CHAPTER 13: TESLA AND TWAIN DO LUNCH IN 2035

It had started as an innocent Christmas gift. Nikola Tesla and Mark Twain used the time machine to travel to the year 2035 to enjoy a break from the whipping wind, sleet, snow and prying eyes.

They were enjoying a meal at an outdoor cafe overlooking a sleepy harbor in California.

"This was a wonderful idea!  I admit I was worried at first. Worried what we might find.  But this is nice," Tesla confessed to Twain.

"It's a comfort to know mankind made such strides. There are no wars. Everyone uses solar power. The entire world is clean, healthy and happy!  Imagine that! I never would have believed it! Thank you my friend. This was a marvelous!  Of course, it presents one problem. How do I explain my new found optimism when we return to our time?" Mark Twain laughed.

"By Jove!" Tesla exclaimed.

"What is it?" Twain asked.

"That boat! A dog just materialized on deck out of thin air!" Tesla started and before he finished, a second dog, then a third dog landed on the deck.

Suddenly it was raining dogs, palm trees, cars, buses, and buildings.

"Look out Sam!" Tesla cried, but it was too late. A lady and her husband fell out of the sky and landed right on Mark Twain and his leg snapped.

Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla transported back to 1894 to sort out what they had witnessed.

"According to my calculations, at the rate all these people, plants, animals and objects are slamming into the earth, the earth will be knocked out of orbit, freeze solid and then hurl into the unknown in a matter of hours," Tesla informed Mark without looking up from his papers.

"What does this mean?" Mark asked.

"It means we have travel back in time to Merlin's cave," Tesla started.

"How can we find it?"  Twain tried to stand but moaned and sat down fast because his broken leg was killing him.

"First we have to fix your leg," Tesla started flipping through his journals.

Under the duress of the moment, Tesla hardly had time to enjoy having taken the first x-ray and launching the world's first bone and soft tissue mender on the same afternoon.  

Tesla re-calibrated the time machine to match matter instead of time.

"We are going to travel to where this book came from," Tesla held Merlin's book of magic, the very same book he had used to build the time machine.

Twain and Tesla materialized in the mysterious crystal cave where Merlin was said to have become a hermit.

"He isn't here!" Mark Twain was alarmed. "Now what?"

Tesla ripped a page out of one of Merlin's journals.

"He's probably with this woman.  She was stealing from him," Tesla showed Twain the sketch of a woman Merlin had drawn. "In fact, from the way this place looks, she may have kidnapped Merlin!"

"We're not going to be able to find her with that sketch!" Twain exclaimed.

"Then we'll have to calibrate the machine to take us to the rest of this!" Tesla held up a two foot long gleaming silver stand of Merlin's hair.

~ TO BE CONTINUED ~

CHAPTER 12: IT IS YOU I LOVE! ZUT ALORS!

Countess Fountainebleute fluttered about at Mayor Miller's gala event.  She said all the right things to all the right people but they hardly heard her.  She kept her rage hidden behind a nauseating demi-smile.

Everyone had crowded the stage between sets to have their photo taken with Red Madonna And The Red Madonnas. All iPhones were on the racy Russian rockers.

Even Verge was smitten by Red Madonna.  When she returned to the stage for the next set, she threw her headband and Verge caught it and clutched it to his heart.  The countess took him aside and demanded to know why he wasn't with Julia Miller, the Mayor's daughter.

"She has a boyfriend. She's in love with Henry Merci," Verge whined and tiptoed so he could see what Red Madonna was doing.

There was so much commotion in the club and on the pier that Mayor Miller was being pulled in all directions.  Reporters tried to corner him to ask if the helicopter that just landed on the roof was the FBI or the CIA and how he supposed harboring international fugitives was going to effect his political career.

Mayor Miller flatly remarked that he did not book bands, that his employee Henry Merci booked the talent. He pulled away from the nest of reporters and ran right into the countess. She demanded the head of Henry Merci on a plate.  Mayor Miller went out to the deck to fetch it for her.

Behind the club on the deck, Julia Miller and Henry Merci were on the verge of their first kiss.  Julia tied a ribbon from her hair around his wrist. Henry gave her his ponytail band and she put it on her wrist as if it was a bracelet of incalculable worth. 

As they leaned in for the first kiss, Petunia's wish, Mayor Miller and the countess collided in the space time continuum and prevented the kiss.

"Yuck! You are ugly, stupid and you have a bad smell! I never want to see you again," Crab Louis Le Roux V's consciousness was now inhabiting Henry Merci's body and these were his first words in his new body.

Henry Merci found his consciousness in a crab soaking in a bedpan full of Dom Perignon. In addition to the shock of being instantly transformed into a crab, he was slammed by acute alcohol poisoning as well. He lost his wits for a bit and made sounds like an old ice machine in a run down motel.

"God! Oh God! If ever, NOT NOW! NOT TONIGHT!" were Henry's first words as a crab. Helpless and horrified, he looked down and in the distance saw his former face rudely barking at his beloved Julia. That and the Dom Perignon were more than he could take. He passed out.

Julia wondered if Henry was saying the awful words to throw off her father. She held her wrist that wore his hair band to her heart.

"It is YOU I love!" Louis Le Roux spun his new body around so he was face to face with the furious Countess Victoria Fountanibleute.

The countess reared back and punched him so hard that he was knocked out cold.

~ TO BE CONTINUED ~

CH 3: DID HE BITE YOUR THUMBS, OTIS?

Everyone liked him. Henry Merci was a Jack-of-all-trades.  He was a gondolier, a puppeteer, mime, messenger, water taxi pilot, a ventriloquist and a fisherman.  He was a wharf waif.  His parents had worked the rides at the pier arcade until one day they went to the public library to look up something and they were never seen again.
 
Henry was always there for anyone in need, eager to return the kindness so many had shown him after the abrupt and mysterious loss of his parents.
 
There was a commotion in the kitchen of 101 CRABS JAZZ CLUB.  Henry excused himself from the elderly couple in the gondola he had just moored and rushed to see what was the matter. Henry knew sign language and it appeared his deaf friend Otis was in some sort of trouble.
 
There was quite a lot of clattering and several serious sounding thuds. When Henry opened the back screen door of the kitchen, a peculiar looking crab with blood on its tattooed paw blasted between Henry's feet and right out the door like a hockey puck.
 
Otis had trouble telling the score in sign language because he was wrapping a dish towel tightly around his bloody thumbs.
 
"Did he bite your thumbs, Otis?!  Did he bite your thumbs?!"  Henry was outraged.  Otis nodded.  Without hesitation Henry was after the creature who had injured and insulted his friend.

~ To Be Continued ~ 

DRAMATIS PERSONAE of OH HENRY! THE LAMENTABLE LIFE AND TIMES OF CRAB LOUIS LE ROUX V

DAME J. E. MARSHALL PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS

OH HENRY! 

THE LAMENTABLE LIFE AND TIMES

 OF

CRAB LOUIS LE ROUX THE FIFTH

Dramatis Personae

Mayor George Miller, running for governor of California

Mrs. Miller, George's wife

Julia Miller, Mayor's daughter

Countess Victoria Von Van Dee La Fountainebleute`

Verge Fountainebleute`, Vicky's son, Julia's suitor

Petunia Fountainebleute`, Vicky's hyperactive daughter

Louis Le Roux V, Fountainebleute`'s evil familiar

Henry Merci, wharf waif, Jack-of-all-trades

Bart Gusto, fishing/tour boat owner, Henry's friend

Otis, deaf chef, Henry's friend

Reverend Dr. John Lawrence OMG, Magic Crystal Ship Shop Owner

Marcel, tattooist

Ivanna, owner of "Ivanna Cut Your Hair" salon

Estrella, mechanical gypsy at pier arcade

Red Madonna And The Red Madonnas, Russian Rock Band

12 Year Old Mark Twain

12 Year Old Nikola Tesla

CRAB LOUIE V: CH 1: ONCE UPON A TIME

The Lamentable Life & Times

of

Crab Louis Le Roux The Fifth

or

OH HENRY!

"Innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm."

-Graham Green

Once upon a time there was a candidate for governor who owned many businesses on a pier in California where tourists often came to watch the sparkling Pacific Ocean while they dined.

One Christmas Eve he hosted a gala event, a fund raising party at his best restaurant, 101 CRABS, A JAZZ CLUB AND FINE DINING ESTABLISHMENT.

Mayor George Miller never did get elected governor.  Voter turn out was so low that no one got elected.

This  is the story of how California came to be such a laid back state and how love, sweet love, can turn anyone in to a raving maniac.  For, as the saying goes, the more one loves, the stronger the absurd grows.

 

~ To Be Continued ~

DAME J E MARSHALL PRODUCTIONS BRINGS YOU CRAB LOUIE V

A sweet romance,

A big adventure,

Plenty of danger,

Environmental changes,

A dose of mad science,

Several mysterious strangers,

A dead man,

And one badass crab.

FROM DAME JE MARSHALL PRODUCTIONS, THE STORY OF A BAD CRAB

"I'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch..." the little girl sang like Doris Day as they sat on the windowsill and watched the people stroll on the pier below.

"Mercy! What nonsense! Now you are being silly! When have you ever been alone or experienced loneliness?  Marinate me at once!  I have had a shock! More wine!"  Louie Le Roux motioned with his claw for Petunia to pour more champagne into the bedpan.  She complied.  He sighed with relief and spit a little on the windowpane, as is a crab's habit.