The Jones Boys
The Jones Boys
He knew the answer, but there was no way to he was going to raise his hand…unless he was raising it with his comb to scrape through his hair. There was no two ways about the answer though, he knew it. Right now some loser in the first row was coming out of his seat trying to get the professors attention.
"Professor! Professssoooor!!" He waved his hand for effect and Mutt suppressed a laugh… was getting one answer to one question that important? If you knew it, good for you, if you didn't so what? Either way, why make yourself look like an idiot?
Ignoring the boy in front the professor kept scanning the room, "Profffesssssor!"
Mutt let a chuckle loose.
"Mr. Williams… do you know the answer?"
"Well, prof, I think Kellis does, maybe you should ask him. He seems excited about it." In the front row Michael Kellis blushed. He was a slight boy who always had an answer, not always the right answer but an answer nonetheless. He was sadly used to Mutt's jibe.
"Akkadian, Dr. Jones." Kellis raised his chin proudly, "They're the earliest form of writing we know."
Mutt scoffed.
"Mr. Williams, first you don't want to answer the question, and now you're mocking the person who did answer."
"Well, he's wrong, sir." Mutt reached into his pocket and pulled out his comb, pulling it evenly through both sides of his head. Beside him a girl rolled her eyes at him, the class greaser. One of only a handful in the entire college, and the others weren't genuine greasers but rich boys impersonating them. Mutt was unique, and not necessarily in a positive way.
"If you disagree with Akkadian, which culture do you think the earliest form of writing originated from?"
"Sumerian cuneiform. We can't read it because it's a unique language, it has no modern counterparts. The Akkadian's took over the Sumerian culture and converted their language to Akkadian but kept Sumerian cuneiform. So we can read what's in Akkadian, but it actually started with Sumerian."
The professor sighed and smiled, "Mr. Williams is correct. While often mistaken as the originating culture of the writing word, the Akkadians are merely the conquering culture. As we know, however, to the victor goes the ability to write history. In this case, literally. They preserved Sumerian documents in Sumerian but we have no way of translating these; no one decided a dictionary was an appropriate book."
The class let a light laugh flow through the room.
"We have one surviving Sumerian story, only surviving because the Assyrians had an Akkadian translation, is Gilgamesh. Some of you may have had the privilege in High School to read it, but I'm assigning portions of it. You can pick them off my desk on the way out along with your last test. On that note, class dismissed."
Students filed out slowly, especially Michael Kellis who made sure he asked the professor to look over his notes to insure that they were accurate. He maintained that studying poorly constructed notes was why he confused the two cultures earlier.
"These look fine Kellis, I'm sure you'll do fine. Your test score improved this time, its nice to see that."
"Thanks Dr. Jones." Kellis took his test and his copy of Gilgamesh and wandered to his next class.
In the back of the room Mutt Williams was combing his hair again, pretending that was the reason that he was moving slowly out of class. He didn't want the rest of the class knowing he was waiting for his father for a slew of reasons, the chief of which was that he would no longer be able to maintain the cool, uncaring greaser image. He might still be considered cool, but in a weird, nerd way that comes from the mild cult of hero worship at the College for Dr. Jones.
As the last people left, Indiana Jones shut his brief case and held out a stapled pile of papers.
"Just because we live in the same house does not mean I am schlumping your essays and exams back and forth for you. And please, start submitting the essays during class instead of at home. People are going to wonder how you magically have papers when it never looks like you submit them."
"Yeah yeah, let me see the test…. What the hell is this?" Mutt shook the paper when he saw the grade, " 77? How? I didn't get a single question wrong! This is unfair, prejudiced treatment!"
Indy took the paper, flipped the first two pages, which as Mutt said didn't possess a single wrong answer, and pointed to the last page. The essay portion.
"What's wrong with it? I gave the right answer!" Mutt protested.
"You wrote four sentences. It's an essay question worth 30 points. Essay. Long. You know what they are, you occasionally write them."
"It was a simple question, it didn't require more than four sentences to answer!"
"It's an essay question! Essay." Indy started walking back to his office.
"This is bullshit, you didn't say how long an answer you just called it an essay portion and gave a question. An easy question. Explain why ancient cultures use buffalo in their art when it does not appear they were a food source. AND I DID!"
"Bullshit or not, any English major will tell you an essay has an opening, a body and a conclusion. You want to make a short one? Be my guest, it makes grading the papers quicker but four sentences barely make an opening, let alone an entire essay. End of discussion."
Mutt forgot himself and in his frustration grabbed his hair with both hands, ruining his careful coif. When he realized it he darted to the mirror in his father's office and began to fix it. Indy smiled and shook his head. Mutt hated the structure of school, the rules, the red tape. The hoops he had to jump through. Despite that, he was an amazing student. Absorbed knowledge like a sponge. He didn't just memorize, he understood. He wasn't a prodigy but he was smart… Indy was grateful that Mutt had decided to make an attempt at peace with his newly discovered father that he would try school.
With Indy coaching him, he passed the GED after only studying for one year, making up for the two he missed from high school. Indy was so proud of him…but that was one of the roughest years of Indy's life. He was getting used to being married, getting used to being a father, getting used to moody, emotional teenage boys, and trying to teach a son that was still coping with the whole familial structure he was used to getting turned upside down. There were fights, monumental fights, epic fights…fights where Marion wound up boxing both men's ears and putting them in separate rooms. Fights where she'd threatened to lock them in a trunk together until they learned peace.
But from that, Indy and Mutt had learned something very important: they both loved history, and they were both very good at learning about it. It didn't take much effort for either to learn it, love it, and be a source on it. If Mutt wasn't so bad at structuring his papers, Indy would have suggested publication. Some of the ideas were enlightening, but the boy was simply a bad study at writing and had no desire whatever to change that. It was surprising for someone who read as much as Mutt did, but it was there. Indy was beginning to crack down harder on him for it, and the boy was not appreciating it.
Then again, they'd never gone easy on each other. That's just not how they were. At all. Luckily, both were somewhat at peace with that aspect of their personalities.
"So, Daddio, we going to the bar? Grab a beer, play some darts?"
They had gotten into a somewhat comfortable place where they could relax together and hang out. For all that they would never let each other know, they both found the other interesting and liked to get to know the person both had missed for the first twenty years. They knew that the last year and a half didn't change much, but it helped. If they could never regain the paternal bond Mutt shared with Ox, they could achieve some degree of intimacy and appreciation.
"Yeah, just let me go over some of the papers from my Late Egyptian class… twenty minutes?"
Mutt nodded and pulled out a book from another class. After the struggle of getting his diploma, Mutt knew Indy wanted him to go onto college. But he took time, he wanted to scope out the classes and see if he wanted to actually do that. After auditing a couple courses, Mutt enrolled. Marion and Indy were both shocked, but pleased, to see him select one of Indy's own Ancient Civilization courses. Mutt brushed it off, saying the other professors were boring, but Indy knew it was because Mutt trusted him to neither be too hard or too easy on him given that he was Indy's son. Not every professor at the school did that. Mutt had been forced to drop his advanced mechanics class because there was some kind of grudge between the professor and his father. Not changing his name had helped distance himself somewhat, but the teachers that knew Marion and Indy were married had heard of Mutt. Most of the students didn't know, and Mutt intended to keep that barrier.
There they sat, the two Jones boys, one grading papers, one reading Gilgamesh.
Then there was a knock.
"Come in." Indy muttered and Mutt turned the handle, allowing the door to swing open.
"Dr. Jones? Are you terribly busy or can I talk with you a moment?"
Both men looked up and saw a girl, holding books and a box and a leather coat. She had a full length skirt and a blouse with enough buttons open that Mutt pretended to stretch to get a better look at down the gap.
"That depends on what you want." Indy stood up and extended his hand, "Dr. Indiana Jones."
"Laurel Weston." She shook his hand, "Am I interrupting something?"
She gestured to Mutt, catching him stare at her breasts, and raising an eyebrow at him, letting a smile show.
"Smooth…" She looked at the nametag on his jacket, "Mutt?"
"Uh, this is Mutt Williams, Miss…Weston? As in the Briar Westons?" Indy turned her attention back to him, "As in Martin Weston?"
"Yes…are you sure I'm not interrupting?"
Mutt stood up, "No, Dr. Jones, we'll continue what we started later."
He walked outside the door, just to the side where he'd be generally out of the way. Twenty minutes later he wondered if he should just go to the bar and start alone when the door to the office opened.
"I'm intrigued, Laurel. But I am afraid there is little basis to these claims. However, if you still feel that this is attracting attention I'd be happy to help in whatever capacity I can. Martin was a good man. A bad cook, but a good man."
"Thank you, Dr. Jones."
Laurel shook Indy's hand and caught Mutt's eye, "Sorry to keep him so long."
She smiled at Mutt again, something was behind it that he couldn't decipher. Indy seemed to understand it though, and said, "Mutt, why don't you walk Laurel out? She's visiting and isn't very familiar with the school."
Mutt shrugged, "Alright… where'd you park?"
"In front of the library…which is on the other side of the universe, I gather. It took me twenty minutes to find the offices."
"It's not quite so bad…follow me." As they walked Mutt once more combed his hair.
They didn't really talk for the first few minutes, there was an awkward silence of two total strangers.
"So…how do you know Dr. Jones?"
"He's my professor. He's a good guy. Friend of my mom's too." It was the typical response Mutt gave people, usually not even offering that Indy and his mom had any connection whatever.
"Yes, I've heard he's a good man. He was friends with my father briefly, during the war. But he left quite the impression… I heard he was somewhat of an adventurer. Someone who took the hard cases or the strange ones. He comes back with a lot of stories, little actual proof but a lot of people say that he's solved some…extremely big puzzles."
"Yeah, well people say that…who knows if it's true? I know he does a lot of field work."
"Well, he says he isn't doing it so much anymore."
That struck Mutt…how many cases did Indy and Marion fight over because he wanted to go traveling and Marion didn't want to disrupt everything. Her job, his job, Mutt's job, Mutt's classes… Mutt kind of wished they'd have another adventure. He had had the best and worst moments of his life on their last trip; he wouldn't mind that again.
"Well, I don't know about that." Mutt fought the urge to comb his hair again.
"What do you know about?"
Oh…he sensed flirtation, he allowed himself to comb his hair again, "Depends on what you want to know about…I know lots of things."
She quirked an eyebrow at his hair combing, "The jacket says Mac's Auto Mechanics… what's your poison, cars or bikes?"
He smiled, "Bikes…you could say that there's a, a, uh, freedom in them. You know, its really liberating to go for a ride, the wind in your hair and nothing but the hum of the engine."
He put on his coolest voice and tried to sound nonchalant, "I have a Harley, it's uh…pretty fast. Maybe you'd like to go fast with me sometime?"
They turned the corner and were in front of the system, "So, doll, which one's your car?"
She laughed, "Well, doll, I don't have a car."
She walked up to a shiny 1958 Ducati motorcycle. Mutt felt his jaw drop and tried to close it, "So I sounded like an idiot."
"It was a cute attempt. Hold these?" She handed him her books and un-tied her frumpy long skirt. Underneath were leather pants, she shrugged on the jacket she'd been carrying and then took her books back from Mutt. The box she hadn't let go of, and now she placed it securely in a box fastened to her sissy bars.
"So you have a Harley? You say it goes fast?" She smiled and winked, "Maybe if you're lucky I'll let you have a go on a world championship crafted bike, not some American tinker toy."
He laughed, "You beat my Harley, I'll eat my hat."
She reached to his back pocket where he kept his cap and pulled it out, studying it, and proclaiming, "Looks dry, may I recommend gravy?"
"How about dinner after the race, loser pays?" Mutt shot back, "Friday night?"
Laurel smiled, "How's 7 by the county road that's past the soda parlor?"
"You're on…Laurel, right?"
"Right, Mutt."
Mutt had a goofy smile on his face, dates were always a plus. Racing was a plus. Combining the two was double the fun for him…he had to love a girl who knew her bikes. He just wondered how she afforded the Ducati, the top of the line model she had cost a pretty penny.
Indy saw the smile, and shook his head.
"Don't get your hopes up too high, Junior."
"What?" Mutt only half heard his father, "Why?"
"The Briar Weston's are the oldest family in Europe. They can trace their roots back to the Exiled Irish Monks establishing a line in the 800s. They also have money tracing back there too."
"What's she doing here then?"
"Her parents were found dead a year ago, the circumstances were somewhat dubious. She claims that her father was doing research into a family myth that ended in mystery, he was lost, her mom went to find him and they both wound up dead a few days later. She was recently expelled from a private school because she stopped cooperating with teachers, claiming she had better work to do. She thinks her father's research was why he was 'killed'."
"And she wants you to help?"
"Its research that has no basis in archaeology right now. She's a nice kid, her father was a friend of mine during the war. Sweet man but a bit eccentric. I think she's mourning and she needs other things to do than obsess about her parents' death."
Mutt cocked his head, "Which is why you told me to walk her out?"
"Kid, I had no motive in wanting you to walk her out except that you didn't seem to be getting the impression from her that I was getting."
"I'm confused."
"I could see she was interested. She thought it was funny that you looked down her shirt, not offensive. That means you should pursue."
"Oh…I'm more interested in her bike then her boobs. She has a new Ducati." Mutt's eyes lit remembering that gorgeous bike, "We're racing Friday night."
Indy rolled his eyes and sighed, "At least I know that's not an innuendo."
Mutt rose his eyebrows, "What's an innuendo?"
Indy slung an arm around Mutt's shoulders, "Just focus on that Ducati, Mutt."
a/n
there's a full story in my head but I'm a very sporadic updater. If you like it so far, just put it on story alert and see if it gets more.
First time Indy writer, big Mutt fan.
Review please!