12.(0-1) Slim Novel 12 Intro and Chapter 1

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Slim Novel 12: Ali -On the Ground Running

Introduction: Readers of the Slim Novels may recall that Ali, the young woman who first appears at the end of Slim Novel 1, is the co-star in Slim Novel 2, and a key character in Slim Novels 3 and 5. The Slim Novel 12 is about Ali's return to her Bronx in December 1941 as the coming of war forces her from Tokyo. It has adventure, sex, wisdom, is highly educational and also has joie di vivre, galore.  Scroll down for chapter 1.

ON THE GROUND RUNNING

Chapter 1 "Pardon Me Boy,

 izzat the Chattanooga Choo Choo?

                                         Track twenty-nine.

                                        Boy, you can gimme me a shine!”

The radio is blaring the Tex Beneke & Modernaires’ Glenn Miller song.

(At your leisure, you may see and hear it by clicking 

Chattanooga Choo Choo - Glenn Miller Orchestra - YouTube  )

Ali rubs sleepy eyes awake and turns over on sofa in the apartment she is using now that she is back from Japan.
   Her sayonara at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport had been a long, lingering kiss with her boyfriend, Kimura, the ace news reporter with whom she had toured the U.S.A. Then she’d turned on her high heel and boarded the Nippon Airline flight for Manila and a ride on China Clipper to Oakland California. Then a multi-stop hop by an American Airlines twin-engine DC-3 ending at the newly opened LaGuardia Airport in Queens NY, near the site of 1939 World’s Fair she'd covered with Kimura.
   After having subway'd to the Bronx, she is back in the apahto, as her slangy Japlish calls it. Brenda, the girl she met on the 1939 trip, is overjoyed at Ali’s being back in town, “Just like Lulu,” she says, echoing a 1930's Jazz hit from her pop’s pop collection.

Ali decides to do courses at nearby Hunter College and, with permission of a friendly professor is sitting in on lectures. She does not need a job because her late Uncle Guy bestowed enough on her to allow her the leisure life.

   Oh yes, brother Tommy? (See Slim Novels 1, 2, 3 and 5) He is now in hush-hush work. His Japanese fluency and knowledge of the Tokyo political scene make him a wanted gem for U.S. Intelligence spying against the Japs. So in September 1941 he made a hurried goo’bye saying he’d get occasional messages to her. That is their way: No sobbin’ Sabine sistah, Ali! Just a strong “Goo’bye, see you ever!”

Ali rubs eyes again and sits up, stretching with delicious feeling. She and Brenda girl had made luscious love on the sofa hours before; then Bren was off to home since it is Monday morning and, despite having liberal parents, a 16-year-old daughter is expected to be home in bed to greet the early Sun on Mon.

   Ali fills her syringe with 2 milligram morning Morphine, injects it into her right thigh then re-sheathes the needle and lies down to enjoy the next 30 minutes. She does best thinking for the coming day that way. Some thoughts: Monday, One PM, a seminar. And be sure not to slip on ice crossing street this freezing January.

   Down to earth, no pie-in-sky thought!

Now, a minute later, the Morphine starts into the blood to the heart where its molecules are pumped to the brain's limbic-lobe neurons, and Ali begins to feel a first tingly pleasure in knees and ankles; and also the mental alertness mixed with lack of usual anxieties. She enjoys the induced loss of paranoias that make one unhappy. No worry questions like: “Is that ache in my breast the first twinge of cancer?"or "Will I go crazy tomorrow?"or "Will Brother Tommy be killed on his spy mission?"or "Will Brenda grow to hate me after she passes her lesbian infatuation?” Under Morphine's acute effect, all the worries drain away in a cleansing confidence in Future and in agreement with Universe.

Thirty minutes later by the suprachiasmatic neuronal clock in the hypothalamus in her brain she jumps from bed: alive, a tingle, aglow!
  For next, click 12.(2-3) A Meeting, a Lecture and Coffee & Cake