Part Fourteen, Chapter One - A White-Man Thing

Gris, through the magic of HellerVision, watches the story's hero struggle along on his doomed mission from the comfort of his Turkish villa.  He plods up the road in his ridiculous and undersized outfit, and as he passes a house gets struck by a Random Encounter (Table 8-B, Temperate, Rural).  Bam, angry dog outta nowhere.  The sheepdog lunges, Heller grabs it by the jowls, and hurls it twenty feet to hit a tree headfirst.

Astonishingly this just knocks the pooch unconscious, and Heller picks up his fallen foe and knocks on the door of the house, explaining to the farmers inside that their animal ran into a tree.  Editor Robert Vaughn Young wrote of Hubbard's attempts at recreating the Southern accent, and now we get to finally see it.

"You f'um heahabouts, kid?"

"Heahabouts," said Heller.  "Ah'll be gittin' on now."

"Hell, no.  Not aftah you done a white-man thing lahk that!  Martha, bring some cawfee in heah!" he yelled towards the kitchen.

"Aw, no," said Heller.  "Ah be much obliged.  But Ah got me an appointment in town.  A fellah's a-waitin' foah me at th' co'thouse.  Ah'm much obliged but Ah be late awready."

"Well, hell, kid, tha's more'n two mile.  An' you limpin' an' all.  Be downright unneighbo'ly of me not to run you intah town!  Ah'll git mah truck!"

I panicked and flipped ahead to see if the rest of the book was like this, but thankfully it looks like people start talking normally again in a few chapters.  I'm not sure I could keep going otherwise.  Now I live in Tennessee, have family in Mississippi, and have traveled from Florida to Virginia, but I've never heard an accent quite like this.  Sometimes they can say their l's, sometimes they can't.  Some e's are pronounceable, others are dropped.  It's a random, mangled dialect designed to make its speakers sound as stupid as possible.

Well, Heller gets his lift to the courthouse, where the I'm-not-crooked clerk is there to issue "Delbert John Rockecenter Jr."'s birth certificate for a mere two hundred bucks.  He gets the papers, thanks the man, and walks out of the courthouse, which promptly explodes.

Did I forget to mention that those Apparatus advance agents from last chapter planted a bomb to take care of their contact?  Well, they planted a bomb to take care of their contact.  A highly-noticeable bomb, rather than a discreet disappearance with a forged suicide note or something, because these are professional secret agents.

Because Heller is the hero, he immediately drops his stuff and rushes back into the inferno and rescues the clerk, who groggily mutters about a faulty stove causing the detonation.  He thanks Heller for saving his life but advises him that "with a name lahk yoahs" he'd better clear out before the authorities arrive.  But the clerk adds that if Heller ever needs help, "you jus' yell fo' Stonewall Biggs!"

Heller watches the fire trucks swoop in and jots down a note: They can't make stoves.  Laugh at the humor or boggle at his sudden conclusion on the status of Earth engineering, take your pick.

Note that nobody in the chapter does a double take at or comments on Heller's bizarre attire.  Hubbard went into great detail about how stupid he was dressed, and how it would surely make him an immediate attention magnet, and then promptly forgot about it.


Back to Part Thirteen, Chapter Six

Forward to Part Fourteen, Chapter Two