Bootman and the Boy Bobby

You just can’t beat an old fashioned super hero tale, Halfy - just can’t...

Especially if illustrated with "BIFF!" and "POW!" in colored cartoon stars.  I reckon you can come close in the narrative with big colored letters, though: BIFF!    POW!!

Already on to it, Halfy! Come on, man, no spoilers!

7


“What a fine fettle of felines we have,” Bootman said as he pulled the ticker tape from his Macintosh and slowly read it. “Now, Bobby, I have a puzzle for you,” he asked after a few tension building moments. “Now listen carefully:

‘The velvet glove,
The feline hand,
The red haired lass, or wiggy?
The pictured love
We understand
Was two boy cats, all figgy?’

“Err... mmm... Atually, Bobby, that’s two questions....”

“And Bloody stupid questions even by Ol’ Anon’s low standards...”

“Yes, but what do they mean?” Bootman asked, a knowing glint in his beautiful eyes.

“It’s well past 9pm and Ol’ Anon feels he better keep going before he loses interest? ... .... But, no.... Hang on... wiggy... well, remember Julia Figg? Her red hair? And that mention of figgy? By great goombah’s gonads, Bootman! Could Julia Figg be Pussywoman?”

“Exacto, Bobby. When I punched in the words cat, fornication, painting and wig into my computer I got Julia Figg. Amazing!”

“You’re right there. But what made you think to punch in wig?”

“Bobby, I always punch in a random word and often get surprisingly accurate answers.”

“Do you? Amazing!”

“Quick now, Bobby. To the Bootmobile!”

After winding up the engine, the Boy Bobby jumped into the passenger seat of the Bootmobile and, remembering first to clasp the bootbelt around his expansive tummy, asked:

“Where to, Bootman?”

“Where else but to Julia Figg’s Eel Emporium for Stray Cats!” Bootman answered, releasing the brake lever.

“Of course,” Bobby exclaimed in exasperation, punching a fist into the palm of his other hand. “Fornicating cats and a professional Eel Wrangler. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because,” Bootman smiled winningly, his superbly polished teeth blinking in reds and yellows and oranges, reflecting back the bootmobile console dash equipment lights. “I am Bootman and you are the Boy Bobby.”

And the Bootmobile sped out of the bootcave and headed down a dusty road to the highway to Forum City, hurtling at top bootspeed.

Verrrrrrrry interesting

8

They parked the Bootmobile several blocks away from Julia’s twelve storey Eel Emporium.

“We must be quiet,” Bootman advised the Boy Bobby. “To catch a cat you need to move like a cat, think like a cat and fight like a cat.”

“Do we really have to fight? You know, I am getting a bit too old for that kind of thing. Why not just call Commissioner Dave and Halfred O’Hara Fysyckfreke and just surround the place.”

“For someone who only last chapter (I think it was last chapter) said you had an old fashioned view of how super heroes do stuff, you certainly are willing to give up on the violent stuff that is so much part of being a super hero who children can look up to.”

“It’s just I take days to recover nowadays. It’s alright for you young super heroes, but what about us aging ones with arthritis and bellies ballooning with late middle age? And cat fights with Pussywoman’s minions. I mean. Can’t we just kick them with sleeping gas.”

“I left those boots at home. Nothing for it. Come along Bobby.”

And so the caped crus... goodies... or whatever I called them a few chapters back... moved like cats along the street. Well, not exactly like cats because they were padding along on two feet, but their boots were doing a marvellous job of sounding like cat feet, imperceptible to humans; though not to cats; and angry dogs, could hear them. This latter caused them to take sudden detours at times, which the Boy Bobby became irritated with quite quickly, as he did not like running full tilt with a Doberman snapping at his arse.

At one stage, they padded past a cafe. The patrons took an immediate interest in them.

“I say, isn’t that Batman and the Boy Wonder.! I wonder why the Boy Wonder is in pink.”

“No, I think that is the Boy Bobby.”

“What? That old guy with a big hairy chest and an even bigger beer belly who crashed our party last Friday and only agreed to group sex if we kept quiet about it?”

“That’s him. Got all funny when Sophia wanted to join in. She has Daddy issues. Mmm... yeah the Boy Bobby got a bit funny about that, her not being a boy and all, I suspect....

“Fair flying freckles, Bootman!” the Boy Bobby mumbled. “I wish people wouldn’t gossip so idly at cafes. Can you imagine the damage being done to the reputations of respectable people!”

“And that must be Bootman. Yes, look at his boots. Look like the ones I saw on TV. Catboots, I think. Marvellous creation.”

Bootman looked pleased.

The Boy Bobby mumbled, “Say something nice about you, but, me, well they pretty much spread it about I’m an old hairy chested fat-gutted poof who only made love to that beautiful young woman from Baltimore because I was feeling fatherly...”

“I don’t think think they quite said that, Bobby.”

“Didn’t they? Well they sure implied it!”

A few minutes later they arrived at the Eel Emporium on Fifty Eighth Street.

“What now, Bootman?”

“We must climb to the seventh floor and seek to surprise Pussywoman and her Catgirls!”

“Catgirls! Don’t tell me I have to punch and kick women half to death.... again! I am so getting bored with that. And how the hell do we climb to the seventh floor? Have you got our wall-climbing boots hidden down your undies? Actually, come to think, I think they’re down at the shoe makers getting the Velcro replaced...”

“These are catboots, Bobby. We can just walk up the wall.”

The Boy Bobby looked up the side of the building doubtfully.

“Cats can’t just walk up walls.”

“Of course they can,” and Bootman marched off up the wall.

“Fair enough,” the Boy Bobby mumbled and followed him, not for the first time in his crime fighting career thinking his life was a little over full with utter nonsense and maybe it was time to retire and wile away his latter days sitting on a back verandah somewhere drinking whisky, smoking pot and playing the blues on a jangly beaten up guitar called Trigger...

Halfway to the seventh floor, a window opened (unexpectedly) and Petty Buckiemyer stuck his head out.

“Ooh Bootman unza Boyo Bobbho! Eye hoop yor luukin four mee pantin!!”

“That we are, good citizen, that we are!” answered Bootman.

“That was an anti-Climax, Bootman,” the Boy Bobby mumbled. “Why couldn’t it have been Miranda Kerr or... maybe even Hugh Jackman.” And the Boy Bobby’s mouth had a wistful twist just then.

Before they knew it.... actually, at the time they reached it, they knew it... umm... they reached the seventh floor window. Peeking sneakily in they witnessed a rather interesting, possibly shocking, scene...

I love it! The cafe scene especially.

You and your precious cat-boots... of course you love it....

9

“Great smelly socks and bent bananas, Bootman, those Catgirls are so next to naked they’re almost nude,” the Boy Bobby exclaimed in disgust. “If not for those Velcro cat ears and those sleek cat tails attached with belts around their waists and those fur balls down the front, they’d be totally starkers! I can’t look.”

“I’m not sure they’re fur balls, Boy Bobby.”

“Well, if not fur balls, what are they? You know, if they were catboys I’d say they look like... well, boy patches without the attachments... ... ooooohhhh my gawwwd... I remember that girl from Baltimore now... great muffins with stuffins! Bootman, I....”

“No need to say anything more, I think the reader gets the picture by now,” Bootman said, seeming to take in every nuance of that horrid scene. Catgirls on carpet covered scratching posts; catgirls lying in little groups, somewhat entangled, and licking each other as if some were mother cats cleaning their kittens; catgirls... oh dear, I can’t go on.. this being a Wholesome Tale, or, at least, in the Wholesome Tale mode. Surely, some things are beyond the pale, dear reader, and best left to your imaginations...

“I really feel like giving them a serious and thorough kicking,” the Boy Bobby hissed, his eyes suddenly steely with resolve. “Disgusting! I’m so glad my Mother is not alive to see this! Not so sure about my Father....”

“Mmm....” Bootman replied, a bit too dreamily for the Boy Bobby’s liking.

“Come on Bootman. We need to break in on this horrid scene and beat up these pampered pussies and kick their fur balls to the dickens, and find Pussywoman and give her what for, and find Petty’s painting.... Sweet sweat of a sweaty scent-oiled orangatang, Bootman! Will you please get that dreamy stupid look off your face and concentrate!”

“Oh sorry, Bobby... it’s just, well, they are very cute pussies...all of them... and you know how much I like cute pussies..”

“I really don’t know what to say now,” the Boy Bobby said, and he really didn’t.