My thus-far worthless hobby is about to pay off!

Anyone who’s known me for any considerable amount of time knows how dedicated I am to my hobby of writing fan fiction. Some fans write about “Star Trek” and some write about “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” while others write about “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.”

My favorite show is “60 Minutes”.

And if you haven’t caught the buzz yet, they’re making a movie.

Look for it next summer: “90 Minutes — The Sixty Minutes Motion Picture,” starring Martin Lawrence as Ed Bradley and Owen Wilson as Morley Safer.

And not to brag, but some very influential people in Hollywood have seen some of my work and were impressed enough to pony up some dough for me to write the novelization of the screenplay.

Here is a sample chapter.

—–

Morley Safer sneezed, overwhelmed by the dust in the basement of the academic library. He wished his anonymous source would hurry up. He didn’t have all day to collect dust like the antiquated AV equipment that surrounded him.

He looked at his watch.

“Ten more minutes, and I’m out of here,” he muttered to himself.

“Oh, I don’t believe you’re going anywhere, Mr. Safer,” said a voice from the darkness.

Just then, the lights came on.

“You!”

“That’s right, Safer. It’s me. Phillip Morris, himself. Mr. Big Tobacco.”

“You think this is the first time I’ve had a gun pointed at me?” Safer tried to play it cool, though he couldn’t take his eyes off Morris’s nicotine-stained trigger finger, taut around the mechanism that could, at any second, send a lump of lead and blue flash out of the revolver’s cold steel muzzle.

“You think killing me will stop the truth?” Safer said.

“Oh, I don’t aim to kill you, Mr. Safer,” Morris wheezed with detachment and menace. “You have to take a message to your friend Mike Wallace. I can’t have either of you poking around in my affairs any longer. As for the truth, go ahead. Tell the entire world. Tell them the whole truth. Tell them that I am an alien from outer space aiming to conquer and control the human race through its tendency toward addiction. They’ll think you’ve flipped.”

Morris shape shifted. Before Safer’s eyes the CEO became a gray alien, his face devoid of features, his eyes big, black and empty.

“I find your Earth weapons crude, but very effective.” The alien had not spoken, but the words found their way into Safer’s brain, nonetheless. “When you get out of intensive care, make sure your viewers know we prefer to communicate using telepathy.”

One of the creature’s three fingers cocked the hammer.

“Not so fast, Phillip Morris!” Another voice shouted.

Ed Bradley stepped out of the shadows, shirtless and scraped but no worse for wear, an ammo belt draped over his shoulder and a machine gun trained on Morris’s gargantuan head.

“Ed!” Safer cried out to his colleague. “No one is supposed to know I’m here. How did you find out?”

“I’m that good, baby. And you’re lucky I am. Otherwise, you’d be filing your reports from six feet under. Put the gun down, Morris. The jig is up.”

“Up yours,” Morris projected into Bradley’s mind.

“You alien muthafucka!” Bradley opened up on the shapeshifter with the all the M-60 had. Empty shells clattered to the floor as round after round splattered gray alien gray matter all over the dusty overhead projectors behind it.

Bradley then reached into his waistband and pulled out the 9-mm handgun he always carried just in case. He tossed it to Safer.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here, Morley!”

They made their way through the labyrinth of stacks, up the stairs and out the front door. They each breathed a sigh of relief once inside Bradley’s Cadillac El Dorado.

“Check it out, Safer, I just got this new amp.” Bradley cranked the volume on his stereo, and soon Safer could feel the throbbing bass rattle his lungs.

“This be the shiz, my nigga,” Safer shouted over the hiphop groove.

“What the fuck, white boy? You can’t say nigga. Only I can say nigga.”

“That’s a load of shit, Ed. You’re saying a word is off limits to me just ’cause I’m white?”

“Damn right. You white folks got every thing else. You stole the blues, you stole rock n’ roll. There’s even white boys rapping now. You ain’t using the word nigga.”

“Whatever.”

They pulled up to the stoplight. The music so loud, they didn’t hear the black helicopter hovering over traffic.

But they noticed when the Volkswagen behind them erupted in a blazing fireball.

“Shit, they got a chopper on us!” Bradley cried. “Stinger missiles, too.”

“Well then, floor it, bitch!”

Bradley stomped on the gas. Tires squealed. The caddy swerved to avoid cross-traffic that had the light.

The helicopter rained bullets down on the Cadillac and surrounding traffic.

“They fuckin’ up my rims, yo!” Bradley shouted. “You gotta take that chopper out! Use the RPG in the back seat!”

The caddy weaved through traffic, the helicopter hard on its tail, leaving destruction in its wake. Cars crashed. Trucks exploded. Exciting shit. Safer hung out the window, the rocket launcher on his shoulder, taking aim at the helicopter.

“Can’t you keep this car moving in a straight line,” Safer complained. “I can’t get a shot on the copter.”

“Hey, don’t tell me how to drive and I won’t tell you how to get shot down by Lesley Stahl.”

Another explosion jolted the car from behind.

“The road don’t get no smoother. Shoot them muthafuckas!”

Safer cleared his mind, took aim, held his breath. He had but one shot. He squeezed the trigger.

Direct hit. The helicopter blew up. Pieces of it fell out of the sky onto cars and pedestrians. None but the pilot were seriously injured.

“Ha ha! Nice shootin’, my nigga!” Bradley said.

Bradley and Safer walked into CBSNews headquarters, greeted by their colleague Lesley Stahl.

“Hi boys.”

“Lesley, you should have seen it!” Bradley rejoiced. “You ain’t the only one that’s good at shooting down around here!”

She eyed Safer. “What’s he talking about?”

“Oh, it was nothing, really.” Safer said, shuffling his feet.

“Nothing? Nothing? Lesley, this helicopter was on our tail, and our boy Safer here took that motherfucker out!”

“Safer! Bradley!” Mike Wallace shouted. “In my office now!”

“Gotta go,” Safer said to Stahl. “Tell you all about it over dinner tonight?”

“Um… No thanks. I’m waxing my cat tonight.”

“Now, Safer!” Wallace shouted.

The two men followed Wallace into his office.

“Shut the god damn door!” he ordered. Bradley obliged him. “I just got off the phone with Phillip Morris! Can you explain why you’re harassing him, Safer?”

Safer and Bradley looked at each other, chilled.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, god damn it!” Wallace shouted. “What the fuck are you doing bothering an important businessman like Phillip Morris?”

“I was doing legwork on a story. I didn’t know he would be there.”

“Didn’t know he would be there? You’re telling me he’s got nothing better to do than just show up wherever you happen to be!”

“Sir,” Bradley interjected. “Phillip Morris is an alien. And he’s supposed to be dead.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Bradley? And what the fuck were you doing there? Aren’t you supposed to be working on a story about air bags? And where the fuck is your god damn shirt?”

“But I got wind that Morley was walking into a trap.”

“Shut the fuck up, Bradley! You’re on thin ice! Thin! Fucking! Ice! I don’t want to hear any more nonsense about aliens and dead businessmen and traps! It’s bullshit! I’m sick of this loose cannon reporting! Safer, you’re off this story! I don’t want you going anywhere near Phillip Morris, do you understand me?”

“But Mike,” Safer said. “I’m on to a big story here.”

“Do you understand me!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now get the fuck out of my sight. Deadline is coming up tomorrow and I want to see something good from both of you!”

“Yes, sir.”

Bradley and Safer left Wallace’s office, hanging their heads. They turned the corner in the hall and there stood Andy Rooney.

“Did you ever notice how you two are a couple of fuckups?” he said.

“Shut the fuck up, Rooney,” Bradley said. “Aren’t you supposed to be in your office bitching about paperclips or some shit?”

“Whoa. Snap,” Safer said.

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