It’s strange to realize that
it was December 17, 2023, when I posted the unfinished story of J.A.B.S.
(or, Junior Agent, Bureau of Shadows) here on the Niche. I fully
intended to finish it up during the next few weeks, but it kind of slipped away
from me. It was, in origin, another one of my dreams, adapted to be a vehicle
for Bazzell Butzehauser (from Brother Silas), showing how a strange case
led to him becoming an agent of the Bureau of Shadows (as mentioned in The
Day Delphine Disappeared, I think, a story I’m not quite sure that I’ve
posted yet; anyway, I can’t find it). There are definitely elements of Sweeney Todd or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre here.
In any case, here are some
of the Notes I made at the time. Some of the things mentioned have already been
incorporated into the tale as told so far; other bits may never have appeared
in the tale, but still have been ‘background,’ or become elements perhaps dropped
altogether as the writing developed.
Notes
Parents talk about missing transient in the news.
The next day at school he sees Stella; now that he knows her, he can pick
her out of the crowd.
She’s kind of lower echelon because of the perception that she’s white
trash; she’s actually impressed by his ‘braininess’.
There are obvious signs of a beating on her.
Billy did it; he’s not part of the Schmidt family, but a ‘boss’ and an
associate to several of them.
Bazz suspicions are further aroused by their talk.
He gets ‘reconnaissance’ news from her; determines to investigate the high
fenced area behind the diner that night.
Gets someone to take his shift at Mr. Cheezi’s. [As it is, I think I
shifted the next part of the story to early morning.]
Stella is a decent girl, a little rough around the edges, but somehow, she
has all the right instincts and hasn’t compromised with the world yet. Her
parents have raised her in a hypocritical way with goodness as a sort of
standard that must be kowtowed to and assumed to get along in the world but
needn’t be followed if you can get away with it or if it stands in your way.
But she has accepted the standards as true and ineluctable; she is as close to
a natural morality as it is possible to be. And she’s pretty, in a blowzy sort
of way, not delicate or refined but earthy and genuine. She’s Snow-White
pretty: dark black hair, clear pale skin with a blush on her cheeks, and
naturally full red lips.
Billy Jay Davis is one crazy cracker, and cunning to boot. There is an air
of violence about him, an intensity that suggests the speed addict. But in
control, always in control. He dominates whatever group he’s in, even when he’s
ostensibly the host of his diner. Early forties but with a bristly, graying
beard, a flop of thick hair that seems always greasily sweaty, pale blue crazy
eyes always focused with unnerving concentration, like he’s about to strike.
Off-the-rack ‘country’ shirts and bowling pants. Not classy enough to wear
boots.
On the way he passes by a police car with a couple of cops. They are
looking for a missing person. Bazz tells them what he’s up to in a general way
and they dismiss it as unimportant. He goes on.
He now has a theory, based on the impression the dog has given him of the
smell at the restaurant. The no-goodniks take the dogs and cook them into the
stew they serve. He has a dreadful suspicion that this may be what has happened
to the missing person as well.
Need to draw Haff more closely into the tale, and the Bureau of Shadows.
Close, but light. There is an element of the extranatural here, but not a deep
strain: the extranatural is mostly in Bazzell’s nature.
At the end Bazz wonders if it was all just a coincidence as nothing really
supernatural happened; the thing with the dog might have been a coincidence.
Haff talks to him about a phenomenon he calls The Haunting, a fugitive,
persistent sense That Something Beyond the Known Material Universe Is
Happening. Even people not in the DEA get it. Some people think it can be
rationally explained, others don’t. Lean on it, count on it, and it seems to
vanish; treat it dismissively and the more it seems to tease you with clues and
hints. So, what do you do? Be alert, not dismissive, but not submissive either,
if you get my meaning, he says. Live your normal life, but don’t fall asleep.
The Outline as Now Foreseen
In the early morning hours, Bazz comes to the diner.
He finds signs that the place is not locked up and decides to investigate.
He runs into Stella, who has forgotten her purse at work and came to see if
she could pick it up.
She is very frightened, chalk-white now.
She shows Bazz what she has found: the ‘slaughterhouse’, a shed that has
always been locked and off-limits, was standing open when she got there, so she
poked her head in out of curiosity.
She shows Bazz a man, alive but trussed up, obviously prepped for
processing, amid the bloody refuse of butchered dogs.
She’s afraid; there are signs that Billy is still nearby and may return any
minute, and what will he do when he knows she knows?
They hear noises that indicate his return is imminent, and Bazz sends
Stella off to get the police.
He will remain to distract Billy away from her retreat and possibly stop
the slaughter of the captured man.
Stella leaves, glad to go and obviously
impressed with his bravery.
He snatches up a large heavy knife from the table.
‘Uncle’ Billy enters, having been sharpening an even larger cleaver, ready
to kill, and to two begin a standoff.
Bazz gets him to villain monologue about what’s been going on.
Billy and his henchmen have been grabbing strays and stealing dogs to grind
up as meat for their chili and hamburgers; he claims the economy has forced it.
‘It’s easier than hunting deer.’
Now that this drunken ‘bum’ has fallen into their hands, why not use him?
Plenty of meat there. Soon they’ll have a real ‘hobo stew’ on the menu.
And now they have Bazz, as well. He’ll never live to tell.
Bazz tries to distract him, asks if that’s what happened to Sheba. He’s
sick with the thought.
Billy claims that they’ve used so many dogs he couldn’t rightly say. He
grins cruelly. But probably. Why not?
There ensues a short, sharp struggle. Bazz never really has much of a
chance; Billy, although a little fried and pasty, outweighs him by a good
hundred pounds.
But Bazz resists as long as he can.
Billy has got him down and is ready to cut his throat when suddenly the
police arrive.
Billy resists with all his meth-fueled desperation but is subdued and
carried off.
Besides his threats to human life there are enough violations to shut the ‘diner’
down and send Billy off for a long, long time.
The Aftermath
Rather than being heroic, Bazz’s exploit is seen by most as quite inadvertent,
a result of his snoopiness and oddity. Stella is lauded as the main hero of the
tale, though she always maintains the truth about Bazz if anyone will listen.
There is an unfortunate undercurrent of opinion in some circles that, though
necessary, her actions make her something of a snitch, disloyal to her ‘boss’.
Bazz never finds out Sheba’s ultimate fate for sure, though he can tell
himself perhaps she never fell into Billy and his cronies’ clutches. Maybe even
that she’s out there, somewhere, somehow living happily. In any event, they now
have Snoopy, who has been accepted fondly as something of a consolation prize.
Bazz sends off for the DEA Junior package, and finds out that Haff, the
bookstore owner, is the local agent. That’s what the pamphlet was doing in the
book. He can have training ‘sessions’ under the guise of book shopping. Haff gives
him a special discount, half off of half off. One fine Fall day, on the cusp of
winter, they sit discussing the case over a couple of Peach Nehis.
Was it extranatural, or just criminal? The only ‘extranatural’ element
seems to have been Bazz himself, with his possible instance of animal ESP. Bazz
has, of course, told Haff all about his family history of ‘powers.’ Haff tells
him that in the shadowy realm of the Bureau, not every case is clear cut. The
important thing is that people were helped and dangers dealt with. He expounds
a bit about being an agent, and Bazz goes home with a bag of books, picked up
by Mina and a happily barking Snoopy.
Author’s Note Afternote
This story was actually based on another dream I had, adapted for BOS
purposes and garnished with old neighborhood memories. ‘Uncle Billy’ and the Schmidts
contain elements of branches of my own family and other people I knew, really
decent enough folks, but who seemed to teeter into the gray areas of morality
if not on the cusp of actual villainy. No real cannibals, as far as I know. Although
there are a couple that I wouldn’t be totally surprised to learn …
Once more, there is no telling what elements in this outline would be
elaborated, changed, or entirely dropped in the writing. Looking back, would
Bazz and Stella be a ‘thing’? Would Snoopy play a larger part in the denouement,
for instance, leading Stella to the police car? All to be worked out in the
scribbling and bibbling. In the meantime, I can mark this unfinished story Case
Closed, for the time being.
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