Bones "No Bones" Parrett
I think the best measure of a man is the company he keeps, and so I would like to tell you a little bit about Bones' exotic collection of friends. You might be tempted to think that he went out of his way to develop such an eclectic agglomeration of unique and remarkable folk, but in actual fact, he is drawn to unusual people, and they to him, by some mysterious wavelength of mind, or some such mystical drivel.
Keep in mind that he also knows at least a few fairly ordinary individuals. But let the introductions commence:
JUAN TANOMERO Latin American revolutionary (sorry we cant be more specific)
GENERAL RAYMOND (TANKER RAY) KOSMEK His Russian-born parents defected to America from the K.G.B. in 1953. Ray was born in '54, graduated with honors from West Point in '74, and became the youngest brigadier in U.S. history in '88. Bones' uncle, Ben Dover, CIA section chief of a unit involved in supplying arms to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan during those career-making years, had taken the young officer under his wing, and introduced him to Bones. If you look at the historical record, you will see that no American tanks were ever deployed against the Soviets in Afghanistan . . . sure there weren't.
CONSTANTIN "COZ" Mc RAE Son of a wealthy Scotch scotch exporter and the daughter of a Greek shipping tycoon. Bones' father probably had no business hanging out with Coz' wealthy, high-class parents, Agnus and Jaquelin Mc Rae, but he certainly did imbibe copious quantities of scotch. It was at a soiree at the Mc Rae's immense estate that Bones met the great friends who gave him his nickname:
GEORGE and GERALD GREYSTOKE Twin grandsons of a legendary feral British Peer, George was placed by his father in the service of the great archeological anthropololgists Louis and Mary Leakey at the age of twelve, and excelled at the archeological arts, while Gerald, who worshipped his grandfather and despised his father, ran off at the same age to copy his grandfather's early lifestyle. George was so successful with the Leakeys that he was nicknamed for the place where the bones of Homo habilis were first found, while Gerald came to be identified with the elephants with whom he developed a remarkable rapport based on a unique vocal style copied from the eschatological hymns of the Ethiopian Christians and Jews he spent his nineteenth year with. You or I might consider it mere stream-of-conscious moaning, but it seemed to be accepted by the elephants as a part of their own musical conversations.
YOLANDA DESPLAINES We must, of course, make some reference to the women in Bones' life - due to his father's abode's proximity to a grass-strip airfield by a small town in Florida, one of Bones' earliest lady friends was an airplane pilot. His father worked at the nearby jet engine plant, and had brought the young Yolanda from said factory to Indiantown (on the jukebox at the Seminole Inn - "There Ain't No Indians in Indiantown") after her amateur flyers' club toured the plant. Bones, a six-foot-four teenager, got the twenty-four-year-old mulatto away from his father when Don Sr went to the restroom by offering her a ride in the '69 convertible Impala his father was letting him drive around the town, although he was not to get his driver's license for a couple of years yet. Down by the canal, where he had necked with local girs in past visits to his father, Bones learned a great deal from Miss DesPlaines.
BARBARA Q. RIBS An exotic dancer. Bones is a somewhat studious, intellectual type guy, but his brother, Vince, is a biker. When they were both younger, Vince had a series of jobs working for local strip clubs. While Vince was managing one such establishment, Bones was sent away from town for eleven months, and when he returned, sought to extinguish his loneliness in the arms of one of his brother's employees. Barbara turned out to be such a lovely woman, that Bones and she played house for a while. After their relationship ended, Bones hit the road in a semi-funk, touring about the country, earning enough playing his guitar and the occasional rickety piano in various roadhouses, bars, and cafes to feed himself and fill the tank of his old black Dodge panel truck (the chrome-trimmed steel visor made it look even older). When he returned to town eleventyone weeks later, he thought he might try the method that had worked so well last time he was in town - unfortunately, his encounter with
DONNA MATRIX - was not all he could have hoped for - she was much too aggressive for him, and her carnal appetites not sufficiently refined, he felt.