MY MASTER, HOWARD
The Bob Newhart Show/I Dream of Jeannie Crossover Fan Fiction
By CAJeannieFan57/Donna
CHAPTER 1 – DATELINE, FEBRUARY 1989
The huge jumbo jetliner carefully left Baghdad airspace, mindful of the unsettled conditions below. Normally, soldiers left commercial airliners alone, but they were always on the watch. Onboard the aircraft were American and Iraqi businessmen, heading for New York City or points beyond in the United States. In the cockpit were two American pilots, and a crew of 6 flight attendants were in the cabins, taking care of the passengers. Though the flight attendants were Americans, two of them spoke Farsi.
One of the shorter Iraqi men stood and went into the overhead compartment above his seat. He needed a large folder from his bag, and removed a small, ornate bottle in order to get to the papers. While working with the papers, he left the bottle out in the corner of the compartment. Returning the papers to the suitcase later, he forgot about the bottle.
The plane arrived safely in New York City. This was its last stop for another week, so the flight attendants did a thorough sweep of all under-seat and overhead storage bins. The usual things were found – sweaters, jackets, a small photo album (with an address inside, which was unusual), small non-airline style pillows, and something very different: a deep red and gold decorative bottle. Maizie, the flight attendant who found the bottle, looked at it curiously. She gathered all the lost and found material together, prepared to deliver it to the company's office, but kept the bottle out so that it wouldn't break.
The 8 crew members left the plane together, but co-pilot Howard Borden and Maizie took up the rear of the group.
"Whew, I'm glad that flight's over, aren't you?" Howard said to Maizie.
"Yes. The pay is nice, when they give us Hazardous Duty Pay, but I'm always glad to get out of Iraqi airspace. Hey, did you see what I found on this plane?" Maizie showed Howard the bottle.
"Wow – may I?" He wanted to see the bottle, so Maizie handed it to him. "Gosh, that's pretty."
"Too bad neither of us can keep it. It has to go to Lost and Found."
Howard sensed that there was something different about this bottle. He wasn't sure what. "This would go really nicely on my coffee table, now that Rhonda's moved out and taken all her stuff with her." Rhonda had lived with Howard, as his girlfriend.
"Captain Borden – you can't keep it. It has to go to Lost and Found," Maizie repeated. They got to the end of the concourse where the security gates were for passengers and crew. "Oh, there's my husband. I'll see you whenever we fly together again, Captain. Make sure that bottle gets to Lost and Found!"
Howard knew it was against company regulations, but decided to keep the bottle for a few days before turning it into the company office. He stashed it in his flight bag and went to catch the shuttle over to the building where he'd catch a flight home to Chicago. He didn't have to work that flight, because he'd already worked his maximum hours for the week.
At his apartment building in Chicago, he looked nostalgically over at Apartment 525. Bob and Emily Hartley had moved away over 10 years before, but Howard still missed them. Emily wrote him letters all the time, but he'd never found such good friends or good neighbors. He had one neighbor that was willing to collect his mail for him while he was out on flight, but it wasn't the same as dropping in on someone just to talk, to ease the loneliness he felt. Howard's son Howie was 25, had married the year before, and didn't tolerate his dad calling him all the time. Howie lived in Minneapolis now, working as a D.J. in a radio station. Whenever Howard's flight schedule took him to Minneapolis, he tried to look up his son.
Inside his own apartment, Howard unpacked his flight bag, throwing his dirty laundry on the floor. When he found the bottle he had stashed inside, he took it out to the living room and placed it on the coffee table. Later, he found himself staring at the bottle, so he picked it up and removed the stopper. First he sniffed at the bottle, and a whiff of women's perfume hit his nose. He tipped the bottle slightly into his hand, thinking it might be a perfume bottle, but nothing came out. Carefully and slowly, he tipped the bottle upside down, but nothing came out. One blue eye peeked cautiously into the bottle, but it couldn't see anything. So the bottle was returned to the coffee table and the cork placed on it.
"Guess I'll just bring it to Lost and Found in three days, when I have to go back to work," Howard said to no one in particular. "But it sure is pretty!"
The bottle sat on the coffee table for those three days, but when Howard went on a one-day round trip flight, down to St Louis and back, the bottle was forgotten and stayed on the table. Howard wasn't fond of flying to St Louis…a city that Bob had once described as "down and to the right". You barely got the plane into the air, when it was time to land. On the ground an hour, change to another plane, and fly back to Chicago: same thing, barely up and it's time to land again. It wasn't so bad if he had a layover there. St Louis had loads of jazz clubs where he could kill time. There was even a jazz club for singles like himself.
Once back at home after the down-and-back flight to St. Louis, Howard sat on the sofa and stared at the bottle again. He'd forgotten to bring it back to Lost and Found, and wondered what type of owner carried this kind of bottle around. Howard picked up the bottle, removed the stopper and laid it on the table, and saw something strange on the side of the bottle – what looked like the remains of a sticker. He rubbed a little at it, to see if he could read it, when a reddish gold smoke emerged from the bottle. The bottle was quickly placed on the table and Howard jumped back onto the sofa as a beautiful young girl emerged from the reddish gold smoke!
The woman was breathtaking, Howard noticed with wide eyes. Dark brunette hair on a tiny lithe body clothed in some sort of red and gold Arabian type outfit, the girl dropped to her knees, bowed to the floor and muttered something totally unintelligible to Howard, then looked up at him with curiosity.
"WHO are YOU!" Howard said.
Once again, the girl said something that Howard couldn't understand, because he didn't know the language. He looked her over in a way that she could understand – curiosity and admiration both.
"I don't know how you just did that, but you just came out of a bottle! But girls don't come out of bottles….do they?" Howard was shocked. He closed his eyes and turned around, but when he turned back and opened his eyes again, the girl was still standing there, hands folded as in prayer, slightly bent over as in bowing to him. Howard got up and started to pace, something he always did when he got nervous.
The girl said something again to him, and gave him a look with her eyes. She was trying to signal to him what he should say to her, but he wasn't getting it. She dropped to her knees and bowed again.
"Girls don't come from bottles. They don't wear – those Arabian things – when they come out of bottles. They aren't supposed to be beautiful knock-em dead women," Howard said as he paced back and forth around his living room, still looking at the young thing on her knees on his floor. "Oh, please get up. I'd like a better look at you than your back and backside," he told her, wondering if she could understand him.
She stayed there, so he assumed she didn't understand. He paced some more.
"WAIT a minute! There was a movie on TV a few nights ago – about this genie – played by Burl Ives – he came out of a LAMP - a real lamp, not one of those silver things like they came out of in cartoons. But he was a GUY, a MAN, not a GIRL! Are you a girl genie?"
There was no response. She did, however, rise from the bowing position and just stayed on her knees, looking at him in wonder. She liked what she saw – a good looking man, older than her previous master, brown hair with a touch of grey and a little bald spot in the back, beautiful blue eyes, probably about 6 feet tall by American measure – but somewhat slow. It had taken him 5 days to get her out of the bottle – how long was it going to take him to figure out the command to make her speak to him in English?
"Okay, genies – that means I get three wishes or something like that, right?" Howard stopped to think, and the young girl smiled. Now he was on the right track. The man paced back and forth – she could see that this man had an incredible amount of energy, which could mean an interesting master. Her last one was SO boring. He wanted her to do everything while he sat around doing nothing except getting fat and doing mathematical equations on his little machine. "Wish….wish….gosh, I wish you'd TALK to me and tell me who you are, what your name is!"
This was close enough. "Thank you, Master. My name is Patna al Basrah, and I am your genie," she said, pronouncing her name Paht-nah in its Mideastern way.
"Oh, good, you speak English," Howard was relieved.
"Technically, Master, you are supposed to wish me to speak your language, whatever it is. However, I knew right away you were an American, and so I could speak your language as soon as you wished me to say anything to you."
"You're a GENIE?" He was still reeling from that information.
"Yes, Master. My bottle now belongs to you, and you shall have anything you wish for," Patna.
"ANYTHING?"
"Within reason, of course. I am not allowed to change the course of human events, so I cannot prevent anyone from dying, nor am I supposed to make someone well who is sick."
Howard suddenly thought of his previous experience with a genie. He remembered that she wore pink, and tried to think of her name. "Oh! Do you know a lady named Jeannie?"
Patna laughed. "Oh, Master, many masters call their genies, 'Genie'. I do not know every genie in the world."
"This lady lives in the United States, and she says she is a genie, but her name is Jeannie. At least – I think that's her name. She lives in Houston, Texas," Howard explained.
"No, Master. I do not know any djinn in the United States. Is this the United States?"
"Yes, you're in my apartment in Chicago, Illinois. And my name is Howard…Howard Borden. You don't have to call me Master."
"Yes, Master, I must. That is my training."
"Training? You have to be trained to be a genie?"
"All djinn – that is the proper term for us – must attend school from the time we are 4 until we are 16. Much of our training is in the use of our powers, but we also have classes in deportment."
"Deportment? Oh, I won't report you to be deported!" Howard was aghast.
She giggled. "Deportment is our manners, Master. I assume that you will enjoy having a genie around so much that you would not wish for me to leave. I am here to serve you as completely as you like." She swallowed. "I must call you Master, as much as I would love to call you Howard. I may provide you with riches, gold, any matter of material goods, and I may run your home and provide you with many servants."
Howard laughed. "There isn't much of my home to run," he said, indicating the small apartment. He took Patna by the hand and the touch brought a physical chemistry between them that made them both gasp and look at each other. "You have such soft hands," he told her, then went back to the matter at hand. "This is the kitchen. Help yourself to whatever is in it. This is the living room. Not much to it, but it's comfortable for me." He brought her into his bedroom, which was a mess. "This is my room. And over there's the bathroom, if you need it." He looked puzzled at her. "You DO need that, don't you? Just how human are you?"
Patna smiled. "Human enough when I am outside my bottle to need things like baths and toilet facilities, Master. But if I am bottled, my spirit does not need such things." She looked around. "Your bedroom is a mess, Master! Allow me, please!" The first demonstration of her magic after smoke-out, therefore, was to blink. She folded her arms very firmly, placed her feet apart for balance, concentrated on something, then blinked very grandly. To Howard's amazement, the clothes placed themselves in the hamper, the magazines and books that were strewn about stacked themselves neatly, a duster dusted off everything, and the vacuum quickly ran about making sure that the almost-threadbare carpeting was at least clean!
"Wow…that's really incredible! Can you – can you..." he wanted to ask her something, but was afraid. One thing he remembered about Jeannie was her way of traveling.
"Can I what, Master?"
"Can you make people travel long distances without using a plane or car?"
"Of course."
"How do I get you to do that?"
"Whatever you wish me to do, Master, you must say, 'I wish' and whatever it is."
"Do I get three wishes?" Howard asked, then realized something. "Oh! I've already used up one!"
"Master, I believe you have seen too many American television stories. I am your genie forever, unless you pass my bottle to someone else. That is how you got me. My former master left my bottle to be passed on, for whatever reasons. I was with him for 6-1/2 years, so I feel it was in error that he left me. But it is too late now, I am yours. But…" she added, "I am grateful that it is you that opened my bottle instead of the woman that found it. I would prefer a male master."
"How – how did you get in that bottle in the first place?" Howard asked.
Patna told the story of how she had been in Asmire's two-year training class in old Baghdad. While in class, she had broken a serious rule twice. The first time, she was found kissing one of Asmire's male assistants. She was 15, he was 24. It is forbidden, she said, for djinn to date until he or she is 16, and they may not date their trainers or assistants. The assistant was fired and bottled for attempting to seduce underage djinn. She was given the first mark against her, which was written in Haji's "To be Bottled" book. Asmire, she explained, was the superintendent of djinn schools, and Haji was the head of all djinn. Howard nodded.
Several months later, before her 16th birthday, she was caught kissing one of her schoolmates in a closet. One of the djinn with spectacular eyesight had seen them and reported them. Both djinn and genie were given a mark against them. This was Patna's second mark.
The end of the djinn training means a week with a training master. Patna disobeyed her master when he commanded her to do something, and summoned Asmire. Asmire ordered her to get in her bottle and brought her to Haji. Haji bottled her for a period of one year, after which he presented the bottle to a deserving businessman in modern Basra. She was his djinn for 6-1/2 years before leaving her in the airliner.
After the information soaked in, Howard looked at his little genie carefully. He could see why the trainer and the young djinn both kissed her, if she was as pretty at 15 as she was now. She was very petite – probably a foot shorter than he – slender, but with larger breasts than normal on such a slender – probably 26" – waist. As Patna walked into the kitchen, Howard took a view of her backside – very lovely, he thought. He tried to do the math in his head, but he was so mixed up, he stopped. "Patna – how old are you?"
"In human years, 24, Master," and she smiled at him.
"Can I call you Patty instead? It's more American - and Irish – I'm part Irish."
"Of course. Or you may call me Genie."
"No. It's better if no one knows what you are, if they think you're my live-in girlfriend. The last time I said something at work about a genie, I got grounded for a month and sent to a psychologist," Howard remembered that experience. Bob Hartley, his psychologist neighbor at the time, didn't believe his story about a genie either, but he certified him for flight anyway.
For the next two days, Patty and Howard got to know each other a little bit. Patty demonstrated her magical skills in several ways. When Howard had to take a flight to Madrid, though, Patty looked very sad.
"May I travel with you, Master?" she asked.
"It would be really hard on you, Patty. You'd be cramped up a lot, and would be a lot happier in my apartment. Besides, I wouldn't have to have anyone pick up my mail. You could do that for me."
"But I love to travel, and my last master used to allow me to travel with him all the time."
In the end, Patty traveled with Howard, leaving her bottle behind. She went miniature and stayed in his jacket pocket almost the entire three days, except when he had a layover in Madrid. She changed into Spanish-looking dress and blended in quite well with the crowd there because of her dark hair.
However, once back in Chicago, Howard was told to report to the airline office dispatcher immediately.
"Sir? You called for me?" Howard asked.
"Borden, you're grounded for four weeks," the dispatcher told him.
"On whose authority?" Howard knew that the dispatcher had no right to ground him.
"Damian's. Every crew has seen you talk to your pocket. When you were in Madrid, in the airport, other crews saw you talking to your pocket. Damian thinks you need a month on the ground to get you settled again. If you're seen talking to your pocket or anything else strange during that four weeks, you won't get back in the air until you've seen a psychiatrist."
Howard gulped. He knew he was talking to Patty, not to his pocket. But after the incident eleven years before, with Jeannie Nelson in the cockpit of his plane, he knew he better not tell them he was talking to a genie! "What will I be doing?"
"Report to this office on Monday," the man said, handing Howard a piece of paper with an address on it. "Wear a suit and tie, pants and sports jacket, or your uniform if you don't have those. You're a desk jockey."
Patty enjoyed having Howard home. Every night she cooked dinner for him – by blink – and asked what he would like in the way of riches. Howard Borden was not very greedy by personality, but chose some smaller things. She discovered that he DID like going out to restaurants, and wanted to be able to send things to his son. She encouraged him to wish things that she could send to Howie's.
After he had been home a few days, Howard debated how to make his next move.