“Leave?” He was incredulous. “But we just *got* here; I just settled into this place, this house. It’ll work out. Just because Clovis–”
“This is not about Clovis,” Axis-Windmill reinforced. “This is about tying up things in this here photo-novel–”
“Let me guess,” Keith B. interrupted in turn. “29 in a series of nothing.”
“Close. But we want to try anyhow… anyhoot.”
“*Alysha*” he called into the kitchen to his red headed wife making soup with a fork and spoon. “Are you hearing this?”
“I’m hearing,” she said. “But the soup is boiling… may be missing some things. Something about the electricity not working properly in this house?”
“*No*,” he stated, blowing out some air. “They want to *pull the plug* on the operations here.”
More boiling. “Ventriloquists? I told you we shouldn’t move to a town with those. Trouble, always trouble.”
Keith B. gives up until Alysha finishes her soup. He shakes his head about the matter for Axis-Windmill, who was curious. “When did you acquire a wife, old Keith B.?”
“Alysha? Met her at a fair. She’d just won a beauty contest, being the loveliest girl in all of Hooktip.”
“Hooktip?”
“Yeah, where she’s from. Where *I’m* from. She’s a childhood sweetheart as they say.” Keith B. decides to turn the tables. “And where are *you* from… German boy?” He’d heard rumors of a war, in fact 2 of ’em. Germans on one side, his side on the other. But was he American? Or…”
—–
“Papa,” Jenny called from the kitchen, making soup. Axis-Windmill was gone, having been called out. Alysha exited with him, *his* wife. Not Keith B.’s. Keith remained a bachelor because of, well, The Room and what goes on in there. Jennifer thinks it is self sex, but actually it’s (see title).
“What is it dear?”
“I have an idea about the logo on the drums. I’ve been mulling it over all day. Instead of a star, like in Cpt. America, how about a circle. A circle within a circle, like in that British air force poster up at the Seraph.”
They were back in Cass City and it was 20 years ago and their star was about to rise because of this. Ironic. Star erased, star gained. Trouble is, there were 2 of ’em and there was only Room for one.
Sunklands 