The next part of the mina_de_malfois stories takes place at a convention, and therefore, Case ends up there as well. Certain parts of this, especially some of the scenes at the room party, may seem familiar to longtime readers or close friends. To others, let's just say that while the characters of Case and Jamie may be fictional, the situations they find themselves in at this con generally aren't...

Once the parameters of my assignment were clear, I started almost
immediately. In my expert opinion, what Jamie needed was to get a more
removed perspective of fandom. He grew up in a fannish environment, which
is great for his openmindedness, but it means he takes it for granted.
Instead of being the place he goes to escape the Real World, it's the only
world he knows. I'm the last person to say that having your head in the
clouds is bad, but Jamie doesn't even know where the ground is. And that's
dangerous for anybody.

We only had a few days, and throwing him into the deep end was cruel, so
the DMV was out...I ended up simply taking him into town. No bookstores,
game stores, or other typical haunts, either, which was as torturous for
me as it was for him. Generally, we just people-watched. Get up in the
morning, take the subway--I banned cars for the next few days--to
somewhere in the city, get some tea or coffee, take a seat outside, and
look at people going by. We also made a point of going to typically
mundane places--a sports bar, for example, or the local mall. I think
Jamie almost had a heart attack when we went wandering through Wal-Mart...

The whole time, I played Real World Enforcer. I hammed it up, smacking
down creative impulses far more than if I wanted to accurately represent
reality, but I was making a point, after all. After two days of that, I
started to see the glimmer of understanding in Jamie's eyes.

OK, so it's not the Spoon Theory. But I think it worked.

He drove to Wands Across in thoughtful silence. Well, except when I
slipped in "Rich Fantasy Lives."

We got to the con, and Jamie went into full PrinceC mode...but he seemed
to be taking it more seriously than usual. I laughed. For all his congoing
activities, he was reacting like a neofan at his first
convention. In many ways, he was. It was the same "this is so much better
than reality!" look I'd had, years ago, and that I'd seen on many a new
congoer since. He'd never had the point of comparison before.

I think I helped him, a little. He had more of an understanding of some
fen quirks. Things he'd taken for normal, from lack of comparison, he
realized really weren't. Not that he thought worse of them--like the rest
of us, he preferred the weird. But understanding that it was considered
weird helped him handle it in a way he hadn't before.

And it helped him play it up, too. He had a confidence he'd been
lacking--knowing that everybody else is a bit off-kilter too helps you not
worry so much about how you look. His flirting had something more to it
than just keeping up the image...I think he was really enjoying himself.

Note to self: reinforce the "too young to be a grand-uncle" point. Maybe
remind him of the old condom-in-the-wallet bit.

Jamie did try to beg some time away from his appointed chaperone to meet
the infamous Mina de Malfois. We compromised on my being a bit outside the
door. Not that Mina noticed, of course, what with him present. She
looked a little...well, not star-struck exactly. She was clearly relieved
that "PrinceC" was just another guy, and not some sort of avatar of
perfection. But that itself was enough to get her staring a lot.

Hm. So that was Mina. Older than I'd anticipated, but I could see what
Judy saw in her.

Another aspect of my attempts to help Jamie was that I actually told him
to go to some panels. Normally, his idea of going to a con is to stand
around, look pretty, flirt a lot, hang around the consuite, and go to
parties and masquerades. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but
he's missing something in not actually going to the panels, if you ask me.

He was reluctant at first, but he started getting into it. By the "Lions
Versus Snakes" panel, where he gave some much-needed cachet to the
underdog good guys--what is it with so many female fen finding people like
that damned Dark Schoolmaster sexy?--he was starting to see the value in
being able to talk face-to-face about fannish topics.

Curiously, he didn't spend any money in the dealers' room. I spent my time
browsing some of the booksellers' tables, but Jamie seemed to be saving
his money for something. I couldn't put my finger on it, at first...but
then I remembered the BNF Kisses auction. I pulled out my program and
checked the list...and yes, Mina de Malfois was listed. I wondered if she
knew she'd volunteered?

Probably not. I saw the hand of the Ringmaster in this one.

Speaking of, I didn't see much of Judy, or Nancy for that matter. The
former had apparently ended up de facto chair--no surprise; I bet that as
soon as they saw she was booked the concom resolved to talk her into
"helping." And it seemed Nancy had been drafted. How much, I had to
wonder, did Judy have to promise Nancy to get her to escort that hack
Vicksburg around all weekend?

Once the panels were over and the masquarade and then dance were live in
all their strobe-light glory, things really began to go wild. I almost
wish I could have stopped watching Jamie, because the strobes always drive
me nuts, and I'd run into someone I rarely get to see, who stayed far away
from the blinking lights. Epileptic seizures, even petit mal, do not a
good weekend make...but no, I had a job to do. Thankfully Jamie didn't
stay at the dance that long. It didn't get going until almost 11:30, so he
stayed through the midnight Time Warp and then headed out.

I stayed far away from the teeming mass of moshing morons. Give me a
ballroom and three-four time any day.

The rest of the evening was more fun. The concept of checking IDs still
hasn't trickled down into room parties, but I kept an eye on Jamie's
intake. I cut him off before the vomiting phase, but after he'd had enough
to get a hangover the next day. Some lessons need to be learned...such as
drink a lot of water. And eat something. And if you mix your drinks, be
careful. And better he learn it in a comparatively safe environment than
in at freshman orientation, like most people do.

Jamie also got a lesson in the flip side of fen cutting loose. There
wasn't a drunk young woman demanding people lick icing off of her, the way
there'd been at a con I attended last year, but there was still a fair
share of people who, if I had my druthers, would never darken a con hotel
again. The young icing lady had, though, been an exception in one
respect...she was female. Most of the people I'd wish would just go the
hell away were male.

Jamie looked downright horrified at some of that behavior. Though he was
pretty pickled by then, it offended his sense of dignity about as much as
it did mine, I take it. At one point, he was sitting on a couch--he didn't
really trust his legs at that point--and saw this one boor harrassing a
very well-corseted young lady. "I wish I could do something," he slurred
slightly, "but I can't even get up. Help?"

"Your usual method wouldn't go over well anyway," I said, standing up.
"Here's what you do." I ingratiated myself into the conversation, made
sure to keep myself as between the other two as possible, and finally the
jackass left of his own accord. Granted, she could have taken care of
herself just fine, but sometimes I feel the need to do something to redeem
my gender, too.

"What is it with that guy?" Jamie asked after both jackass and lady had
departed--separately, thank the powers that be. I'd returned to the couch,
where Jamie was sitting, watching the fun and games abound as best he
could given his inebriation.

I chased my chips with the last of my Nuclear Fizz and shrugged. "A lot of
people at cons aren't exactly social butterflies."

"But he wasn't one of those, was he? I mean, it's not like he was
stammering or unable to look at her. He was looking at her too much, if
you ask me."

"There's more than one way to be a social maladjust. You can be too loud,
too. Obnoxious and not realizing how you appear. Also, I was next to him.
His breath could be classified as a chemical weapon capable of causing
intoxication at short range. How he was standing upright I'll never know."

"Hm." He lapsed into silence...or possibly temporary unconsciousness. I
prodded him back to awareness, and suggested it was time for him to out.
He could walk, if he leaned on me, so returning to our hotel room and he
was able to at least wash up and change before he hit the bed with a thud.

As I washed up for bed myself, a thought occurred to me. Hadn't
someone--Eva, Judy, I couldn't remember--mentioned that Josh Amos, or
whoever she was, would be at Wands Across? I seemed to recall getting a
warning that I should be ready to call in Nancy and Judy, but only if
everything went completely to hell. But I hadn't seen hide nor hair of
her. Well, it made my job easier. Presumably one of the other snares
they'd set had borne results, so they didn't need their backup plan.

The following morning, naturally, began with Jamie opening his eyes,
moaning in pain from the light, then moaning in further pain from the
noise of his moaning.

"It may go down easy," I said to him, "but coming back up, not so much."

He groaned agreement, quietly, and rolled over. I laughed silently and
went to get him some water.

And then there was the auction. Jamie's hangover had cleared up reasonably
quickly, with the application of sufficient dihydrogen monoxide--ah, the
benefits of youth--so he was functional to attend. Once again, I took up
my quiet, Simon Illyan-like pose against a wall and watched.

I had to laugh when Mina's name provoked a flurry of murmurs. I saw Judy
make a carefully calculated bid, and it seemed she might have it...but
then, the figure Jamie had pointed out to me as Warr1or threw in his bid,
and Prince Charming apparently decided he had to save his innocent Mina
from the rough, crude Warr1or. If my eyes don't deceive me, though, that
innocent wasn't entirely sure she /wanted/ to be saved...

The entire insane bidding round had me thinking of Rogers and Hammerstein.
And I don't even like /Oklahoma/. I couldn't decide, though, which of them
was Curly and which was Jud...at least it all worked out without anybody
falling on his own knife. And a nice chunk of change ended up donated to
charity, too.

The silence on the way back from the con was equally quiet and thoughtful,
but somehow I didn't think the grand scheme of fandom was the topic which
had Jamie's attention.

The next part should prove to be interesting, not least because the Malfois stories have thirteen-part volumes, and whatever Mina writes next (which, of course, is what I react to) is the end of a volume...

(Again, this story has been updated at the Mina De Malfois Fanfic Archive).