Hey, it’s Vic again
Did you ever try to help somebody out and find out later you were really helping out yourself? It’s funny how sometimes one thing leads to another. Yeah I know, lending a hand can lead to something bad, but sometimes it can lead to something good. Anyway, I was tryin’ to help out Timmy, my kid nephew. He wasn’t a bright kid, but he was a good kid, and his mother, my sister, needed a break. Timmy was in a band and he thought I could help the band get a record deal–on account I used to be in the music business myself, sort of, and, as the saying goes, I knew a guy.
The guy I knew worked for the government, and years before, his kid had been in a band. At the time, I was workin’ as a disc jockey at a little radio station in Colorado. The guy dropped in on me unannounced and he was very convincing.
Before I knew it, I was playin’ the heck out of his kid’s record, once every hour, over and over for about a month. I was just tryin’ to help somebody, and I thought it was cool because in a way I was helpin’ out the country. The band caught on and got a record deal. I’m not gonna tell who they were, on account the kid’s father was in the CIA at the time, and he wouldn’t want me to be tellin’ tales out of school.
So one day I was drivin’ up to Spokane to meet my old CIA acquaintance. I figured he owed me a favor. I had my nephew’s demo tape in my jacket pocket. I didn’t know how things were gonna go, but I kept thinkin’ tit for tat, one good turn deserves another and all that stuff.
What happened next, would make a good movie. It might even turbo-charge your admiration of the days of Wolfman Jack, baseball and improbable love affairs. THREE STRIKES, YOU’RE DEAD is a novel by Len Koepsell, but it’s really my story. Yeah, I’m Vic Jennings, and I’m an umpire, but no longer just an umpire.
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