Shipjack and Other Stories
by
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1. MARINA MURDER: George Rogers (the hero of the story) lay on the operating table on his back, staring up at the circular lights in the operating room, trying to be calm. He had been told the injections would make him sleepy and happy. He was neither. He could not rid his mind of the memories, the stream of thoughts of the events which were ultimately responsible for his being in that operating room. George's strong face twisted in pain. He clenched his teeth, closing his deep-set blue eyes as he waited for the pain killer the paramedics had given him to ease his agony. His black hair was plastered down over his head, dripping water. His powerful, naked frame sprawled limply on the operating gurney. 2. T.P.I.T.N.M.: The thing I hate (Benny, the hero) most about the office is Private Investigator Vic Rawling, the peeping Tom. Vic spies on people's private lives and doesn't like to be called a peeping Tom. I only call him that in private and silently. Vic is a 500 pound gorilla who doesn't like 90 pound weaklings publishing dumb magazines about inventors and inventions, and said 90-pounder slavering around Dixie who Vic has staked a claim on. Dixie's young, 26, so she doesn't know much about men yet, which explains why she prefers Vic to me. I try not to believe Dixie likes Vic for his new Pontiac Trans-Am, his bank account, and his generosity at the better restaurants in town which Vic and Dixie go to a lot. I go to McDonald's for a Big Mac. Sometimes. 3. THE GOD MAKER: as I (the hero) had predicted, loudly and often, the world slowly collapsed as inflation destroyed the value of money until no currency in the world had any intrinsic vale and the necessities of life: food, shelter, heat, and clothing became too expensive for the people to buy! The politicians and the bureaucrats did nothing until it was too late then they did the wrong things and my world collapsed! I was well prepared for my world's collapse, but when it came it caught me by surprise and disaster followed. I was out of my house, away from my family, when it happened, a country-wide breakdown of authority and sanity, the people exploding in to mindless rioting and anarchy which meant the Army and Navy and Airforce had to be called out which helped until the Armed Forces rebelled and refused to control the people, which meant the end, and it quickly came: my country disintegrated in to fragments. 4. THE MARRIAGE SIMULATOR: Mike's and Loretta's (main characters) big idea is the creation of a marriage simulator that people can practice on before they get married, the idea being, that if people could only practice sex with a sex simulator, something like aircraft pilots do to learn about a new aircraft before they try it in the air, which is much safer and saves aircraft from being destroyed by pilot error, people would have a much better chance of being successful with their sex lives if they were well trained in the many skills a person needs to be a skillful, creative, innovative lover than they are just by the few sexual encounters most men and women have before marriage, and, of course, there are those men and women who do not want sex before marriage, which puts them at a distinct sexual disadvantage, as the divorce statistics so graphically show. Nothing is more important than successful sex in marriage, a vital skill that men and women leave to unskilled, clumsy, apprehensive groping in a dark bedroom on their wedding night, a dumb way of doing things by human beings who make special efforts to train themselves in everything they do except in this most vital function that all human beings want desperately to be good at. 5. SHIPJACK: (The big tanker is a hover to off of the California cost) After a short wait the big company helicopter flopped into view. Guests and crew stood watching it as it swung around and settled down to a perfect landing on the heliport. The big chopper doors opened. A group of men leaped out with submachine guns in their hands, then they ran for the bridge, shouting. Captain Tarr started, then he leaped closer to the bridge windows, staring below at the running armed men. Easy Million came on the run from the left bridge wing, his face white, yelling: They're attacking us!" Rapid popping sounds erupted from the deck below. The women on the bridge began to scream. Shouts and wild yells and running feet, guns exploding, could be heard coming closer to the bridge. Captain Tarr lunged to a telephone, tore it off its hook, yelling for the radioman. No one answered. The seaman at the helm stared around with wide eyes. He couldn't see below to the heliport. Easy Million darted below to reappear with his hands up. Three dark, savage men, with submachine guns pointed at him, followed him onto the bridge. One leaped towards Captain Tarr, shoving him viciously away from the phone. Captain Tarr fell to the deck, hard, but got to his feet at once, his face set and grim, and red with anger, apparently unhurt.
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About the Book
Shipjack
1. MARINA MURDER is a murder story set in the Long Beach California Marina where Mr. Warner used to work on the fireboat. There is a history about Marina Murder so it was left in with the hope that it would be interesting to the public. The main character drops a wrench over the side of his boat, dives down to get it, and discovers he has dived into a den of drug-thugs who see him and go after him to make sure he doesn't go to the police. He almost didn't make it!
2. T.P.I.T.N.M. is the story of a brainy kid and inventor who is the owner and publisher of National Inventor Magazine. He helps an old man at an inventor show, which changes his life forever.
3. THE GOD MAKER is the story of the destruction of civilization by inflation, with the help of destructive chaos, turmoil, disease, and starvation. All of these things destroy the super powers when the electricity goes off and the oil stops, destroying the rest of civilization. This is also the story of the man who saves some of civilization and gets it started again!
4. MARRIAGE SIMULATOR is another popular Krong The Watcher story. A young man and a young woman go to see Krong to ask if the Watchers have some kind of machine that teaches people the skills of marriage, and if not, can the Watchers build such a simulator, which would, in principle, be much like the simulators used by pilots for training on a new aircraft before they fly it. It's a great idea, so Krong and the Watchers agree to make the simulator for them. Unbeknownst to the young man and young woman, the Marriage Simulator has a deadly trap that is just waiting to snare them in its toils.
5. SHIPJACK is the story of the shipjacking of the biggest oil tanker in the world, hauling one million tons of oil, by some Middle East thugs who sail it into New York Harbor and demand one billion dollars in gold and the President of the United States of America as a hostage or they will blow it up and destroy the harbor!!! Danny Onion, a civilian who helped build the huge tanker, is called in to help, and he meets Captain Suzie Que of the United States Army. Together they seek a way to stop the shipjackers from achieving their evil goals, but just what can they do?!
About the Author
Robert James Warner was born and raised in Long Beach, California, where he attended school. He was drafted into the Navy on March 9, 1944, during World War II as soon as he finished his last semester in high school. He was discharged from the Navy on June 16, 1946. Mr. Warner went back to school, Long Beach City College, on the GI Bill, taking mechanical engineering, then switching to journalism. After about a year and a half at City College, he quit. Mr. Warner had always been interested in writing, but he had huge handicaps to overcome: he couldn't spell (he still can't), and grammar was then and is now a mystery to him. Mr. Warner first began to write when he was about 20. During the next few years, he wrote some songs, poetry, and short stories, but his output was quite low. From 1947, after Mr. Warner left City College, to 1950, he had a number of different inconsequential jobs, the longest at Douglas Aircraft in Long Beach where he worked in the blueprint department for eight months. He then quit and loafed awhile. In 1950, he enlisted in the Active Naval Reserve as a Week End Warrior so he could learn seamanship and get paid doing it. He has had a life-long love affair with boats (building his own) and fishing. About three months later, the Korean War started and Mr. Warner was called back to active duty in the Navy Aircorp for a year, getting discharged in August 1951, serving on three aircraft carriers, operating off Korea in the China Sea, and bombing and strafing the communists! After Korea, Mr. Warner went back to City College for awhile, then he got a job on a freighter as a deckhand and made two trips to the Hawaiian Islands (about 30 days round trip), hauling bulk sugar for C&H Sugar in Crocket California on the Sacramento River. Leaving the ship in Crocket, he went to Santa Rosa, California, where he washed dishes in some restaurants and got a poem published in the local newspaper–a big day in his life. Next, he went to Yosemite and washed some more dishes, and then he went home. Mr. Warner has cleaned chicken dung from under the pens; owned and operated his own auto wrecking yard; owned his own 2nd Store; was half owner of a yacht landing; speculated in real estate; and worked at some other odd jobs, going to work for the Long Beach Fire Department in 1953 for the next 26 years and retiring in October 1979. Mr. Warner married in 1961, had a son in 1963, and then divorced in 1973. In 1974, Mr. Warner and his son, Jeff, drove to Alaska during the summer. On his return, Mr. Warner wrote his first novel. Since 1974, Mr. Warner has written thirty-one novels, about 125 short stories, two Civil War books, and two poetry collections.