Author of _Dangerous Red_ and _Last Night at the Blue Alice._ Inveterate procrastinator and anxiety bomb.
Incoming Beast Machine

My parents live in rural South Carolina, same house where I grew up. There are lots of older folks out there, pack rat folks, and also a lot of families who are starting to inherit their old homesteads and clean out the attics/barns.
With that in mind, I sent out the alert to my dad: please keep an eye out for vintage typewriters and fountain pens. Affordable antique fountain pens are tough to find these days. Typewriters are even trickier, thanks to rise of keychoppers - artists who clean old typewriters off thrift store shelves and cut the keys off to make jewelry.
That means that the typewriters are getting a lot more rare, and that prices have skyrocketed: both to capitalize on the keychopping trend, and to protect nicer specimens for collectors.
Anyway. Let's just say I've lost a lot of auctions. And I haven't wanted to buy a typewriter online, anyway. I do dream of someday spending big money on a pristine Olympia SM3, which I'll have to order from a pro, but for one of these that I want to refurbish myself, I need to mess with it first. Or to have my dad mess with it.
I was up past dawn playing Mass Effect. I'd just listened to Episode 4 of In The Dark - it's outstanding - and had finally fallen asleep, when my dad started blowing up my phone.
At first, I panicked, as one does when one's parents are seniors and have some health issues that I'm not ready to talk about yet.
But he was sending photos, and then called to say he'd asked his consignment-shop-owning friend to keep an eye out. He asked if I wanted this typewriter for Christmas, and yes, I did and I do, and here's a photo of it on his washing machine at home.
I called it a beast; Shawn took one look and called it a beast, so I figure that'll be its name. Or Bess. I don't often name things, but this machine just begs for a name.
I have the serial number: it's a 1928 Underwood Model 3, and I can not wait to get with the tinkering.



