Chapter 2
Howard was in the kitchen of his apartment, heating up a TV dinner for his meal that evening. He intended to spend the evening cleaning up his very messy apartment. He had been gone for three days and hadn't cleaned up the place before he left, so he had his work cut out for him. There were dishes in the sink, a pile of newspapers to sort through, and his flight laundry to take care of. Just as he turned to go into the living room with his dinner in his hand, the blond woman suddenly popped into his apartment.
"H- how did you just get in here without coming through the door?" Howard asked, shakily.
"Oh, hello …. Howard, is it not?"
"I see you finally got my name right … Mrs. Nelson, isn't it?" Howard replied.
"My name is Jeannie. Few call me Mrs. Nelson."
"Why are you here … Jeannie?"
"Howard, we … my husband, sister-in-law, and me … we need your assistance, if you might have time to help us this evening?"
Howard gestured towards the messy apartment, munching on his dinner as he went. "This place is a mess and I have to fly again in two days. It will take me that long to clean this place!"
Jeannie looked around. She chuckled a little. "This looks just like Roger's house when he and Tracy were divorced." Jeannie smiled at him, and Howard was bowled over by that smile. If this woman and the Tracy woman were examples of astronaut wives, those astronauts certainly were lucky men! "If I assist you with cleaning your apartment, will you help us?"
"It depends." Howard might not have been the brightest penny in the bunch, but he didn't want to be in any legal trouble.
"My husband says that there is a registry in Washington, D.C., where one is able to find the names of licensed pilots," Jeannie stated. "Something called the F.A.A.?"
Howard nodded. "What do you need that for?"
"We wish to find out if Roger may be flying for someone besides NASA now. Anthony said he would not be able to fly under any other name because his pilot's license would be in his real name," Jeannie explained.
"Sure, I can probably help with that. But they're not open until tomorrow morning. And that's a 90 minute flight from here."
"I can solve all of that." Jeannie looked first around the room. Howard watched in amazement as Jeannie planted her feet apart again, folded her arms, and blinked several times. Each time she blinked, something different happened. The first time, all of the items out of place in the living room floated to their correct places. The second time, the newspapers were stacked neatly by the apartment door. The dishes loaded themselves in the dishwasher on the third blink, and on the fourth and fifth blinks, the vacuum cleaner and duster were both going madly. Jeannie waited for a few minutes, blinked a sixth time, and the vacuum cleaner and duster stopped and put themselves away. "Does this meet with your approval?"
"H- h – how did you just do that!" Howard's eyes went wide in shock.
"This is something that we do not talk about in public – but – I am a genie," Jeannie told him.
"Wait a minute … you're a genie? Like Tales of the Arabian Nights?"
"Yes - those are many of my cousins."
"And you blink and get places and do things so quickly?"
"Yes….now can you help?" Jeannie was insistent.
"Let me finish eating, and then we can make reservations for the morning," Howard said.
"That will not be necessary." As soon as Howard put his TV dinner tray on the kitchen counter, Jeannie's blink put it in the trash can, and washed his fork. "We must leave now." Jeannie stood close to Howard. "You just think of the place in Washington, D.C. where this registry is located, and I will get us there by blink right now."
"Well….okay…." Howard closed his eyes, Jeannie blinked, and they landed … right in front of a strip joint in Washington, D.C. "Whoa. Where are we?"
"Mr. Borden! Why would such an important list be located by a … a … female exploitation club!" Jeannie was shocked.
Howard almost lost it in laughter. "Female exploitation club? Is that what you call a strip joint?"
"I cannot imagine what such a list would be doing here."
Howard shook his head. "Sorry, Mrs. Nelson – Jeannie – I must have thought of this place right as you blinked. I was trying to think of the FAA's Licensing Bureau!"
Jeannie placed herself in blink position again. "Now think of that Licensing Bureau, Howard."
The two landed inside a room with 16 four-drawer cabinets in one room, and 16 four-drawer cabinets in the next room.
"Oh, my," Jeannie sighed. "I would not know where to look."
Howard looked at the drawers and opened a few. "What was his last name, did you say?"
"Healey. H-E-A-L-E-Y."
"What does that start with?" Howard absentmindedly asked.
Jeannie stared back at him, and then shrugged. "H."
It took the two of them about a half hour and flipping through quite a few drawers to find Roger's pilot's license, dated back in 1962, as well as his Top Gun certification. But he was still listed as "Astronaut, NASA". Wading through quite a few large registry books indicated that nothing had been sitting there waiting to be added.
Howard found the drawer containing his own record, and pulled it out. He showed it to Jeannie.
Suddenly they both heard footsteps outside the door of the room they were in. Jeannie quickly blinked and the two were turned miniature. She pulled Howard behind a big fake flower plant.
"This is weird," Howard told Jeannie. "First I feel sort of … ethereal … then I feel just plain sneaky, and now I'm really tiny and I feel inconspicuous."
After the footsteps went by, Jeannie blinked them full-sized again, then back to Howard's apartment in Chicago.
"Thank you for your assistance. I do not believe we could have done that without you," Jeannie told him.
Howard hesitated, but then asked, "If you ever find him, could you bring him here to meet me? I'd really like to meet this guy who looks like me."
"Of course. I would think that Colonel Healey would like to meet you, as well."
There was a knock on Howard's apartment door. It was Bob from across the hall. He had some mail of Howard's that had gotten in a different pile, and he wanted to return it. Howard introduced Bob to Jeannie, not really explaining who she was or what she was doing there. Bob didn't think anything of it, because Howard often had a woman in his apartment. The only thing Bob thought was that THIS one was absolutely beautiful.
Bob stopped Howard again to ask another question. "How did you feel after that trip to Washington, D.C., Howard?"
"Ethereal. Weird. Out of this world, in some ways."
"About the failure to find anything about Roger, or just because of the way this genie was bouncing you around everywhere and doing things so … magically?"
"Really, both. I still wanted to help her find her brother-in-law. But I sure didn't know how to go about it. I kept thinking about that little girl. If that was Howie, he knows that I'm still around even though I don't live with him."
"And…?"
"That little girl – she doesn't know what has happened to her daddy. He's either very irresponsible, or something has happened to him. He's an astronaut. He's GOT to be responsible."
"Yes, if it's the one I'm thinking of, both Roger Healey and Tony Nelson went up in Apollo to the moon."
Howard sat up on the sofa. "You mean … I met a guy who's been on the moon?" He was incredulous.
"Yes, Howard – I think either Apollo 14 or 15, but I don't remember which."
Howard lay back down on the sofa. "Now I KNOW I've got to help those people find their missing man."
Bob was more practical. "Howard, this is a huge world, how would you do that?"
The answer was a shake of the head. "I don't know – but I've got to try. That little girl needs her daddy. And I don't think you know how small this world is until you start flying around it like I do." Bob was shocked at the intelligence of that statement.
There was a long pause before Bob encouraged Howard to continue the story.
Two days after Howard had made the impromptu, sneaky visit to the License Bureau in Washington, D.C. with Jeannie, he was assigned to a flight from Chicago to Washington, D.C. In the airport at Washington, D.C., he checked his assignment schedule and discovered that he had a six-hour layover there before flying to Los Angeles and on to San Diego. He groaned – he hated flying into San Diego's Lindbergh Field because landings were so strange there.
Thinking about getting a date during his layover, he picked up a newspaper with the intention of finding out what movies were playing in the Nation's Capital before calling girls. A pretty but older stewardess from a passenger airline came up to him as he was looking at the paper. He was just about to make a date with her when she pointed at a picture in the paper.
"He looks just like you," the stewardess said.
Howard looked at the photo, which was of a very battered man sitting up in what looked like a hospital bed. His head was bandaged and there were bandages all over the arms. "How can you tell?" Howard asked the stewardess.
"Something in the eyes and facial structure…. Look at the caption, though, it couldn't be you."
The caption under the photo said, "Do you know this man?" and an article accompanied it:
This man was found, beaten and unconscious, near the corner of 3rd and D Streets, about 11:00 a.m. on Monday, April 20thth. Police and an ambulance were called. The man was admitted to Walter Reed Army Hospital under the assumed name of "John Doe" as there was no identification for him. He was assumed to be military because his clothing resembled that of an Army flight suit. He was later transferred to Veterans Hospital when his condition was stabilized. Veterans Administration authorities are searching for the man's identity and next-of-kin. If you have information, please contact your local police or Veterans Hospital.
Howard, being a little slow sometimes, shrugged and moved on in the paper. He opened his mouth to ask the woman out to the movies, but suddenly thought of something. "Jeannie!"
"No, my name's Paige, not Jeannie," the stewardess replied.
Howard shook his head. "No, I was mistaken for someone else about a week ago, by a woman named Jeannie and her husband. They were looking for someone – and it might be this guy here they're looking for."
"So call her."
"I don't know how. She didn't leave a phone number with me."
"Try Information, if you know where she lived."
Howard found a phone booth and dialed Information in Houston, Texas. "I'm sorry, there's no Tony Nelson listed in Houston," stated the Operator.
"He's an astronaut. How about NASA?"
The operator checked. "There's no Tony Nelson listed in Nassau Bay, but perhaps he is unlisted. I even checked Anthony Nelson. There IS, however, a Thomas Nelson in Nassau Bay."
"I'll try it."
Howard called Thomas Nelson in Nassau Bay, and fortunately, he was home. "No, this isn't Tony Nelson's home. But I'm his father. May I help you?"
"He's missing his brother-in-law, and I think I may know where he is," Howard told him. "I need to know how to get in touch with Tony and Jeannie Nelson."
Thomas Nelson was all ears. "That's my son-in-law you're referring to. You can tell me what you know. Who did you say you were?"
"Howard Borden. They met me in New York City and thought I was the missing man."
"Tony told me the story. Go on."
Howard explained about the newspaper with the picture, the man being in the Veterans Hospital in Washington, D.C.
"Where are you now?" Thomas asked.
"At the airport in Washington, D.C."
"Stay there for about the next twenty minutes. What's the phone number where you can be reached?"
Howard gave him the number on the pay phone, and hung up. He was about to disregard the request to stay there when Jeannie and Tony both magically appeared in front of him. Paige, the stewardess, had already departed. 'Oh, well,' Howard thought, 'an opportunity for a date lost, but maybe I can help these people find their family member.' Aloud, he said, "How did you get here so fast?"
"You have information on Roger, Howard?" Jeannie asked first.
Howard showed them the newspaper article and picture. "That does look a little like Roger," Tony said, "but after meeting you, Howard, we're a little hesitant. Still…"
"Anthony, the article says that the man is at the Veterans Hospital, but was transferred there from Walter Reed Hospital."
"Let's go, Jeannie. If it's not Roger, we're no better or worse off than we are now," Tony stated.
"Thank you for calling us, Howard!" Jeannie said. Tony grabbed her by the hand and was searching for a hidden place when Howard spoke.
"Wait a minute! Can I go with you?" he asked.
Tony stopped. "Why would you want to do that?"
"I'd really like to know if you find him. I really felt bad when I wasn't the man you were looking for a week or so ago," Howard explained.
"Oh, sure. Why not?" Tony said. "Come on with us. Do you have a flight to catch?"
"Not for another 6 hours."
The three found a hidden spot behind a big potted tree, and Jeannie blinked the three gone.