Penmanship

A Continuation of Love and Propane

 

Well, obviously this guy is a maniac.

What makes you say that, Barb?

Just look at his note. The loopy swirl, all the flourish, then, whammo, shitzo block print. Upper case, lower case. No contact with reality. I’ll lock this sucker up on aesthetics alone.

Now let’s take it easy. Besides, I don’t think, I um…Let’s focus on what the letter says, okay Barb?

What men say isn’t half as important as how they say it.

Oprah?

Tone is everything.

Right.

See there. You say right, like you agree. But with the tone of a coal train chugging through town.

Barb. Can we stay on task here?

Yes Sir, let’s.  Okay, we have a Dear Boss note, written by an extremely dangerous schizophrenic madman.

Is that a technical term? It doesn’t sound PC.

He goes all lower zone here…take a look at this S. I’m thinking our guy loves to travel. Somewhere warm. By now he must be in South America.

You got all that from the handwriting?

No, it says right here, ‘By the time you read this I’ll be in South America’.

Oh, well…

Hey, do you remember that trip we took to Punta Tombo? Swimming naked? Drinking martini’s through sunset before we went back to the room and, well, boom chicka wow wow. Remember that, Tiger?

Um, I think that must’ve been your ex-husband, Barb.

Hmm. Awkward.

Yeah.

Soooo. This note.

Yeah. This note.

Well, look at this. You know illegible signatures mean a person is private and hard to read.

Explains a lot.

What is that supposed to that mean? Oh, you’re not still mad about…

Still? You just said it.

Look, it was the worst weekend of my life. Can we move on?

Let’s. So our guy is fleeing the country.

And judging by the slant of his H he’s riddled with kidney stones.

How could you possibly…

Graphology. Concept Mapping. I took a study on forensic document examination. Worst weekend of my life.

I thought…

I’m kidding. Blue Bloods marathon last weekend. You were golfing.

I don’t play golf.

Fine, you were cooking dinner.

Right. So our suspect has fled the country. Has kidney stones.

Is a raging lunatic, but likes sunsets, puppies, long walks—

Stop it.

No, really. See? The light pressure indicates he’s the sensitive type.

He’s been dubbed The Butcher of Bedford.

And he has piss poor time management.

Seems to be going around.

It’s the poor spacing. He writes impatiently.

Probably likes martinis.

Someone won’t let it go.

Pfft. I think we should take this downtown for analysis.

You aim low, Nolan. You have strong insecurities.

Excuse me?

You do. I’ve seen your grocery lists. A sad affair…

So this is about me now?

Let’s go to South America. We can catch the Butcher. Work on your tone.

So it will business?

And pleasure.

We’lll catch this madman.

And drink Martini’s

Have a terrible time?

The worst weekend of our lives

 

 

–2018 Pete Fanning