an on-the-spot story

From today’s two-and-a-half hour Los Angeles Zoom writing group:

“…….

“Another thing I did in those 12 years was to take a correspondents course from this private institute in the Haight in San Francisco, it was a course to help you become a private detective. Including hooking you up with someone you’d apprentice with and collect enough supervised hours to qualify for a legitimate state license. It wasn’t cheap, the course and program from that San Francisco school, and so far in my life I’ve never been one to have much money. But I’ve got an uncle named Everett – everyone calls him DeeDee – and he thought it was something of a gas that his bouncing-around nephew wanted to be a P.I. So he offered to pay the tab, a gift he said, and he did, and I hung in there through all the crap along with the really interesting stuff, and seven months ago I got my official Investigator’s license from the state of California in the mail.

“And it’s right over there on the wall between the two windows which look out on Dog Beach here in San Diego, the OB section of the city, where I rent this small room in a multi-purpose building. And Monday Jean Wiley called me up, someone at Peace House had this number, and she said her daughter was dead and it wasn’t an accident and the cops weren’t doing anything and would I please help.

“And I said yes.”