Aachoo Voo Private Eye 2024 : 07/15/24

Monday, July 15, 2024

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye Episode Six The Impatient Patient and Grandfather Storklegs

https://aachoovooprivateeye2024.blogspot.com/2024/07/aachoo-voo-private-eye-episode-five.html

link to Episode 5

Bear Burr as Dr. Bear Burr

Gary Farmer, Native American actor

as Dr, Bear Burr (Vince Edwards was out sick)

dreaming about curing Miss Voo in his

teddy bear bed.

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye

Episode Six

The Impatient Patient

and Grandfather Storklegs

I awoke at 6 a.m. to the sound of rain. It was a funny kind

of rain that sounded like laughter. And it was wet. Most

rain is, I realize that, but this rain was falling inside. On me.

And I didn’t like it. I rubbed my sleep laden eyes and pulled

myself up in bed. Where was I? Oh, right, the hospital. Of

course! (Didn’t I usually wake up in the hospital?) I blinked

and pushed my long hair out of my face. I looked up. There

was some kind of a round cobwebby looking contraption

hanging over my bed. There appeared to be a big bug caught

in the middle of it. I frowned, thinking I must still be asleep.

“Good morning, Miss Voo, how are you today?”

I looked over to my right and saw Dr. Burr standing there in

the faint morning light holding a bowl of water and a feather.

He dipped the feather into the bowl and shook it across my

face. I jerked back and pulled the covers up to shield myself.

“Hey!” I complained, “What gives!?” He smiled and said,

“Well, I thought I’d give you the Rain Dance effect without the

actual Rain Dance. You know, cheer you up? Or wake you up.

You’ve been talking in your sleep for about an hour. Some

mighty interesting stuff too, I might add. What’s a Bilbo?” he

ended with a whisper.

“It’s a… I’m sorry, but it’s none of your business!” I snapped

and straightened myself in the bed, pulled my knees up to my

chin and shook back my hair. “What did I say, anyway? Did I

mention coal or dragons or a man named david?” “No, I don’t

think so,” he replied, pulling a stethoscope out of his pocket.

"But there’s no call to get indignant. I’m indigenous and I don’t

get indignant. It gives you diverticulitis.” Then he smiled,

“Most of the words were not familiar to me. You were speaking

in some kind of foreign language for the most part. But I

remember you kept saying something about “The Eye, the

Eye!” What was that all about?” I shrugged. “Just a

nightmare, I suppose. Do I have a concussion?” He bent to

check my heart beat and remained silent for quite a while.

“What is it, doctor!?” I said, alarmed. I reached out to grab

his wrist and accidentally pulled the end off his stethoscope.

It fell on the sheet between us and we both looked at it and

sighed.

The doctor cleared his throat and swung the ponytail back

over his shoulder. “Uh, actually, Miss Voo, that’s the thing.

When I came back on duty this morning and did my rounds,

I heard you talking and moving very restlessly in your sleep,

so I put one of my little dreamcatchers over your bed and you

quieted down considerably. It’s an Indian thing, I know, but it

sometimes works on you Pilgrims.” And he grinned and

blushed and looked down at the floor. ”I appreciate your

concern, Dr. Burr,” I said, “But I’m sure that modern

medicine…”

But he shook his head and said a few words in his native

tongue. “Not in this case, miss. Grandfather Storklegs told

me that you needed strong medicine to pull you through this

one. So I listened to the wind and consulted the rain and put

my ear to the floor to determine….”

“Grandfather Whatlegs !?” I interrupted impatiently. “What

are you talking about? Am I going to be alright? What about

my head w..w…wound?” And I put my hand to my head and

felt around frantically trying to find the goose egg I’d gone

to sleep with. Apparently, it had hatched and flown the coop.

I was incredulous! “But h.h.how…?” I asked, puzzled, and

the doctor smiled at me and threw another feather full of rain

on me. “Strong medicine.” he said very solemnly, tapping the

side of his head “Grandfather knows.”

After checking me out further and finding nothing more

unusual than a bruise or burn or scrape or stab wound, (so

far I had never been shot or dynamited but had come close

on several occasions) the good and wise Cherokee Medicine

Man told me I could expect to be checked out of the hospital

shortly but to take my time and to lie there and reflect on my

good fortune and miraculous healing. (For which he totally

took credit.)

I didn’t know what to think. It was a miracle, I supposed and

yet…something in the back of my mind kept hearing, “You’ll

be well in the morning.” Who had said that? Had I dreamt it?

The satchel! Where was it? I looked around the bed and the

perimeter of the room. It was nowhere in sight. Had it ever

even been there? I stretched out in bed, yawned, sighed

and wondered what it might be like to live a normal life. I

kicked my leg out to one side and connected with some kind

of lump in the bed. It was soft. And hard. “Soft and hard??” I

thought crazily and sat up and threw the covers back. There,

lying on the white sheet was a little purple velvet bag with it's

drawstrings pulled tight.

I picked it up and felt the weight of it in my hand. A distant

memory ran through my mind like a flash and disappeared.

I pulled open the bag and poured about three dozen shiny

gold coins into my lap. They were beautiful and cold and

real. I put one to my teeth and bit it. Yep, they were real,

alright. Solid gold coins. From what country, I had no idea,

but who cared about that? I was looking at a small fortune.

“Mr. Arehte!”' I said softly and snuggled down against the

pillows in total amazement. “I didn’t dream you up after all.”

And I laid there happily thinking of all the wonderful things

I could buy for my pets and my friends and all the new high

heels and paint thinner and sand paper and…..And that, of

course, made me think of the late Mr. Si and his mysterious

demise and of the terrible tall man in black with his awful red

eyes and his horrible plans to take over the world, or at the

very least, his grandfather’s coal mines. But then I wondered

if that had been real and not a result of my now non existent

head knot. It was all so confusing. I decided to go back to

sleep for a while. This was too much for my Voo brain to deal

with. I put the coins back in the bag and hid it in my own

purse with it’s additional fortune of five thousand dollars.

Along with the exquisite piece of jewelry from my small and

generous client in that little bowler hat and hideous sandals.

“Darling,” I said to myself sleepily, “Tomorrow, we are going

to go shopping for a new convertible! And lots of insurance!”

And just as I was about to drift off to dreamland, I looked up

at the ceiling and saw a movement in the dream catcher above

my head. “Help me!” a tiny terrified voice called and I imagined

that I saw a miniature figure in black with long hair and awful

red eyes struggling there in the strings of the Indian art object.

I pulled the cord and turned off the lamp over my bed, threw

the pillow over my head and shut out the light that peeked in

through the blinds. “You’re not real," I muttered, “You’re only

a dream! A dream, dammit, do you hear me? You’re only a

dream!" From somewhere down the hall or out of the air vents,

I didn't know which, there came the lovely and soothing sound

of flute music and it calmed me and took my imagination to

lovelier scenes.

I fell into a deep and much deserved healing sleep and when I awoke,

I made up my mind that I would hunt down poor lovable Andy and

take him a truckload of flowers, fix the dent in his Studebaker,

pay his hospital bills, and convince him to give me another chance.

My luck had changed and I was determined that so was my life!

(Note to self: Enroll in a Charm and Etiquette School (for grown-ups)

and learn how to go on a date without killing somebody!!) (Also, investigate

J.R.R.Tolkien and see if he actually exists.) (Ask MiMi Voo if hallucinations

run in our family on the Voo side, not the Paramore side, I already knew

her opinion regarding the Paramore side) and lastly, get Dr. Burr’s phone

number in case it didn’t work out with Andy or worse, they had not been

able to remove my high heel from his head and he had succumbed to…..

well, a bad case of…..me.)

Grandfather StorkLegs

TO BE CONTINUED……….in episode 7

special thanks for the use of the names:

Paramore, Si, J R R Tolkien, Burr, Andy,
Gary Farmer, Vince Edwards

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye Episode Five Doctor Burr and The Dream Catcher

https://aachoovooprivateeye2024.blogspot.com/2024/07/aachoo-voo-private-eye-episode-four-big.html

Link to episode 4 ⬆️

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye
Episode Five

Doctor Burr and The Dream Catcher

(is it five already?
lemme see, 1,2,3, 4, yep, it's 5!

holymolyravioli!)
(Big david's favorite expression)

I awoke to feel my head pounding and the backs of my eyelids feeling like they'd been used for Picasso canvases. I didn't know where I was. I didn't know who I was or what I was. Oh, wait! Yes, I did. I was that ditsy private eye dame that was always getting into and out of scrapes that would have killed smarter people. Aachoo Voo. Yeah, yeah, that was her name, I mean, that was my name...Aachoo Voo. For a minute there, I almost wished I had awakened with amnesia so that I couldn't remember the name I had once been amused by but not at the moment. Damn Grand'Mere Voo and her little practical jokes! Of course, the name my mother had picked out for me wasn't much better but still....But that's a story for another place and time. I tried to open my eyes but they were all rusty and cranky and needed some machine oil to cooperate. Where the heck was I?!

"O si yo, a ta. Do hi tsu? Ga do de tsa do a?" My eyes flew open at that. What the.....? "Oh, rats!" I thought, "I've had a stroke! I've died and gone to some underworld place where they don't speak English! That weird guy in black put a spell on me and I'm a prisoner in one of his grandfather's coal mines!" All manner of confusion flooded my mind and I sat up and groped around until my sight became clear. I was in a hospital bed covered with white sheets. It was dark outside the window. The moon was making funny faces at me. No, wait, that couldn't be right! "Hello, young lady. How are you? What is your name?" My vision then focused and I beheld a huge tall man standing at the end of my bed holding a chart. He was smiling. He was wearing white. He had a ponytail.

"Where am I?" I said, pulling the sheets up to my chin and scooting back as far as I could. The big man stood patiently waiting for me to get my bearings and then he said, "You're in St. Chuck's Hospital. You had an accident with a drug store. You've got a knot on the top of your head as big as a turkey egg but no cuts or wounds and though I know it hurts, you're going to be alright."

I looked up at him with painful eyes and tried to comprehend his words. Oh, that's right, that building ran out in front of me as I made my escape from 'Ole Creaky Fingers'. I had had my head down and wasn't looking where I was going but trying to keep up with what was there behind me. The cops had got him, right? I stiffened. "My bag! My purse! Where is it?" I looked around frantically. "Don't worry," the man in white said. "It's right here. It took four of us to pry it out from under your arm even though you were unconscious. Boy, you had a grip on that thing!" He gave me a dazzling smile and continued, "I was just about to open it up and see if we could find someone to notify about your accident but thankfully you came out of it and now here you are, all alive and kicking."

Then he stuck out his big brown hand. "I'm Dr. Burr, by the way. Dr. Bear Burr. And yes, I'm an Indian. Not an East Indian, mind you, but a real live "Woo Woo" Native Indian. Born in Ohio, thank you very much, but left the corn fields for big city lights and fixing up broken white people." "So nice to meet you, Dr. Burr. Tell me, are you related to Raymond Bur.....?" "Nope." he interrupted. "Aaron Bur.......?" I asked. "Definitely not!" he grinned and I withdrew my hand. He had a gentle handshake for such a big man. "Just call me Bear," he said, checking my heartbeat. "Everybody does." "Alright." I said hesitantly as he looked in my eyes and ears and under my tongue. "Whaaaizmmmypuullss?" I asked before he had taken the tongue depressor out of my mouth. I had to know everything was safe. Especially that five thousand dollars. "Be patient, Patient." he said, taking my pulse.

"No one has disturbed any of your powders and paints. Not that I haven't had a hankering to put me on some war colors and do a little rain jig around the room while you were out!" I could tell he was joshing, I think he was but I needed that bag back in my own two little hands. "Here it is." he said, handing me the black satchel. "What on earth do you have in there? A ton of coal?" "You might be surprised." I murmured and held the bag against my chest. "Well," he said as he walked towards the door, "I have some rounds to make so I'll eyeball you again later. I think you should stay overnight just to make sure your brains aren't scrambled and your bells and whistles are still in working order but otherwise, I'd say you can go home tomorrow and look for other buildings to demolish." And with that, he shut the door and let me be.

Before I had a chance to look in the bag, there was a commotion outside the door. It sounded like two guys arguing. "I tell you, that's Rita Hayworth in there!" said one. "No," said the other, "It's Ava Gardner!" Or...or maybe Rhonda Fleming or Hedy Lamar!" and just then two heads peeked around the door, eyes all wide and faces all flushed. "Sorry to disappoint you fellas, "I said, fluffing up my hair, "But I'm not a movie star, I'm a ticket taker down at the local movie house, Wanda Roma's WonderRama." Their faces fell. "Ah, gee," said one, "I wanted your autograph! I've already told all my friends that we had us a celebrity in here tonight." "Well, I can give you an autograph." I smiled. "I'm sure I'm famous in some circles of the rich and notorious." (And I was, but not for the reasons they thought.) "Really???" they exclaimed excitedly and rushed into the room with their little autograph books out wearing little blue orderly uniforms with St. Chucks on the pockets. One was named Alec and one was named Paddy McSomething or other.

Aachoo Voo. I signed with a flourish and they looked at me with puzzled faces and then blushed and said, "Thank you, Miss Voo, oh, thank you very much!" And ran out of the room backwards, knocking over tables and wastepaper baskets and doing a fair imitation of me in a hurry. "Whew!" I sighed and slid down in the bed and wondered what the world was coming to when a fake femme fatale couldn't even find peace in a hospital!

"Hmm." I said to myself, gingerly feeling the knot on my head. "St. Chuck's, huh?" The one hospital in the city that I hadn't been rushed to, till now. I kept a running tab at most of 'em. They didn't even ask me my name, just waved me back with a "Yeah, yeah, go on back, Miss Voo " kind of greeting. I'd never had an Indian doctor before. Usually a stiff upper lip bluenose that thought he was the cat's meow, but never a Cherokee. He was kinda cute, too. I slid further down in the bed and made myself comfortable just thinking about that ponytail. I wondered if Andy was in this hospital somewhere. It wasn't far from the movie theater we had gone to that afternoon. Had it really been only four or five days? I lost track of time so easily. I didn't think the relationship was over but the third date had not gone as planned. A shame too, cause I was having a swell time and starting to feel at ease with the guy. He'd taken me to a Marx Brothers Marathon and we'd laughed and laughed and laughed. I loved to laugh at other people. Other people were always laughing at me and it kinda felt good to be on the giving rather than the receiving side.

So, we're sitting there laughing and Andy's worked up enough nerve to put his arm up on the seat behind me. He hadn't put it around me yet but he was working on it when this size 32 Hungarian woman decides she's got to get out of the aisle right then, right that second, and before I can stand up to let her out, she sidles through there with her butt right in my face and steps on my foot and I let out a scream you could've heard over in Algiers! Andy leaps up and lets her out but not before her big brown purse had ripped two or three gashes across his face.

"Are you alright?" he asked anxiously, ignoring the blood streaming down his cheek and leaned down to tend to me. "Oh, my foot!" I moaned and took off my high heel to see if all my toes were still there. "Poor Ducky." he said and took the shoe from me and sat there holding it while I massaged my bruised but unbroken digits. After a few minutes I was feeling a little better and I took some napkins that were not too badly butter stained and began wiping his face. "Here, let's get you cleaned up." I whispered because the whole audience was shushing us at this point much to my annoyance. "Oh, shush yourselves!" I told them more loudly than I meant to. "You want to go now, Andy?" I asked quietly. I think Andy was more than ready. His romantic mood had been spoiled by Hungary anyhow. I stood up and dropped my purse and Andy and I both dipped down at the same time to catch it and knocked our heads together in a resounding Crack! Then I slipped in some spilled popcorn oozing with butter and fell and well, do you really want to know what happened next? You do? Sigh.

Long story short, then. I tried to right myself flailing wildly to hold on to anything I could (which turned out to be the hat of the chrome dome in the next row.) Andy tried to help, bless his heart but there was nothing much to do. It was dark, Harpo was playing his harp solo, people were hissing, yes, actually hissing and somehow the whole row of seats came crashing down and fourteen people hit those sticky floors doing some pretty authenic screwball comedy routines. The whole time Andy had been holding on to my high heel shoe and I was trying to grab it and put it back on my buttery foot when the crash occurred and one thing led to another and the heel of that shoe ended up broken off in the top of his head and his leg was caught under the dismantled seats. The house lights came up and the ushers and managers came running and it was just chaos and utter mayhem as usual (in my life.) I helped Andy limp out to the lobby and I was limping too, you know, because of the Hungarian woman and having only one shoe and I told Andy to sit down while I got him some water and called for an ambulance.

He insisted that he didn't need an ambulance, that he was okay to drive but looking at that heel sticking out like that I doubted it. (And those were my favorite pair of shoes, too!) So I escorted him outside and practically carried him to the car across the street. He was moaning rather loudly and attracting attention. But when the movie audience tore out of the theater with murder in their eyes running towards us like a tar-and-feather mob on a Saturday night, I shouted, "Give me your keys!" I propped Andy up on the side of his dented Studebaker. He fumbled in his pocket and fished out the keys but they slipped from his buttered fingers and as I dove for them I let go of him and he screamed and fell under an oncoming bus. So...... that's pretty much it.

"I bet he's here." I said out loud and made a mental note to ask the doctor to check on that for me when he came back. Oh, why, oh, why did men have to be so fragile!? I covered my face with my hands and tried to put Andy out of my mind. The bag! I reached for the satchel and set it in my lap and opened it with mounting excitement. I removed my own purse, saw that everything was as it should be and breathed a deep sigh of relief. "There is a God!" I said thankfully and reached further into the bag.

There was the manuscript wrapped in brown paper just as Mr. Arehte had described it. It smelled slightly of potatoes and gingerbread. Then I pulled out a...a...thing that could only be described as a...thing. "What is this?" I asked in amazement. It was like a gigantic eyeball. It was glass-like and extremely heavy but appeared very delicate. Like something you would see down at Madam Rose's Tea Leaves, Sheep Entrails and Reflexology Shop down on Metanoia Avenue.

I'd gone in there once looking for one of my best friends, Carole. She'd been despondent over the tragic accidental demise of her uncle who had left her half a million dollars in his will. She wanted to contact him and ask him what happened to the other half a million and I'd told her to keep away from those kind of shysters but she wouldn't listen. (Let's just say, she went in to get her fortune and came out without her fortune.) I set the glass curiosity aside and reached in again. Hmm. Toothpaste, a razor, toenail clippers the size of hedge trimmers, barbed wire, an autographed 8x10 glossy of Boris Karloff, a blue bathrobe, a teddy bear, some pepsin gum, a piece of coal, blueprints for some kind of laboratory and a stuffed aardvark. In the very bottom I found three marbles and a round trip ticket stub and boarding pass for the S.S. Blackbird. There was a To Do List scrawled in what appeared to be dried blood so faint I could barely make it out.

It read something like this:

a. lure villagers into mines b. turn them into mindless slaves with poor hygiene c. become rich beyond my wildest dreams d. retrieve the Tolkien book e. destroy the Arehte clan f. build my own tower g. overthrow Grandfather Sorryman h. clone myself i. buy a pony j. propose to Joan Blondell k. learn how to turn dwarves into fairies

P.S. a=Done b= Done d= Done

Oh, it was giving me a headache! What kind of asylum did this guy escape from? Did he really think he lived in the middle of the Earth for crying out loud? Isn't it hot down there? Wasn't that where Grandmother Voo was always threatening to send my mother!? Perhaps I'd better read that manuscript I thought and put all the other disgusting paraphernalia back in the satchel. I untied the string on the parcel and very carefully began turning the yellowed pages of the old book. Okay, let's see..... I have met a hobbit, the first page said, and his name is Bilbo Rodger Arehte. A WHAT?!

I kept reading until my eyes were so heavy that I couldn't read anymore. Sometime in the the night I dreamed that Mr. Arehte came into the room and stood by my bedside. He had packed the manuscript back in it's brown paper wrapping, thrown the black satchel out the window, placed a velvet bag full of gold coins under my blanket and gave me a very soft, very sweet kiss on the cheek. I dreamed that I opened my eyes and looked into his and he smiled a funny little smile and said, "Thank you on behalf of my family and my village and coal miners and hobbits. When this scandal breaks and justice is restored, you'll know that you played a very, very big part in it. May you find your one true love and may the elven moon always shine upon your path. Now I leave you, my good gumshoe, and in the morning you will be well." My sleepy eyes followed him to the door and he stood there quietly in the dim light, a comical character but almost beautiful in his small majestic way. Then he softly whispered............"Amvanya heri nartyë." "A very beautiful lady are you."