples and stop the war that threatens to break loose and slaughter Humans and devastate their world.; but to stop the war that consumes Kiiote economy and Yown’Hoo moral fiber. The Yown’Hoo know about the extra-Universe Braider, aliens whose own “civil war” mirrors the Cold War. The Braiders accidentally created a resonance wave that will destroy the Milky Way and the only way to stop it is to physically construct a sort of membrane that will produce a canceling wave – generated from the rim of the Galaxy inward. The Braiders don’t DO physical stuff on that scale – the Yown’Hoo-Kiiote-Human Triads may be their only chance of creating a solution. The merger of Human-Kiiote-Yown’Hoo into a van der Walls Society may produce a stability capable of launching incredible expansion, creativity, longevity and wealth – and building the Membrane to stop the wave.

The young experimental Triads are made up of the smallest primate tribe of Humans –two; the smallest canine pack of Kiiote – six; and the smallest camelid herd of Yown’Hoo – a prime eleven. On nursery farms and ranches away from the TC cities, Humans have tended young Yown’Hoo and Kiiote in secret for decades, allowing the two warring people to reproduce and grow far from their home worlds. Grendl, Manitoba is one such place. No one but the Triad Company has ever heard of it and the physical plant goes by the unobtrusive name of Organic Prairie Dairy.

The Triads never hear of anything they aren’t spoon fed in their luxury worlds and have heard only rumors of the farms and ranches. Surrounded by a Humanity that has degenerated into a “duck-and-cover” society as the Big Boys fight their war, the Triads don’t care about anything but their own lives. Oblivious, cocooned, manipulated, they have no idea that their privileges are about to be violently curtailed and all of their biology ransacked for the correct Membrane pattern. (update: 2/13/2014)

Both me and Kayla shouted, “What’d you do that for?”

Qap snarled and led Xurf and the rest of the Pack down the basement stairs.

Dao-Hi sprayed the Herd with the pheromone we Humans had learned meant, “Run!” With nowhere to go, Dao-Hi charged the door and bounced off. She must have weakened it though, because when the rest of the Herd picked her up, they kept going and blew the thing out of its frame.

Lieutenant Commander Patrick Bakhsh (ret) grabbed my arm and Shayla’s and shoved us after them, shouting, “Run with the Herd!” It wasn’t until a second later that I realized he’d said it in Hoonish. By then we were already out the door.

It was cold outside. After a brush with Global Warming, Earth had dived into another Little Ice Age. Winters had been getting colder and snowier and summers quite a bit cooler. It wasn’t uncommon in central North America to have snow piles well into July. Some places even farther north had snow most of the year. We’d heard that cities around Hudson Bay now never thawed completely. Anyways, all that to say we were gonna freeze our butts off – even us Humans – if we didn’t figure out what to do next.

Kayla said, “Sir! We have to get out of the city – fast! Your people knew we were here. They’ll be here to collect us...”

“That much I figured out, Daughter. The question now is how do we make it out without...” He paused, snapped, “Stay here.” He removed a smaller handgun from a shoulder harness and tossed it to Kayla, “Only use it if you have to. It has enough charge to bring down a charging herd of fifteen bison without killing any of them. But focus long enough and a Human, and their brains will end up being about the consistency of oatmeal.” He shouted a recall in Hoonish, then let loose a genuine Kiiote Gathering Howl which was answered instinctively by the Pack. A few minutes later, they came loping around the back of the house, keeping to the shadows of the alley drive. “Tell them I’ll get transportation.” He looked at me, “You. Follow me.”

He turned. I said, “Me, Sir?”

“I don’t see any other skinny white boy capable of slipping through a really narrow opening in a gate.” He paused, glaring at me, “You wanna come with, impress the girl and win her lasting thanks?”

I didn’t think this was the right place to share personal histories, so I nodded and followed. He turned down the alley as I heard Kayla say something in Kiiote Snarlsnap, their everyday language.

“Don’t get lost kid, I don’t think this is much like your part of town!” the Lieutenant called back to me. I hurried and pretty soon I realized I could go faster if I mirrored his movements. That’s when we started to really move. He stopped one time and I was frozen, practically on top of him. I think he figured he’d lost me somewhere six turns ago. Did I mention that me and Shayla have eidetic memories? So do the rest of the Triad. He grunted. I was closer than he’d expected. I felt the puff of air on my face. With a jerk of his chin, he moved again.

We stopped a few blocks away at one of the few institutions that all three Sentients on Earth enjoyed – a bakery. The Yown’Hoo were herbivores already who’d developed a passion for Earthly beer; Kiiote carnivores had evolved into multivores (their beloved Earth delicacy was a salad of daisies (stems and all) with crushed honeybees, sprinkled with ground cinnamon and warm milk), and Humans, committed omnivores with a bad sweetener habit – would easily go out of their ways to stop at a bakery, cease hostilities and eat together. He ran around to the back of the bakery where he stopped at a towering chain-link fence topped with razorwire. It was probably electrified too – and there was, I’m sure – a hidden moat with alligators in it. He said, “You ready?”

“You didn’t say anything about scaling hundred-meter-tall, electrified chain link fences, topped with razorwire and alligators!”

He nodded and said, “You’re right. I forgot to tell you that the alligators have been replaced with cold-hardy piranha.”

“What?”

He hissed me silent and whispered, “We have about twenty more minutes before your Pack, Herd, and girlfriend get picked up by a Human, Yown’Hoo, or Kiiote patrol.”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” I snapped.

“Go now or she’s going to be your ex-alive friend and your Triad’s going to be a Gone-ad!”

Cussing, I climbed, hopped and dropped slowly. I didn’t notice I’d hurt myself until the Lieutenant said, “Put pressure on the top side of your left forearm. Quick.” I did as I was told then looked down. “Now spring to the truck and start it.”

“How?”

“The keys are in it!”

Shaking my head, I sprinted. The door of the truck was already open and I hopped in and started it – with a palm to the steering wheel. Scowling, I drove it to a gate in the fence. It opened. The lieutenant jumped in and I crossed my arms over my chest and said, “You gonna explain this to me, or am I gonna get out and walk home from here?”

Image: http://ashleycreates.typepad.com/.a/6a0120a8d53767970b01348885b99b970c-500wi

The 69th Anniversary of the Execution of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I have few real heroes in my life.

I define a hero as someone whose "communicated life" has a profound affect on my own life and caused me to emulate behaviors or actions or thought patterns.

My dad and mom are my heroes. My wife, my son, my daughter are my heroes. My brothers and sisters; my brothers and sisters-in-law are as well. But outside of those I know well, the number of people I hold to be my heroes plummets.

To four.

C.S. Lewis is one, not just because he wrote THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA (which served as my initial introduction to his work) but because he wrote passionately and reached across the years to touch my life with his. He used science fiction, fantasy, myth, poetry, allegory, essays and speeches.

Madeleine L'Engle is another. Her writing echoes her life and struggles in the form of fiction, essays, novels, science fiction, fantasy and poetry. I am deeply moved by her observations on the significance of the ordinary.

David Brin is my third hero. His science fiction explores fascinating ideas in entertaining ways. Since the day I read SUNDIVER in 1985, the idea of environmental responsibility and our responsibility to the other living things on Earth took on new meaning for me. As we move forward in technological expertise, we lift up all ofther life around us, both respecting and optimizing its potential.

My last -- or first -- hero is an actual martyr. Today I remember that sixty-five years ago today, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed at the hands of the Nazis in the Flossenburg concentration camp three weeks before the capture of Berlin by the Soviets; four weeks before the Third Reich surrendered. Bonhoeffer was not Jewish, homosexual or a member of any other group Hitler and his monster squad typically targeted. He was a middle-aged Lutheran pastor who wrote weighty theological tomes that were both profound and dense -- but NEVER political. His politics he ACTED on. His writing emphasized that the cost a Christian who chose to follow Jesus Christ might pay might well be his or her life.

For Bonhoeffer, THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP under the Lordship of Jesus Christ could range from giving up one or two of the pleasures of this earthly life to dying on the path that Jesus called you to follow.

Today, I remember that he counted the cost and paid the price of being a disciple of Jesus Christ and he had the strength to share his thoughts with the world. Below you'll find the link to the WIKIPEDIA site that has not only a short biography, but also a bibliography. The COST OF DISCIPLESHIP is my favorite work, but long and very, very challenging to read!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 155

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them.

Change of pace for a bit – I’m going to look at elements of EXTREMELY popular SF, F, and H; break them apart and use each element as a jumping of point for a story idea…

Popular Horror Story/Series: Goosebumps Books

H Trope: adaptational heroism

Current Event: “Throughout this work, we advance four primary ideas: (a)The concept of heroism is a way to unify several types of courageous or brave actions that have largely been treated independently in the literature to date; (b) that the simple presence of risk accompanying prosocial behavior is not enoughto define heroism; (c) heroism is viewed as distinct from otherprosocial activities, such as compassion and altruism (and may represent an entirely different behavior); and (d) that while heroism is primarily a positive and prosocial act, a simplistic view of this behavior misses important (and sometimes negative) aspects of the phenomenon.” (http://www.scribd.com/doc/161425346/A-Conceptual-Analysis-and-Differentiation-Between-Heroic-Action-and-Altruism)

Altered Definition: This idea originally meant that when people write scripts of books, they make the main character BETTER than they really were. No doubt – in the HP books, H himself is a jerk. They maintained that pretty much in the movies, but he STILL came across as “wunderkind”. I interpreted this to mean that a normal person will become a hero under the correct set of circumstances: to win the girl, save his parents, get the golden fleece, whatever. It takes a really good writer to create a situation and character in which the character even CAN become a hero…

“My baby sister tells me you can help us find Carlos,” Carmita Rodriguez Cruz said. Her eyes narrowed, “She’d better be right.”Austin Ventura remembered then that she was also taking kickboxing lessons – and that his best friend was missing. “I’m not sure exactly where he is. I just know that there are certain places he’s likely to be.” He dared, “We’re in probability together. You do the math.”

She scowled darkly at him, but didn’t contradict him.

Score one, he said to himself.

Pauline Rodriguez Cruz, sister to Los Traviesos Gemelos, said, “Quit flirting, you two! Carlos has been kidnapped and we have to rescue him!”

Austin exclaimed, “I’m not flirting!”

Looking at him, Carmita said, “She’s right, A-man.” Looking at Pauline, she said, “¿Qué te hace pensar que fue secuestrado?”

“I have another question for you, dear sister – what would he be doing out in the middle of the night, by himself, without telling one of the three of us? Aren’t those enough reasons?”

“The bigger question is why would anyone kidnap him,” said Austin.

Carmita bristled, “Just ‘cause he’s not rich like you, doesn’t mean that there’s no reason to kidnap him!”

“You two have to cut it out! Carlos may need us out there!” Carmita and Austin looked at each other then looked away, hanging their heads. “You both know that Carlos is a better person than all three of us put together.”

Austin felt a chill run up his spine. He said, “What would that have to do with kidnapping?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It just…felt right. Don’t you think?”

He grimaced as a chilly breeze blew from across the parking lot, chasing bits and pieces of leaves and paper over to them. “Much as I know about him, I have to say I agree.”

 “What do you mean?” Carmita said. “I’m his twin. I’m just as good as him!”

“Better,” Austin said.

“What?”
“You’re better than him in everything. It’s like when you guys were conceived, you sucked all the talent out of him. You got everything.” Carmita was glaring at him. He added slowly, “You got everything except his good heart.” She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it. Austin said, “You look like los peces de colores loco.”

“A crazy goldfish?” she echoed, puzzled.

“Yep. You ever seen one?”

“No.”

“Sure you have. Someone who’s locked up and can’t do a single thing – and if they don’t start moving, it’s gonna drive ‘em crazy.”

Pauline said, “Fits you like a glove, Cabroncita.”

Carmita snorted and said, “Let’s get going.” She tossed her gigantic purse over her shoulder, “A-man, we’re gonna need your car.”

Source: http://www.remezcla.com/2012/latin/top-5-latino-halloween-legends-and-monsters/ -- Carlos’ kidnapper #1? (http://able2know.org/topic/26631-1)

Names: ♂ Mexico, Mexico; ♂ Minnesota, Italy (= “baby in the woods”, “foundling”); ♀ Spanish form of French name ‘Paul’

Image: http://www.fotosdecarros.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/25/15/2001-Jeep-Cherokee-Sport-4-Door-Flame-fvl-Red-_2005-WW_WD-PROC_-DSCN8155.jpg