Chase The Rabbit: Gretch Bayonne Action Adventure Series Book #1

Chase The Rabbit

Copyright© 2015 by Steven M. Thomas

Published by
Drummer Dancer Publications

All rights reserved

Proofreader: Diane Svoboda

Cover design: Traci Hilton and Haans Peterson

Cover painting: Tracy Ostmann Haschke

Logo: Haans Peterson

Foreword: Nick Russell

Acknowledgements: Steve Shelburg, Kevin I. Smith, Cleve Sylcox, George Wier

Other books in this series:
Rabbits Never Die
,
The Hollywood Murders, Aloha, Lugosi!, Goodbye Harlow Nights

To receive the author’s acclaimed autobiography
,
I Was A Drummer She Was A Dancer
at no charge, send a request to [email protected]

This is a work of fiction - names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination.  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without the written permission of the publisher, expect where permitted by law.

Drummer Dancer Publications

Foreword by New York Times Best Selling Author, Nick Russell

From the barrooms of New York City, to the movie studios of Hollywood, Steven M. Thomas has crafted a tale of intrigue that captures the early 1930’s as freelance writer Gretch “Bay” Bayonne attempts to unravel the mystery of why a dedicated family man would abandon his life for no apparent reason. Along the way he encounters movies stars, Nazis, and newspaper tycoons, and barters a banana for a mysterious gold key stolen by a runaway monkey on a walkway atop the magnificent dirigible Graf Zeppelin. This first book in the Bay series is sure to grab readers from the first page and will and will not let go until the last!

The following story is taken from old manuscripts dated 1932, which I found in an antique trunk I purchased at an estate sale in New Jersey last year. 

One of the notes said, “I was told never to write about this. But what happened changed the lives of everyone on the planet.”-Steven M. Thomas       

CHASE THE RABBIT

  Chapter One

Y
es, this is an odd way to make a living my friends, but we live in strange times. The roaring twenties fizzled out like a bad firecracker on a rainy summer day. It all happened in 1932. Nothing would be the same for anyone after 1932.   

              My name is Gretch Bayonne, but everyone calls me Bay. I write stories. No, I am not a reporter. I could never hold down a real job, so I freelance for magazines, newspapers, and anyone willing to pay me to chase the rabbit. It’s easier for me that way. Just give me an assignment and I will grab it by the throat and shake a story out of it. 

              I haven’t had an original idea since I was thirteen and wondered how long it would take for a Packard to float down the Hudson River before it sank with me and my buddy Hobbs in it. It turned out the answer was all the way to Hoboken. And by then the cops were waiting for us.

              We didn’t get out of the home for boys that much, but when we did, well, all hell could break loose. We’d been stuck there for a long time and figured why not go out and borrow an automobile and drive in into the river? What could they do to me? I was already in an institution. And it might make for a good story. That day reminded me of how I got there in the first place, four years earlier.

              I came home from school as usual, when I was nine years old, expecting to find my Mother in the kitchen making raisin bread for my after school snack. Instead, my mother met me in the living room looking concerned. 

              “I have something important to tell you,” she said. “Your Father and I are going away for a while, so you will be staying at The Hoboken School for Boys, but we will return in two months time if all goes well.” 

              “Why, Mommy?” I asked.

              She explained that they were going to England to retrieve her sister Tina and bring her back to live with us in Hoboken. I didn’t understand that there was a war going on. 

My mother was from Lowestoft, England but had left there at a very young age when she met my Father who was there on business. 

              “Why can’t I go with you?” I asked. 

              “You have to stay in school,” she said. “Remember, Gretch, your education is very important. You keep writing your stories, and we will be back in no time. I want you to write a story a week. Remember, use your imagination, son! You are a writer! And someday, you will make your

living that way. And when we return, you will finally get to meet your Auntie Tina!” 

              I didn’t find out until many years later that the Germans had been bombing England. The Great War was going on. and Lowestoft was feeling the brunt of it. I would never see my parents again.

***

On November 28, 1916, the German warship, Zeppelin LZ61 was shot down just off the coast of Lowestoft, England. It crashed on the boat that was carrying my parents and Auntie Tina. My stay at the school for boys would become indefinite. It would be my home until I left at the age of sixteen in 1923. 

              I was picked on at the home a lot. Most of the other kids were there because their parents couldn’t control them.  But there were others, like me and Hobbs, who were orphans and lost in the system with no place else to go.  These were damned rough kids. We lived, ate and played together twenty-four hours a day. 

              Most of the children were particularly fond of recess time. When they let us go outside to play, a game of stickball usually ensued. I wasn’t as thrilled about that as the rest of them were. My mother had always told me “playing ball is fine, son, but your talent lies in your writing. Sports are just games. It may be fun, but it will not make you a living.” I was small for my age, I knew where my talents lay, and it certainly wasn’t in sports. Hobbs and I were always the last to be picked for teams, and we would almost always strike out. 

              At lunch after such a game, one of the bigger kids named Joe Bob started in on me. He had been teasing and harassing me for months. 

              “Hey, Gretch, way to go striking out at the game!” he taunted. “You shouldn’t even play! You should stay inside like a baby!”  

              The other kids looked on, snickering and shaking their heads. Something inside of me snapped. I finally decided, right then and there, that this kid had to be stopped, or this would go on forever. An idea instantly came to me.

              “You know something, Joe Bob?” I asked. The kids all gasped that I would even talk back to this big bully. 

              “What?” he asked. 

              “You are a lot bigger than I am, right?” I said. 

              “You’re danged right I am, and I’m gonna kick your ass!” 

              “Well,” I said, “since you are so much bigger than me, you probably need this food more than I do!”

              I smashed my metal tray of food directly into his face,  roast beef, mashed potatoes, green beans and all! The food went flying and the tray bent nearly in half around his head as he fell straight backwards onto the concrete floor. The room erupted in cheers and laughter.

              I still had my juice on the table, so I picked the cup up and raised it above my head and shouted, “But the juice is mine!” 

              The kids all started whistling and applauding as I exited the room, Joe Bob still lying on the floor in utter shock and disbelief. After that, Joe Bob was my friend. He became my bodyguard and from then on, no one ever messed with me again. 

              Another friend I made at the home was Mr. Pebbles, the janitor. He was a wise old man who took a liking to me right away. He managed to get me a typewriter and encouraged me to write. I wrote short stories, and Mr. Pebbles wanted copies of every one of them. So I had to learn how to use carbon paper and type extra hard. 

              Every Friday afternoon he would find me in my room and ask, “Well, what did you write about this week?” No one else seemed to care about my writings except Mr. Pebbles. I would show them to my teachers at the home and they would say, “That’s very nice, Gretch, but that is not part of your assignment.” They didn’t even bother to read them.

              One day Mr. Pebbles brought me a copy of
Reader’s Weekly.
I had read many issues and was puzzled why he would bring me the latest copy.
I can get that in the library
, I thought. 

              “Look on page 37,” he said. 

              The issue contained one of my short stories! Mr. Pebbles had been submitting my stories to various publications. For the first time, at age ten, I saw one of my stories in print. And my byline. Gretch Bayonne. My heart sank. I was filled with all sorts of emotions. Joy, disbelief, wonderment.

              Then he showed me a copy of
Stern
magazine. Another of my articles was in it.  There were eight magazines in all. Eight stories I had written in the last three months or so. My writing career had begun.