Weird Association

Sometimes word association can take you weird places. Sometimes you're just weird to begin with.

Back at the Bookery with his laptop and a steaming hot cup of coffee in front of him, Graham told his story to Emil Kennedy: The history of Gantt’s crew, the locker at the school for Maya, Gantt’s benefactor and his alias. A man on one of the stools with a cup of coffee and a dogeared copy of Tom Clancy’s Hunt for Red October, kept looking over at them; irritated or interested Graham couldn’t tell.

“I’ve been [Googling] combinations of Neville and Nev with Onyx, Black, Blackman, Black with a wildcard character after it, White and White with a wildcard, in case he’s trying to throw us off that way. Nothing. I’m going to look at lists of the Northwest’s richest people in case there’s someone there with initials N. O. or some kind of color related last name. If that comes up empty, I’ll try combinations with Chamberlain as the first name.”

“Wasn’t there a kid in the Harry Potter series named Neville? What was his last name? Weasel? Weasely?”

“No, that was Harry’s friend Ron and his family.”

“Longbottom,” the man at the end of the bar said. “Neville Longbottom.”

“Barry SOMEONE, God bless me, but you’re a man of unexpected depth.”

“Nah, not really, just my daughter makes me read the things to her at bedtime. Must’ve read the first books three or four times a piece, this last one we’re on our second time through. Harry Potter and Narnia, no Russian subs in ‘em, but she loves ‘em none the less for that.

“Longbottom, huh?” Graham said. “Not much hope in that, is there?”

(daily word count: 3,425 words; total word count: 56,899 words; words remaining: n/a)