Note: Challenged on Twitter by Henry Fuhrmann of the Los Angeles Times to start another series with this title, I've set out with not more than a hint of where the subsequent installments will go. Though without suggesting a Naked Came the Stranger collaboration, I will consider plot and character suggestions submitted privately.
Part 1: Grammar Day Aborted
It was National Grammar Day Eve, and I had a rent-a-red-pencil gig to help handle the traffic. I didn't much care for it, but there's not much cabbage in the paragraph game any longer.
They'd issued me a 2003 Garner's Modern American Usage—too chintzy to spring for Garner 3. I suppose I should be grateful for anything fresher than Wilson Follett.
Anyhow, just as I'd holstered Garner, a bruiser materialized at my office door. He had fists the size of Westphalian hams and the cold, dead eyes of a community press content coach.
"Gents' is down the hall, bub," I told him.
But he laid a thick forefinger on my chest and pushed me back toward my chair. "We gotta talk," he said.
"Is this a time for airy persiflage?" I asked.
He gave me the dim, dazed look of a reporter who's been asked why his story has only one source.
"OK, short words, then," I said. "Don't have time to talk. Places to go, people to see, grammar to fix."
"You ain't goin' nowhere," he multiply negated. "I got my orders."
"Who says so?"
"The people I work for. You been interferin', writin' about shibbah—, shibbeh—"
"Shibboleths?"
"Yeah, them things."
Well, then, you'd better take me to those people you work for."
I started for the door, and in a moment he lumbered after me.
"This way," he said.
NEXT: THE CONSORTIUM