Chapter 10 and beyond. Where it was going.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The story of The Imaginary Lover has been stuck at this point for something between six months and 17 years, depending on when you measure from when I first wrote these nine chapters or if you spot me the time when I had set the book aside and made no attempts to extend it.

It’s not for lack of, er, imagination. I know where I wanted the characters to be at the end of this story. It’s just that I started chomping at the bit to pick up the story from that point, instead of this point, and I lost interest in the details of how they got from Chapter 9 to The End.

So (for now), make believe we have journeyed another 50-60 pages together and learned, to our mutual delight and amazement:

When George Hermann said, “Send one more, especially persuasive salesperson. And if that still doesn’t do the trick,” he added with a wink, “have her killed,” he was kidding. No, really: He was kidding. A gentle man who likes to play with imaginary baseball games, George is horrified to discover his well-meaning but thuggish employees have loosed former special agent Jeff Hamilton on Snooky’s Bar.

Hamilton, meanwhile, has his own agenda, and when George’s people explain the misunderstanding and ask him to back off, he respectfully declines. A climactic confrontation of some sort takes place on Sirius 4 between Hamilton and his old colleague Baxter Hetznecker, which ends with Bob Whelan getting off a lucky shot with his newly acquired gun and killing Hamilton stone dead (Friday finally having come and gone).

As a former commander of Special Forces, Baxter has some “pull” with the authorities in explaining that Bob was acting in self-defense, but that surprisingly does not entirely sit well with the Sirius 4 authorities, seeing as (gasp!) Hamilton was working for them. It seems the Planetary Council was planning to seize George Hermann’s company right after he opened his new Imaginary Entertainment Complex on PC-3, giving Sirius an inroad on another world and a source of revenue for the new independent government. Independence, it seems, does not necessarily equate with freedom.

George is forced to abandon his offices and other property on Sirius 4, narrowly escaping an attempt to reward his resistance with imprisonment, with the help of Baxter, Bob, Pete and Snooky. As a result of their shared adventures, Snooky has softened her stance on rebuilding the bar and decided she's ready to retire from bartending. She has also softened considerably towards Pete, but not so much that she won’t give him a good slug if he gets out of line.

With some adroit help from Eddie Bohannon, the wary Sirius 4 authorities become convinced to let Bob Whelan go his way, but not without a stern warning that his activities will be restricted and/or monitored whenever he returns to their planet. And, his business being what it is, it’s very possible he will return to their planet one day.

Something odd has happened along the way: Bob finds himself inordinately attracted to Eddie, and Eddie finds herself inordinately attracted to Bob. He invites her back to Seattle, and oddly, she accepts.

Thus, The Imaginary Lover concludes with five people — five crew members? — aboard the good ship Betsy Ross heading back to Earth: Bob Whelan, Pete Wong, Baxter Hetznecker, Snooky and Eddie Bohannon. You wouldn’t think such a simple story would be so hard, or take so long, to tell. Someday I’ll flesh out the details for you, but in the meantime please accept this brief synopsis and keep your eyes and ears peeled for the as-yet-unnamed further podcast adventures of our five friends. The only thing I can pretty much guarantee is it’ll start with Bluhm saying “Theeeee Imaginareeeee ...”