Mike Hammer

            On Friday at midday I had to work at OCADU. This time I was smart and didn’t wear my leather jacket, though it actually felt a little chilly as I started out for my ride downtown. I was pretty sure it would be warmer coming home later though.

            I was scheduled to work on top of the pencil box and as I was about to enter room 617 I heard a woman call “Christian”. I turned and a woman of about 30 whom I did not recognize repeated, “Christian, you cut your hair! It looks really good! It looks REALLY good!” “Thanks!” I said, though I still didn’t recognize her.

            I worked for Robert Akow posing for a portrait the whole time. The woman that had complimented my hair was also a student in the class. On my breaks I did some writing but during the fifteen-minute coffee break I took a little nap. I’d been drooping a bit before that but I was fine for the rest of the class. Robert isn’t much more than ten years older than his students. He was discussing gaming with one of them.

            When I was leaving the woman that had complimented me gave me another gift, “I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this but I have a painting I did of you years ago hanging in my home and it really Makes my living room! Everyone that visits me comments about how much they like it!” I asked when she’d painted it. She said that she’s been at OCADU a long time and that this was years ago in Terry Shoffner’s class. I thanked her for telling me about it. I should have thought to ask her to send me a picture of me hanging in her living room. Maybe if I see her again.

            On the way home I stopped to buy raisin bread and a couple of other things.

            When I got home I finished up my journal entry for Wednesday and posted it online.

            That night I watched the third episode of Mike Hammer and finally found one that wasn’t bad, though it was not a particularly plausible story. Hammer got a call warning him to drop the case that he was working on, which intrigued him, since he wasn’t working on a case. After that, for some reason he seemed to know that he was going to get a call in ten seconds and he counted down. He was off by one second. The call was from the woman who was supposed to be the client he was told to drop. She was so desperate to meet him at her apartment that he skipped his lunch to go over there. When he arrived the gorgeous woman had a steak dinner on the table and said she’d been about to have lunch. The food was driving him crazy so he told he’d have to leave but she said she wasn’t hungry and so he could have her lunch. He ate it with lots of steak sauce but it turned out that there was a mickey in the steak sauce. He felt woozy and collapses. When he woke up he was in a hotel room in his pajamas and when he called the desk he discovered that he’d somehow been transported from New York to Las Vegas. When he looked out the window the woman whose steak he’d eaten was lounging by the pool in a bikini. He went out to confront her but she immediately acted like they were lovers and started kissing him so he played along. After several days of fun in the sun together she thought she had him lulled. While Mike was out sleeping with his hat over his face by the pool, she met with her boyfriend in her room. Mike walked in because he’d only persuaded someone to wear his hat by the pool. There proceeded a well-choreographed fight scene. Mike was putting his jacket on while fist fighting with Frank at the same time. What he beat out of him was that they had wanted Mike out of New York because they’d thought he was about to uncover their large bookmaking operation there. The show ended with a good line: “I knew right from the beginning that anybody who could lie as fast as you could and be so pretty doing it couldn’t be all good. And that’s too bad.”