My adventures with a PITA

     Most of you know who this is about, but it was written for a different audience, so I don't mention her Highness, the Royal PITA by name.

     I am embarking on a unique new adventure.  One of the writers I mentor for is at a place in their education that they are ready to break out of short form fiction and exercises and move into the most difficult task of writing a literary novel.  The writer is understandably scared and insecure.  As I was trying to help find a good prompt worthy of an emerging great writer (one who continually astounds me), I stumbled onto an idea that had a beginning, a middle and an end.  However it involved curses, alternate worlds, saviors, ghost-like chimeras and murders; not my normal genre.

     After much discussion, we decided that the story of the Itzala was a good project to collaborate on.  Our writing styles and methods differ greatly, so it will be a true blending of talent and education.

     I am not sure you have read any of my opinions on the use and abuse of the short-short or flash fiction style.  I am firmly a fan of it as a creative outlet and exploration of style, but it does not hold up (in my book) as a true genre.  To tell a full story in 500 words or less, something has to suffer, and mostly that is the dimensions of the characters.  The personalities within a short-short have to, by reason, be second to the action of the crisis and resolution.  Hence most characterization is one dimensional.

     Wherein, a long piece of fiction relies on full character development.  In this soon-to-be-story, it is a foreign old lady who imports the curse of the Itzala into the United States and places our protagonist in peril.  She was the germ that infected my mind with the simple idea of a little old lady who habitually asks, “How are you, dear?”  What if that old lady had an ulterior motive, or even an arterial motive? ;)  What is she really asking?

     Today, across two continents, one ocean and at least one sea, my co-writer and I worked out the storyboard for the project.  We defined the curse, how and why it is spread, the main characters and their background, the murders, the motives, the beginning, the end, a little about the locations, and some important allusions that will become embedded in the finished work.  Just that, a skeletal map to follow, with no meat, no blood, no tissue, was over 1200 words.

     It is exciting for me to be involved in a big writing project again.       I’ll keep you informed as it progresses.  It will be interesting to see which of us become the teacher and which the student.  In the meantime, please be wary of any stray shadows. 

The Hole

the hole

This is that hole of mine:

a room on the other side of a two-way mirror
I can't see in
but they see out

I don't know why
I fear it
both a burial shroud
and swaddling cloth

closed eyes
experiencing new memories
seen better
without light

easy ingress
difficult egress

disliked when I am not free
surly and black
at times, half in and half out
caught between those that will be
and I that I am

I yearn to climb in
but will fight again to climb out

I don't know what is waiting in there
or why it works
but it is where my art is
it is where my heart
my mind
and pen
desire to be

distant voices speak
strange to the ear
sounding familiar
they come from my mouth

brilliance in the darkness
its my secret
my secret hole
I mustn't speak of this

time once again
my breath checked in anticipation
stilled with fear

I stand at the edge and stare into the darkness
and know that there will be light within

thinking as I step,
do those others have a hole?

my death and birth will be in this hole
my remembrance and my immortality

brilliance and clarity in choked darkness
mute from noise
blind of sight  

this world
the darkness beckons me
pulse racing
lungs labored
anxiety rising

the darkness beckons again
 

I answer the Siren's call

who is speaking?

Tell me your story...

Writing Takes Time

Writing Takes Time

or the adventures of

Flash Fiction and the Invasion of the Flat People

     A constant topic of conversation and debate in every milieu of writing that I participate in, is the practice and merits of short-shorts or flash fiction. The online evolution of e-zines, blogs, internet journals, writing circles, and competitions, has grown the micro-story exercise into a free-standing genre (or so some think).  The benefits of this style are not to be ignored, but don’t be fooled into thinking that flash fiction is anything more than a warm-up to a much bigger craft.  Just because you have mastered a really good leg-stretch doesn’t mean you qualify as a marathon runner.

     A few years ago (not that I am THAT old -- okay, so maybe I am, just shut up!), it was common practice to assign and be assigned exercises like: Give me a three hundred word introduction to a story and make me want to read more; Give me a list of three to five minor conflicts and how they would relate to a story climax; Pick any two faces on the street and write a character background on both; or Write a short scenario of a crisis/conflict and give me three possible character responses and what might result from each.  These exercises (and there were perhaps a half dozen more) were designed to hone specific skills necessary for an accomplished writer; just like flash fiction, they are only practice exercises.

     I like reading short-shorts, it gives me tremendous insight into a writer’s style, voice, and talents. Yet, no matter how good their leg-stretch is, it doesn’t tell me if they are still going to be in the race at mile thirteen, let alone finish the whole twenty-six-and-a-half mile course.

     

     Writing takes time.  You should get out your Dymo label maker and put that across the top of your computer screen.  There are no shortcuts.  Once you get passed the ABC’s of fiction structure, a durable story requires a concept that is contemplated, reworked and polished, a locale that has length, breadth and topographic detail, characters that have personality, history, motives both conscious and subconscious, size, shape and bodily characteristics, and a storyline that involves multiple crises leading to a single climax and a denouement of growth.

     Yes, writing takes time and it does take work.  To put all of this into a personal context, I may take a week or more contemplating a story germ attempting to fully grasp what it is I want to say.  I am a literary moralist with a modernist leaning.  My fiction explores the consequences of actions and the lessons to be garnered from the climax of the tale.  I cannot, and will not, settle for a “Hehehe, we find out he did this, so she killed him.  The end.”  I have to figure out why he did it.  What led up to it?  Did he have a choice?  What was the impetus that drove the motivation and the psychological impact of his thought process?  And why did she decide to kill him?  Was there no other choice?  Did she consider the consequences?  Are there consequences?  How does she feel now?  What is the point?  What is there for the reader to take away, contemplate and learn? 

     I need to know where I am going to end, so that I can start my journey.

     That’s the easy part, once that is over, I start to do my research.  Where does this take place?  I get out maps; I look for places where my story would fit.  Different regions have different customs, idioms and viewpoints; the location of a story is critical.  Then I look back at my outline and decide what types of places are needed: rivers, lakes, shopping centers, office parks, highways, neighborhoods.  I study the map and get a feel for the area, sometimes I even keep the map open while I’m writing so I can see north, south, east and west.  To make a point, how many fantasy books have you read where the inside cover is a map of the author’s fantasy world?  You need to know where you are before you can lead the reader through your story.

     The next step in my writing process takes the longest time.  I now have the foundation to begin to create my characters.  I have to give them their names and begin to get to know them.  Where did they come from or grow up?  What kind of education, career, marriage, and/or children do they have?  Do they exhibit idiosyncratic anomalies, psychoses, phobias, fetishes or fantasies, and how might that play into their story and their potential actions and reactions.  What do these people look like?  What about favorite foods, drinks, hobbies, activities? 

     I know by now you are thinking I should be committed.  But I am committed, I am committed to writing as well as I can.  All of this background information cannot possibly fit into my story, but if I don’t know it, what if I need it?  I could just leave it out; leave a big gaping hole of credibility.  I could wing it; fly by the seat of my pants; just “write from the gut” as someone recently told me, but then I’d have to keep track of the made up stuff to be sure it conforms with all the other made up stuff and that nothing contradicts something important I needed somewhere else.  Oy!  That’s too much work.  Give me the facts of my research any day.

    Finally, when I have all of this easy stuff done, I can get to work.  I open a file and write the ending to the story.  Yes, the end comes first.  I need to know where I’m going so I can go back to the beginning and get started.

     Writing takes time.  Flash fiction is fun.  It is a great creative outlet, but it is NOT a genre.  It is a practice exercise to sharpen your skills, and only one of many exercises.  Someday you need to stop stretching your legs and start running in the big race.  That doesn’t mean that between races that you should give up practicing; practice is always good.  Keep doing those leg-stretches, but after you’re done come on up and take your place on the starting line and I’ll see you about 26 ½ miles down the road.

This IS NOT about Adrianna Joleigh

     I was chatting with Adrianna (my sometimes writing partner and full time pain-in-the-ass) that I needed to get something written today to go out with my invoicing.  The problem being is that almost all of my non-work time has been spent writing, talking about writing, hosting writing challenges, working with writing prompts, giving advice on writing; I think you get the picture, I have been writing.  But that avocation has left no time to garner any whimsical observations on my life here in the Smokys to include as my bi-monthly torture letter with my invoicing.

     My PITA (she was just promoted to Royal PITA, here is her coronation picture complete with tiara) suggested (here’s a big surprise) that I could write about (you guessed it) her.  I didn’t dare let on that I had thought about that, but I was worried that if I had, her head might get so big that Denmark would have to gotheir territory.

to war and expand

     I had some other thoughts:  I did consider talking about the very beginning of fall with the colors starting to emerge and the deciduous litter beginning to cover my driveway, but that’s like talking about the weekend on Wednesday.  It is something to look forward to and plan for, but the weekend isn’t really the weekend until Saturday (or Friday about lunchtime if you’re a court reporting, yoga fanatic, with more male admirers than South Beach has sand).  So I’ll wait until next time to discuss, as my Tennessee neighbor Dolly would describe, the coat of many colors.

     I also considered talking about that mythical creature Ebon, ruler of winter, who is slowly devouring our precious daylight hours in preparation to attack our lives and heating bills with his icy wind and snowy blankets.  But again, it is not yet Halloween (even with the Christmas decorations out in the stores), so Ebon hasn’t made a sizable incursion worthy of comment.

     A thought had occurred that a playful examination of my writing-social network that spans from Adrianna in Denmark, to Emily in England, Eve in Sweden, Francine in Australia, both Rea and Nariman in South Africa, and don’t forget Dyane in Canada, but then someone might notice and ask how come they are all, you know, foreign.  I can’t help where these women choose to live.  What?  Oh, yeah, I guess they are all women.  So what?

     My blog could have been an interesting subject; there are quite a few more posts than before including a symbolic look at my fight with depression http://writerinthemountains.blogspot.com/2013/10/depression.html and a couple of new stories.  But that’s what I did last time.

     This is just terrible.  I haven’t run into any funny locals, my dogs haven’t pulled any shenanigans, there no immediate holiday to make fun of, and no one has shot the Waynesville town turkey this week.  This is so not fair!

     I am not going to give Adrianna the satisfaction of mentioning her here.  I utterly refuse to talk about she, even after all of careful guidance and tutelage with her writing, has now taken up sketching, too.  I will not talk about her intelligence, wit, and talents or how if you Google her she is mentioned in more places than there are porn sites (not that I know anything about porn sites).  There is no way that you are going to find out from me how much in demand she is both as an interview subject and an interviewer.  There is nothing going to be said here about just because she and I co-host a writer’s challenge and critique each other’s work, that she finds it obligatory to ruin my reputation by including my name in every post and every comment she makes online.  (I think she is trying to live off my fame.)  And I am NOT going to talk about her poetry, fiction, and insights on her website; she can just promote http://adriannajoleigh.com/ herself.

     So, you all have my sincere apology.  I couldn’t come up with a subject for this letter, maybe next time.

Steve, perfectly unsolved

     Someone called my old name out at the airport today.  Scared the livin’ shit out of me.  Twenty-four years and no one has even come close to discovering me.  The voice called again.  If I had had a gun (I was at the airport, I wasn’t carrying), I’m not sure whether I would have shot him or myself.

     By the third time he called out, “Stuben!  Hey, Steve, over here.”  My heart was racing -- fight or flight -- simultaneously scanning for the quickest escape route and anything that could be used as a weapon.  Another voice off to my left yelled, “Oh my God, is that you?”

     I lunged for an abandoned luggage cart knowing it was too heavy to throw, but thinking I might be able to block their path long enough to make the escalator.

     The voices continued louder and closer, “My God, Steve, you haven’t aged a bit.”  “Me, look at you.  How long has it been?”  “What? Ten years?”

     As I swung the cart around, I clipped some lady’s ankle.  Her scream brought the attention of the entire concourse.  “Are you fucking crazy?”  Looking across her bent and wincing frame, I could see the two voices hugging.  I wasn’t Steve, at least not anymore. 

     The blood started to come back to my face when a hand grabbed my shoulder from behind, spinning me off guard to expose my left temple to a hard right fist. 

     When the lights came back on, I was looking up at two uniformed TSA agents.  A third officer had the male companion of my ankle victim in handcuffs.  Something was said about the EMT’s and police reports.  I knew if I didn’t get out now, there would be no hope.

     I thought clearly enough to lay my forearm across my face with a feigned recuperative moan, hoping that my attacker and the guards had kept my face obscured from the omnipresent security cameras.  I protested that I was okay, explaining that the man was perfectly in his right to hit me.  I related my accidental injury to his wife and pleaded to just let things go; I had no intention of pressing charges.  As the three agents lifted me to my feet, I kept my face down and asked about my hat.  It was the injured lady that handed it to me.  I placed it on my head with the brim low over my face.

     Unbelievably, they let me leave without any investigation.  That’s why I’m here.  Probably the stupidest thing I’ve done in these nearly two-and-a-half decades.  I have a dangerous face-to-face encounter with the law, and what do I do?  Head straight for my safe deposit box.  Here it is, all $287,490.  My dirty little secret.  A stolen cache that has never been touched, never been spent, as intact as it was that long ago Friday night when I took it.   

     It was never the money; it was the challenge of getting away with it.  I had pulled off a “perfect crime.”  Well, perfect other than the fact that there is no end to this game.  There’s no honor in being “perfectly unsolved.”

Depression

     I envy sailors that watch as a storm rolls in.  It is not that they can do much more than stow a few loose items.  They can’t outrun, evade or hide from torrents of wind and water that rend the sails from the mast, shear the ropes and jigs that hold their vessel together, and smash the contents of the galley stowed deep in the keel.  I envy those sailors because they can see it coming.

     My storms are stealth; by the time I know there is a storm, I am already disoriented in violence, dizzy and sick with imbalance, and in full every-man-for-himself survival mode.

     I’ve been in calm seas for quite a while now, sure there is always the mild squalls, but nothing more damaging than a swimming headache that subsides quickly enough to keep me watertight and more importantly, keep my crew from abandoning ship.

     I have magic little pills that boost some of this and retard some of that; they give me blue skies and sunshine even on rainy days.  It has been very pleasant, better than in years.  Without rough seas to hold my attention, I have spent joyous time navigating my journey, charting my progress, and enjoying the sail and my crew.  But magic pills aren’t really magic.  The pharmaceuticals are formulated to work against a known and measurable tempest.  There is no tiny bio-chemist hidden inside the capsule with the ability to bulster the strength if the seas begin to boil.

     When the last storm struck, I was not only surprised, but unpracticed in emergency procedures.  I failed to get the bow turned into the waves, and I neglected to shout the warnings and instructions to those who have chosen to sail with me.  I am in charge of my ship, I am the captain, the leader, the owner.  Therefore I am sole bearer of responsibility.

     I lost some of my crew, one that I had planned on making my first-mate.  Not that I blame anyone for abandoning such a carelessly piloted boat.  I am the only one at fault.

     The waters feel better this morning, but now it is too quiet on board; no conversations, no raucous laughter, no contented banter.

     

     The note spoke of spiraling eddies sucking us down into an abyss and how the course is unhealthy for all the reasons that it is so wondrously right.  Fear is our greatest enemy, when it is ours, and when it is someone elses.  

     I don’t want to sail on alone, without hope no matter how fleeting, without plans no matter how improbable, without a chart and the sexton that I have come to depend on.  I need my crew.

     The waters……. 

You Can't Lose What You Never Had

     This is a story based on a news account of a man who habitually played the same lottery numbers, bought at the same store, at approximately the same time for years.  The numbers came in on a ticket sold at that store at that time.  The man and the ticket were never seen again; a year later the winnings reverted back to the lottery.

     Most writers look at this story as a mystery to be solved: Where'd he go?  Why?  Is he dead?   That's the normal way, but as those who know me have already figured out, there is not a normal bone in my body.  I wanted to know how the people around him felt.  

     I mentally outlined the main characters, used Google Maps to find a workable location, and then traveled via my very warped imagination to the Arkansas side of the Louisiana-Arkansas border to meet the people and get to know their attitudes and life styles.

     My first encounter was an oldtimer sitting on a bench near a small square.  I am glad I stopped to talk with him.

You Can't Lose What You Never Had

     Jimmy's been gone a whole year now, last Thursday.  Some people reckon he's dead.  I don't reckon; I know.  If he was alive, we'd have heard from him, or about him by now.  You don't just disappear with a lottery ticket worth nearly fifty million dollars and not show up for the money.  I don't know how or when or why, but he's dead.  He ain't coming back.  Yeah, he's dead.

    If I’m going to tell you this story, you got to forgive me if it sounds a bit like gossip, but around here, everybody knows just about everything about everybody.  It ain’t gossip; it’s only common knowledge. 

     There ain't a soul in the three county area that don't know all about Jimmy, 'cept ain't no one that knows where he is.  We all knowed about Jimmy buying that ticket down at JT's.  We all knowed about him fooling around with that woman Anita Jarvis.  We all knowed she’s the one that gave him the money to pay for it.  And we all knowed that with him gone, his wife and his boy are worse off than they was before.  But what nobody seems to know, is what happened to Jimmy after he bought that ticket and why he ain’t never claimed his winnings.

     Tain't no one I know ever tried to tie all of this story together end to end, but I figure since I know most of these people best, I'll try and tell y'all like it happened. 

     I first got to know Jimmy was back when he was playing ball over to Junction City High School.  He was their tight-end, and a right fine one too.  He had good hands.  He wasn't no superstar-pro or nothing, but he did all right for the Titans.  He had talked about maybe going to college and playing ball on a scholarship, but that wasn't about happen.  Like I said, he wasn't no superstar.

     His daddy is Bud Johnson.  He's got a small dirt farm up north of Blanchard Springs.  He don't work it though; not anymore.  He leases it out to one of those cotton co-ops.  Bud and I've been speaking friends for most of forty years, mostly down at the Agway and 'round the diner at breakfast time.  I remember a few years back, Bud was skimping to put some money aside for Jimmy to go up to the community college, up near Little Rock.  Football or not, he wanted his boy to be some kind of architect or engineer or something like that.  You always want something more for your kids.

     Well anyway, in his senior year, Jimmy started seeing that Margie girl.  That's the one that’s his wife.  Her folks having that place, Conner's Bar-B-Que up by New Caledonia.  They might have met there, I don't know, but they started seeing each other regular.  It wasn't long ‘fore she ended up pregnant, and she and Jimmy got hitched; that was the end of that whole college thing. 

     Well, let me see, it must a been four, maybe five years ago, no wait, it was before Hank died, had to be six years ago, Jimmy come over the mill looking for work.  He'd been working in a tire shop up by Hillsboro and they was barely making ends meet.  He and Margie had that kid, a bruiser of a boy.  They call him Junior.  Someone said he was near eleven pounds when he was born.  It don't seem right, a baby that big, but Jimmy isn’t any sapling, and Margie's a big girl, if’n you know what I mean.

     Jimmy said his Margie had put on a hundred pounds or so when she was pregnant, and a few more after that kid came.  I didn't know her when she was young, but Jimmy swears she was a looker with a right smart body.  Now, if you been up t' the Conner's, you've seen her folks; they big people.  Maybe just ‘n Jimmy likes people to believe something nice ‘bout Margie that explains his knocking her up.  Or maybe he likes his girls that way and don't like sayin’ why.  I don’t wanna be contrary, but I doubt she was ever anything but a big girl.

     But all-in-all, he didn't do so bad by hisself.  She's a good country woman.  Pleasant to talk to, if you’d go by my impression.  Their place, as often as I seen it, was always a clean and tidy.  So was she.  Every time I ever saw her, 'cept that last time a few weeks ago, she was always the same, big as house, plain as oatmeal, but with a right pleasant smile.  Margie ain’t never wore none o’ that drug store make-up, and her hair?  That hair hain't never seen a beauty parlor but maybe for her wedding day.  Most of the women are like that 'round here, and it don't make for much complaining among the men. 

     A country wife is got to be her man's partner.  She keeps the house clean and tends to the children and garden and the cooking.  And she makes her husband feel loved at the end of the day.  None of that needs no makeup or beauty parlor hair.  And most these women 'round here are happy like that.  Maybe Margie wasn't too happy.  Jimmy was always going on that she was a mean one.  He said she was all the time complaining about everything from living out in the country, to not having no money, to the sweatin’ kinda heat in the summer and the bitin’ cold in the winter.  I got pretty good reckon to believe Jimmy ‘bout her being mean and all, but I ain’t never seen it personally.  She was always pleasant by me.

     I guess you’d gotta know ‘bout Margie if’n you going to understand why Jimmy took up with Anita.  Her folks is set pretty good with their Bar-B-Que place.  They got a nice house, a good car and a truck that runs; they wear good clothes, and they don't appear to ever worry about paying the light bill, if you know what I mean.  Jimmy, on the other hand, grew up on a dirt farm, living on credit till the crops come in, piecing two or three old Fords together just to keep one on the road.  Hell, I doubt that Bud's ever had more than two pair 'o overalls at one time in his whole life.  Them plus his church clothes is all he’s got.  Don't need much more, living in the country, but I reckon Margie never understood that.

     Well, when Jimmy and Margie got hitched, they rented a trailer up on the Thompson place.  You might had heard about that widow lady that was married t' that black man from Florida; it's the place she used to stay in when he passed away.  It was in good condition, the lot was dry and the well was still sweet.  But they say that Margie weren’t happy right from the start.  She didn’t want to live in no trailer-house.  She wanted a proper-house as she call it and a piece of land.  Guessin’ she figured that she and Jimmy was gonna be livin’ like her folks.  But neither one of 'em had spit for talent, just out o' high school and already raising a kid.

     Jimmy used to say she was all piss ‘n vinegar about not having no money and only ‘t one car.  Said they was living like white-trash.  Jimmy tried, you know.  He was bouncing around between jobs always trying to do better for her and the boy.  He worked on a couple of farms; he stocked shelves on the overnight shift down t' A&P.  He learned to drive big equipment and got job working for the parish o'er the State line, but they busted him for sleeping on the job and he got fired.  According to Jimmy, the whole time, Margie kept puttin' on weight and bitchin' 'bout the way they lived.

     When Jimmy got fired down in Louisiana, he got another good job up in Hillsboro at the tire shop out on the highway.  He did all right for himself up there.  I didn’t see him much around then, but from what I hear, he was working all kind of hours: weekends, evenings, whenever they'd let him.  He never said so, but it was probably a combination of needing the extra money and not wanting t’ be round Margie.  Anyway, he ended up pretty good ‘n got t' be manager.  “Cordin’ t’ him, he was making pretty good money.  He told me that they was paying him hourly plus commissions on his sales.  

     It got them out of that trailer and they rented a regular apartment up off US 82 somewhere.  I was never there, I hear the rent’s really high in those places.  They only stayed up there for 'bout a year or so before they rented that tenant house over t’ Pleasant Grove.  That's the place they're in now, well I guess, Margie's still in there, when she ain't dodging the landlord over back rent.  I ain’t sure how she’s making it right now.

     Do you know the Baskin's boy, Aaron?  Drives that loud, black Camero?  Always barreling up the road like he's late for his own funeral?  He's pretty good friends with Jimmy and was back then too.  He told Bud that Margie was the one that got Jimmy to start playing the lottery.  Aaron said she was always writing out a plan on how they were going to spend the money.  They were going buy a big farm with a two story house; build their own Bar-B-Que place o'er 't Junction City to make money off’n those longhaul truckers.  And she wanted them to own a Cadillac car.  I wonder what she'd do now if she had all those millions.

     Aaron told me himself that Margie wasn't having wifely relations with Jimmy.  Hadn't for years, he said.  She told Jimmy that she couldn’t feel sexy cause they were so poor, and besides they couldn't afford it if she got pregnant again.  So here's poor Jimmy working 'round the clock to make money, and his wife not sleepin’ with him cause he ain't got enough.  If I'd a been him, I would’ve left.  That ain't right for a wife to act that way.  Don't know why he didn't leave her and get hisself a new wife. 

     Well, then again, maybe he did.  Maybe that’s what he did; took his chances and headed out.  But that still don't explain why he didn't take the lottery money, unless, like I said, he's dead afterall.  With all a’that money jus waitin’ fer him, yeah, he’s gotta be dead.

     Right after Louisiana started selling them Power Ball tickets, Aaron said Margie started in on him.  She figured the lottery was going to be the answer to all her troubles.  Now, I don't subscribe to that kind of foolishness, getting millions of dollars off a dollar bet, but I guess if I needed the money bad enough, I'd give it a try. 

     From what that Baskin’s boy tells me, the numbers that Jimmy played was Margie's pickings.  She got them out of a National Inquirer piece on what the winningest lottery numbers were.  Seems kind of stupid, don't you think.  If they knew what the winning numbers were going to be, why would they still be writing in the newspaper?  But that's where them numbers came from.  She wrote ‘em down: three sets of numbers on a piece of paper.  And every week for as long as Louisiana's been selling tickets, Jimmy's drove down south 'o Junction City to JT's and bought his tickets.

     Now. like I said, a few years back Jimmy come over to the plant looking for work.  The tire store got bought out by Firestone.  We needed help ‘cause some of the boys that work there had run into trouble with the law and got themselves thrown in jail.  So they started Jimmy right off on the fork lift, seeing as how he had experience with equipment.  He fitted in right away, even with all of the new-boy pranks everybody pulls.  He gave it back as soon as he got it.  We all had some good laughs and Jimmy ended up being a real go-to boy.  There wasn't nothing that the boss wanted that Jimmy couldn't do.

     Things were going along pretty good.  Jimmy liked the work and all us boys liked Jimmy.  He seemed real happy until it was time to knock off and go home.  Jimmy used to tell me that he wished they'd let him work sixteen hours a day.  Mostly he said that it was he needed the money, but once he had some beers in him, he would start going on about how miserable it was at home with his wife.

     It was a Friday afternoon when we was all at Pete's Place, that Jimmy first met Anita.  I guess you could say we all met her at the same time.  I had seen her that week up at the offices.  I had to turn in a maintenance report and noticed her right away.  It's easy to spot new faces, but Anita is the kind of woman that most men would notice anyway.

     She come into the bar with that tie that runs the payroll department.  I think his name is Barker or Bunker.  I don't know him and its right unusual for a tie to be stopping at Pete's.  They mostly keep to themselves over at one of the motel lounges.  Anyway, Mr. Barker or Bunker introduces Anita 'round to the boys.  He didn't know any of our names, so we mostly just introduced ourselves.  When it came ‘round to Jimmy, I could tell right off that he was sorta struck.

     Anita is a fine looking woman.  She's a might tall for my taste, probably five-ten, maybe five-eleven.  She has thick dark hair that makes her skin seem almost like sweet cream.  She ain’t never going be considered skinny, but she’s proportioned.  She got all the right kind of curves, if you know what I mean.  For a country boy like Jimmy, or like me even, she's the closest thing to glamorous that we is likely to meet, face-to-face.

     After we all said our hellos and how-ya-doin’s, she went off with the tie and sat at the bar.  I couldn't help but notice that Jimmy had shifted his chair so that he had a better view of her sittin’ there.  I could tell Anita had noticed too, and she adjusted her bar stool to make the view a little better for Jimmy.

     After about twenty minutes or so, the tie and Anita stopped by our table and said their good-byes before leaving.  The way she looked at Jimmy and shook his hand, I'd swear that she was already planning on something with him.  He told me once that he knew he was going to sleep with her the first time he saw her.  I'd bet if she were honest, she'd say it was the same for her too.

     Now I can't say when it was that those two first got together or who made the first move, but it wasn't long before they were a carrying on.  It was pretty damn obvious to everybody.  They was always findin’ excuses to be where the other one was, always gigglin’ ’n smiling at one another, and always sneaking some way t’ touch.  Jimmy stopped hanging around Pete's, but I hear he weren’t getting home no earlier.  Half the time they stayed late at the plant and half the time they was seen o’er to her house t’ Spearsville Road.  Can’t say as whether Margie knew what was going on back then or not.  Those two weren't hiding anything, facts is, they ‘bout as noticeable as an iceberg floating in the Mississippi.

     For most of a year, ‘cause we were still short handed, everyone that wanted was getting good overtime hours.  This helped out Jimmy at home.  The extra money in his paycheck was keeping Margie quiet and since he was getting some on the side, Jimmy was happy.  Then some of the plant's orders got canceled and word came down that there wasn’t going to be no more overtime for anybody at all.  Well, straight time forty hours wasn't gonna to cut it with Margie.  She started yakking ‘bout either his getting t’ overtime back or they was gonna have to give him a raise t’ make up the difference.  He told me that he wasn't goin’ t’ work all week long for to have to listen to Margie all weekend long.  After about two weeks with nothing different, he a told the foreman he’d had enough, and off he went; storming up the steps to the offices, hotter than a welder’s wand.

     Anita must have seen him coming.  She caught him out in the hall before he could make a fool of himself and end up fired or something.  He told me later that she had it all planned out ahead of time how he was going to keep making the same money.  He said she was busy putting her plans together the whole time he was griping to us.  She had it figured out so that he could make even more money than he’d been making with overtime and he wouldn't have to tell Margie about all of it.  That way, he'd have some money leftover that they could spend together.

     I don't pretend to understand exactly how she did it, but Anita had changed around the plant's whole finance department.  She split all of the shifts into sections and each section had its own expenses, including payroll.  This way, the suits and ties could figure out which sections were making money and which ones weren’t.  We all still worked together, but we were paid like we worked for different companies.  Like, I am in the assembly section, John over there, is in shipping and receiving, and Jimmy was in material handling.  We all have different bosses. 

     At first I didn't get what she was doing.  We all just figured it was some new, fancy, college way of doing things.  She set up all the sections and then had a different tie put in charge of each one.  And not one of 'em knew who was in any other section, or what they was supposed to be doing.  All they were supposed to do is supervise their own section and ignore everything else.

     Well, I don't know if Anita set this whole thing up just for Jimmy or whether he just fit into her plan by accident.  She got Jimmy hired for part time work for in two other sections.  Now here's her little catch.  She got him three employee numbers had each section pay him like he was only working for them.  He was getting three different paychecks.  This way he was making more than with his overtime, but he didn't have to give all the money to Margie.  He was still working his eight hours in material handling.  At the end of his shift, he punched in as housekeeping, and he was on call the whole second and third shift for engineering and maintenance.  The engineering part was on account that he had worked in a mechanic shop and could repair the forklifts and some of the other equipment.  And since he was on call, Anita had him issued a company cell phone.  That way while he was on call, she could talk to him at home whenever she wanted, and he always had a good excuse to run out and meet with her.

     Jimmy kept things going rather smooth for a couple of years.  Everyone knew pretty much what was going on.  He kept the housekeeping check as play money fer hisself and Anita.  He had Pete cash it behind the bar so there was no bank records.  Them other two checks he gave to Margie to keep her happy.  For all that sinful living, Jimmy had it pretty good.  I imagine that there was times when it got a little sticky, juggling two women and a boy who is old enough to start asking questions, but Jimmy never let on that any of that was getting to him.  He was about as happy as I ever knew him to be, 'cept maybe when he was young and still playing ball.

     Well, as you know from the papers, Jimmy hit the lottery; forty-six million dollars.  And you also know he never claimed it.  Last Wednesday that money just went back in the kitty and nobody’s gonna to get a dime of it; not Jimmy, not Anita, not Margie.  I guess they'll use it for the schools or something.

     Now this part of the story is pretty much pieced together from the talk around town, and maybe a little from Margie.  Anita ain't talked to none of us boys since it happened, but we can read about her and all her lawsuits and testimony in the paper.

     Seems Jimmy and Anita had had a little tiff about going or not going to some party with the suits from the office.  Jimmy was feeling bad ‘bout getting Anita mad at him, so when he finished up work, he went by some flower shop and bought her carnations as a makeup gift.  He spent the last ten dollars he had on them flowers.  The secret money was all gone until the next payday.  Being flat broke is hard at any time, but when you are keeping two women, it can also  be dangerous.  But it was Wednesday and he would’ve been paid ag’in on Friday.  It should've been all right.  He had called home and told Margie that he was going to be busy for a couple of hours fixing some machine, and he wouldn't be home until after supper.  So with only his time and some fresh flowers, Jimmy went to Anita's house to smooth things out and do whatever else those two did when they were alone.

     The flowers must have worked because Anita said in the papers that she and Jimmy were in bed when Margie called on the cell phone.  Margie wanted him to buy milk and cereal for Junior's breakfast.  She knew he was going down to JT's for the lottery tickets after work, and told him to buy the milk and stuff right there.

     I guess old Jimmy probably panicked when he realized that he didn't have no money.  Margie said he that he tried several excuses before he told her he didn't have any money.  She said she got pissed off and told him to use the ten that was hidden under the flap in his wallet.  She had checked to make sure it was still there before he had left that morning.  Jimmy was trapped.  He agreed to buy the milk even though the ten wasn't there anymore.  Margie threw him one last curve ball.  She told Jimmy to leave the lottery tickets at home in the morning.  Because the jackpot was so high, she wanted to check the numbers herself.  Jimmy needed the tickets; he needed some milk and cereal; and he didn't have a dime in his pocket.

     Anita said in court that Jimmy hadn't asked for the money until after they were done makin’ it and he was getting dressed to leave.  She said she wasn't very happy about having to give her man money, but she gave him a twenty anyway.

     A clerk named Jerome was on the counter that night at JT's.  He don't know Jimmy, but he did tell police that he remembered a man fitting Jimmy's description coming in and buying some lottery tickets and a few other things.  Now, you have to understand that Jimmy always played those same three sets of numbers and he always bought them at JT's.  The lottery people say that the only ticket that had all the winning numbers was sold at JT's.  And the winning numbers was Jimmy's numbers.  That's why everybody knows that Jimmy won that jackpot.  But Jimmy ain't never been seen again and ain't nobody ever tried to cash that winning ticket.

     For the first couple of days, we all just figured he was off getting a good drunk.  Margie was calling everybody she knew and every place she could think of.  Anita was playing it cool.  She didn't even talk about it.  It wasn't till the police got involved that everyone started talking.  Most people figured that either Margie or Anita had killed him for the money, and maybe they did, but if so, they sure put up a good show.  And neither one of them ever claimed the ticket either.

     It wasn't long before those two women started calling each other in the open about Jimmy's disappearance.  It got pretty ugly.  I could never tell whether they were more upset about the missing ticket or the missing man.  Both of them got lawyers, the kind that takes part of the winnings.  Anita quit her job, and Margie about starved to death for not eating.

     I never did have much to do with Anita.  Most of what I know I read in the papers.  They say she’s down in Baton Rouge somewhere looking for another lawyer.  She wants someone to prove that even though she hain't got that ticket, since it won and was bought with her money, she's entitled to the winnings.  I doubt she's ever given one thought of poor old Jimmy that wasn't a curse since the day they discovered him missing.

     Now Margie, she still lives over in Pleasant Grove although she’s mostly been staying up at her parent's place, seeing as how she hasn't got the money for the rent.  Her and the boy stop around every bar and diner in the area still looking for Jimmy.   She came in here not but a couple of weeks ago.  She was all slimmed down, had her hair done up nice, and was even wearing makeup.  She looked pretty good, t’ be honest.  We chatted awhile ‘bout her and Jimmy and some ‘bout Jimmy and Anita.  She told me that she didn't care at all about the money anymore.  She said if they found that ticket, Anita could keep it all.  The only thing she wanted was for her Jimmy to come home and love her again.  Ya know, I really think she meant it.

     I run into her boy Junior last week down at JT's.  He was fixing to play his daddy's numbers.  I asked him how he got down across the state line; I didn't see his momma's car.  He told me his girlfriend drove him.  She was standing behind him.  A might pretty girl with her youth and all, but already righteously pregnant.  And ain't neither one of them seventeen yet.

     Seems everybody today is looking for some way to make their life easy.  Then when it don't work out that way, they feel like they’ve been cheated.  People think some fancy car and a fat wallet or maybe a pretty woman is what’ll make ‘em happy, but living out here you learn happiness comes from the way you live, not how you live.  It comes from the inside; from the soul.  It don’t got nothin’ to do with no money.  These kids these days are forgetting the good country way of living.  You work hard, love your family, and ya make the best of what you got. Enjoy the good Lord’s blessings.    
     These young people, they’s all tryin’ to grow up fast and t’ get rich quick. They shoot for the moon and when they miss, they act like they've lost something important.  Nobody ever told them that you can't lose what you never had.

Josh and Marjorie

A Trip to Marjorie’s

     Our wet, warm winter had coaxed the ancient azaleas to prematurely don their Easter raiment.  The days were dawning earlier each morning, and the Gulf was still pleasantly holding back the humidity that was to haunt the remainder of our spring and summer.  Florida was in that liminal state between cool and hot that the local TV meteorologists call Chamber of Commerce weather.  I was antsy, my calendar was free and it had been requested that I spend some time with my grandson. 

     Josh is at that awkward age when the skin blemishes, parents are the paramount irritant, and nobody is capable of understanding what it is like to be him.  He is artistic, athletic, intelligent, fifteen, and completely disinterested in everything but girls, skateboards and surfing.  His mother has been dogging me for months to intervene before his grades become a long term problem.  I would have to do what I could.

      Whenever it is time for me to sweep out the mental cobwebs of life’s tedium, I take a leisurely drive north to Cross Creek and the estate of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.  It makes for a quiet day of introspection and the perfect place for reconnection.  I called Joshua a full week in advance to make sure his date book was clear and that his parents wouldn't object.  I knew he would never ask his mother, so I did.  He would rather be reported missing than talk with his parents.  I had also futilely sent him a copy of Rawlings’ short stories and asked him to read a few for some background and a point of reference.

     

Josh today at 25

     The drive up I-75 was mostly mute.  I brought some of my classic rock and roll CD's; he liked them better than his own compilation of digital downloads.  The conversation wasn’t much more than a few grunts as he approvingly skipped through the tracks.  He wasn’t much company until we stopped in the time-trapped village of Micanopy.  The dusty streets lined with century-old cracker architecture, the sweeping beards of moss dangling from stately oaks, the festive colors of reawakening gardens, and the scent of a hot lunch platter, at last stirred the larynx of my anguished progeny.

     I kept the conversation light.  He had read only a couple of pages in the book, but those sounded “pretty cool.”  He doesn’t like reading.  We explored the numerous antique shops.  No, he hadn’t painted or drawn anything for a while.  I showed him some of the buildings that had been used as movie sets.  School is okay, except for the homework.  We stopped to enjoy the air, freshened with the scent of wild honeysuckle.  Couple of girlfriends, but no one special because they always want to spend his money.

     We climbed back into the car and drove the long country road to Cross Creek.  Josh was intrigued by the history chronicled by the docents during the tour and the sensory experience of what it would have been like to live in the old Florida of the 1940’s.  I sensed a kindled fire.  We strode the grounds, the orange groves, the gardens, and the walking trails that meander through the farm and adjacent woodlands.  I explained the factual differences between the movie Cross Creek and Rawlings’ written account.  We talked about the famous trial and how it ruined Marjorie’s writing career.  I showed off her collection of books garnered one-by-one from the authors who at one time had been her house guests.

     I hoped that the atmosphere of this remarkable place would inspire my young scion.  All I could do was open the door and leave it ajar.  He would have to decide whether he would venture through its portal.

     We ended the day at a nearby restaurant named for Rawlings’ Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Yearling.  It boasts of an authentic Florida cracker menu prepared in accordance with Marjorie’s Cross Creek Cookery.  For entertainment, they employ an old African-American bluesman who sings, unamplified, from the middle of the dining room with just a guitar and a harmonica.  He plays the post-depression period music with the emotion of someone who had lived through it.  Josh was marveled even as he explored the tastes of alligator, frog’s legs, catfish, and soft shell crab.  He tipped the old man generously: my money, of course.

     On the ride home, Joshua curled up on the back seat and slept, just like he had when he was a baby.  I couldn’t help but hope that the light that I had seen in his eyes would continue to burn in spite

of his pubescent hormonal mania.  I really wanted to see him draw again, or maybe write, or at least read.  He doesn’t need tutelage.  He needs inspiration.

     The next day, my daughter called asking more advice about Josh.  Now all he wants to do is sit around the house playing guitar and blowing his harmonica.

     Well, at least that’s a start.

A Post-Mortem Bath

Okay, you can blame +kim hodges for this.  No, I cannot enter into the Writer's Challenge, but I did have a take on prompt 1. I acquiesced to posting it so that people could comment.  Kim decided that I should address prompt 2 also.  This is TOTALLY her fault. (And no, I didn't make the 500 word limit.  I told you, I can't sign my name in 500 words or less.)

The pain surprised her, she had thought it would hurt less this time. Looking down, a tear fell from her cheek and disappeared into the pool of warm blood. She knew she would have to start the bath.

She stood up from the squat stool she used during the killing and walked slowly towards the screened back door.  Bred and raised to be a good wife, there was contentment in her stride; content to be far from town and isolated from the nosey eyes of neighbors.

The killing knife dropped in the sink; she ran water to be sure the blood would not cake.  Her attention then turned to the oversized pot of water on the stove.  An extended middle finger satisfied her that the contents were warm enough for the bath, but not hot enough to scald.  She lifted her caldron of death and carried it to the edge of the back porch.  Placed at the lip above the first step, she began to assemble the ritual tools.  First she dragged a small chair to the pot, then an old square basket to catch the outer waste, a plastic bucket for the innards, a short sharp paring knife and finally a towel to dry both her hands and the corpse.

Down three steps into the yard that was more dirt than grass, she strode towards the murder scene.  Geraldine was this one’s name, but most just shortened it to Gerry.  Full of energy and always playing, Gerry was either instigating the others in an intimidating chase, or being chased in retaliation. This morning she had been vibrant and lively, but now no more than a crumpled mass of bloodied flesh.

The good wife picked up what once was Gerry by a single leg and carried the body back to the porch.  She looked to be sure there was nothing still oozing from the gaping wound at the neck and then lifted the still warm remnants over the steaming pot.

As the body sank beneath the surface, she sat heavily into the chair.  Reaching for the towel to wipe the tears from her cheek, she mentally readied herself for the long list of tasks that lie ahead.  From a distance came the pop and crunch of tires on gravel, it would be Robert, her husband, her lover, and the only reason she took these lives, time and time again.

The car stopped at the edge of the yard and Robert, dressed in dusty jeans, a sweat stained t-shirt, and a John Deere cap, stepped up on the knoll that marked the homestead boundary.  He saw his wife hunched over the great pot that was only ever used for one thing and smiled.

Without a stolen glance she knew he was standing near and watching.  Reaching deep into the water, she grabbed the body and lifted it high above bath with one hand and with the other, clawed and ripped at the scant covering still worn by Gerry.  The waste was discarded and the body was wetted again.

“Who is it,” he asked.  “Gerry,” came the choked answer.  Robert smiled but with loving empathy.  “I’m sorry, honey.  I know she was your favorite.  But I love your fried chicken.”

The Song of the Siren

     If anyone participating in +Adrianna Joleigh and my Writer's Challenge finds this post before we close out submissions, don't panic.  As part of the host team, I am not participating in the challenge, but one of the two prompts, did start an itch that I had to scratch.  This is my interpretation of  prompt #1.  I wouldn't have qualified anyway due to Adrianna's 500 word limit.  Those that know me, know that I can't sign my name in 500 words or less.

The Song of the Siren

Sleet pinging against dark glass behind him, wind whipped leaves stampeding past his feet on the unlit path, an eerie howl screaming through the treetops; he knew he had trespassed against all reason and common sense, yet he walked further, bent against the storm, forward to meet his nightmare face-to-face.

A glance up at the protective glass set high in the stone wall revealed no sign of movement or light.  Assured that the progenitors of his former captor were unaware of his presence, he crept closer to the dilapidated outbuilding, the shelter of Lilith.

The weather-worn staircase creaked with each step, but the scream of the wind and the rhythmic swash of the rain cloaked the sound of his approach.  This was not his first ascent to her lair, over the past three months, enraptured by her spellbinding looks and his own overwhelming lust; he had willingly given himself at every chance.  It has only been two days since reason overcame his taste for passion, and the revelation that like Adam’s first wife, this Lilith was not there for his pleasure, but he was for hers.

His hand he carried a small bag; a sacrificial offering to appease her anger at his absence.  In the bag were a few of her abandoned relics of his incarceration and a new iPod loaded with what he hoped would be an appreciated playlist.  Music to calm the savage beast.

His knock was irresolute, fearing the consequences of both confrontation and avoidance.  He steeled himself in preparation of her seductive beauty and his inevitable enchanting avarice of passion.  He knew he had to concentrate on the words; the words were the key to his continued freedom.  He had to listen to the words, not her song of intoxication.

Barely audible through the raging storm, he heard her footsteps approaching.  Words were there, too.  Concentrate on the words; don’t look at her; listen.  The words are your only salvation.

The door opened in mid-sentence.

“…Marianne that it would be tonight, did you know she’s pregnant?  God only knows who the father is, I bet it’s that biker guy I saw her with; Randy bought a bike, did you know that? Nothing big some small little thing to go back and forth to work, Oh My God, did you hear what happened to Alice at work, it’s all over town, I have no idea how she is ever going to live it down, well that guy from accounting…”

There stood the most beautiful, sexy woman he had ever known; his ex-girlfriend, enchanting in every way possible, and she was talking.

“…Stuart, I think that’s his name, well, he was going to ask out what’s-her-name, the one with the boob job, when all of a sudden that Bobby dude just walks right up and takes her out the door, no one I know could figure out where they went, but the next day she was all smiles and a little tired looking, not like Elizabeth after one of her all-nighters, oh, you are spending the night, right? I could use a little…”

Words, listen to the words.  She hasn’t taken a breath since you’ve been here.  Listen to the words!  He thought about all of the times he had spent the night here, suffering the incantations with salacious anticipation of her physical charms.

“…and there’s cold beer in the fridge, but don’t get drunk like before and pass out, that won’t make Mommy very happy; you knew Ellen passed out, right?  She was on a date with some guy she met on the Internet…”

The realization struck that she was not talking again; she was still talking.  This was the same monologue from which he made his break.

“… so after they get her face cleaned up, she started to cry, you did say you wanted a beer, right…”

She turned towards the kitchen; he bolted for the door.

Writing in the Memoir Style -- Advice

     I have said that I have never felt as though I had the requisite talent for teaching memoir as a genre, because frankly it is as complicated, in that same simple manner, as haiku or sonnets.  There are rules, but that doesn’t mean there is a formula.  But here I will proffer a couple of basics to use as a roughly drawn roadmap.

     Differing from a first person narrative wherein your speaker is a participating observant narrator, but neither the protagonist nor the antagonist; a memoir is a brutally honest introspection of a real incident or period in your life that has since passed into history and the spiritual growth that it inspired has taken root in your personage; it is both the experience and its result. 

     A difference should be noted here also, that a memoir is not a “journal.”  The memoir has happened far enough in the past that the lesson(s) of the consequences has been learned and assimilated (by you and all relevant parties).  A journal is a self-exploration in search of answers.  Journaling is a great exercise, but don’t confuse it with this.

     The consequential outcome of your experience is the main emphasis of this kind of writing.  Choose your subject carefully so that your reader will feel fulfilled / educated / empowered / moved by your experience.  What happened to you is unique, “What’s in it for me?”

     Honesty, both in the situation and the outcome is foremost, but readability becomes an issue.  You need to take something that happened to you, or a period of your life that has had some effect (good or bad) on you or those around you, be honest about what happened and what those enriching effects were on you and everyone else.  Be hypercritical of the situation, including yourself.  If you like sugar-coating, go buy some candy, but leave it out of your story.  Be prurient if the situation requires, be gross if it was gross, be profane (literal meaning) if that was part of the event, don’t tone anything down for the sake of modesty or reputation, it will detract from the purpose of the remembrance.

     THEN, AFTER YOU’VE BLED OUT, treat it like all of your other writings, deal with structure, form, syntax, word choice, idiom and flow.  Memoirs should be written with the same serious attention as any fiction (or poetry) work. 

     As writers, we all like eyes on our work, but in this style of writing be careful of how many I’s there are.  Write first, and then concentrate on saving your poor reader’s eyes by eliminating as many I’s as you can and still tell the story.

     And finally, you may take all of the above, add some literary license, some fictionalized characters and a few imagined scenarios, and expand “your life” into a much bigger picture.  Harper Lee’s masterpiece To Kill a Mockingbird, is both memoir and novel -- there are plenty of examples of memoir styling in fictionalized writings, and often they are among the most moving and inspirational, but they start as a memoir.

     It is true that there is a piece of a writer’s life in everything written; sometimes it is the motivation for the whole story, sometimes the basis for a character, or maybe it lies in the story within the story, but somewhere in there is the author’s DNA.  In Memoir Styled Fiction, the writer’s life is more than a few helixes on a gene; it is the entire fetus, perhaps even the crying baby, or maybe a whole adult body.  But a memoir is conceived, gestated, and nurtured in the truth of the writer’s experience.  By practicing this style, you become both a creator and a parent.  

    Unfortunately, this is where my proffered map ends, the roads continue, but they are uncharted; where you as a parent go with your progeny is up to you.

Brown Coffee

Southern New Jersey, February 1973; I don’t specifically remember the weather, but I can tell you what it was: it was bleak, colorless, and cold.  That’s the way Jersey winters were and are.  From late November until the middle of April, there is never any color, to the senses it is like viewing a cinematographer’s shot of a winter scene in black-and-white.  A different interpretation of Fifty Shades of Gray; not exhilarating or arousing, but bleak and depressing. 

It was February, mid-winter, and it was that time.

The time wasn’t correlated to a specific day, or week, or sometimes even the month.  It came without cause, never forewarned, planned or discussed, it just came.  Like it had for so many years that the numbers could no longer be ticked off one’s fingers while recounting past adventures.  It was time and we knew.  Not from each other, not from some sign, we knew because it was carried in our DNA. 

I was the youngest of the three, off from work and bored with TV.  I drove to the North End for a beer and a confrontation, hoping that the usual gang of bearded, flannel-clad outcasts might still be accompanied by the redhead from the A&P.   I had made an unsuccessful move to steal her away from Ugly Mike before the big fight started.  The fight wasn’t over, and neither was my interest in that cute but chubby cashier.  

I opened the side door and cautiously scanned the darkness alert to any approaching danger.  I let the door swing closed and my pupils began to adjust; in the dim illumination of beer-bar neon, I saw no Ugly Mike and no redhead, but seated at the bar, making time with the barmaid, my barmaid, there sat my two older brothers. 

I’m not even sure if I said hey.  Marianne took her cue at my arrival and went to fetch another can for the one-legged Nam Vet seated in a booth.  There were several moments of silence while I studied this riff-raff of blood relations, trying to figure out why they were at the North End, and if that meant good news or bad.  One of them said, “Cedar Lake.”  That’s the way it was in ’73.

We didn’t plan these trips.  I hadn’t seen either of my brothers in over a month, and suddenly all three of us are in the front seat of my Suburban heading to Cedar Lake.

Cedar Lake is a dilapidated camp ground, deep in the Jersey Pine Barrens, that has long out lasted its glory days.  Back in the early 60s, my brother Mark had met the owner during a deer drive.  The whispered conversation over a shared Thermos of diner coffee ended with Mark getting permission to use the camp property during the winter when it was closed.  We had permission to fish the lake for its sizable population of yellow perch and largemouth.  We could hunt the adjoining woods for quail, squirrel and woodcock.  And at sunrise and sunset, we could use the owner’s blind for the coastal migration of duck.

Here we were, three man-boys, off on our annual paramilitary masculinity test.  My under-dash mounted tape deck pounded out tunes from well-worn cassettes of Steve Miller, Derek and the Dominos, and the Allman Brother’s Band.  With Mark as the navigator, we headed south into the barrens.  Our annual excursion had strict rules, but the rules were simple: bring your shotgun, plenty of ammo; your fishing stuff (a many poles as you could muster); and warm clothes.  Provisions were kept to the minimum needed for survival; coffee, beer, and something to eat the first night when we set up camp.  After that, if we couldn’t shoot or catch it, we didn’t eat.

The pine forests of South Jersey are not to be reckoned with lightly.  There are some black bear, occasionally a bobcat, packs of wild dogs, and of course, the legendary Jersey Devil.  But it is also the habitat of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang, some not-so friendly guys that you REALLY don’t want to stumble upon, and obviously, there are the indigenous people, the Pineys (another neighborly type). 

The Pineys had lived isolated in the forest for generations and weren’t known to be terribly friendly.  I’ve seen trucks peppered with buckshot for nothing more than driving on the wrong dirt road or God-forbid, using someone’s driveway for a turnaround.  Pineys, at least when they were at home, were to be avoided for safety’s sake. 

You did see Pineys out in civilized public; they own bait shops and gas stations and stuff, in fact, meeting them on neutral ground is part of a Pine Barrens adventure.  They’re easy to identify, almost all of them past the age of puberty suffer from a strange medical malady called the Groagy Nose.  I have never figured out if it is genetic or the result of something in the environment, but both the men and the women grow these huge, grotesque, misshapen, bulbous snouts.  Their noses get bigger and uglier with age, in fact, I bet medical science with a little research could calculate the age of an Pine Barrens resident just by measuring how groagy their Groagy Nose is. 

Once after I moved to Florida, I did see an old man with a huge Groagy Nose, but I figured that he was either victim of a cruel mutation or was some rare form of back-woods tourist.

The night we set up camp everything was in motion.  We had to gather firewood, build our primitive sleeping lean-to, fetch fresh water from the camp laundry (the only place with a freeze proof faucet, Mark had a key).  And then we would build a fire to cook some burgers or whatever, try to keep warm, drink way too much beer, and it being the ‘70s, there might have been another contraband intoxicant involved, but for the sake of my reputation, I maintain, “I never inhaled.”  During the bustle and preparation, our conversations consisted of bemoaned tales of our woeful lives, our thankless jobs, where we were getting laid or not, and most importantly, the latest news of our hunting and fishing expeditions embellished with just enough exaggeration to prove that each of us were better than any other sportsman in the world (at lying, not necessarily hunting and fishing). 

Three brothers, a pitch black night, a roaring campfire, oh yeah, we had that ritual, too.  Through bloodshot eyes and clouded minds, we unveiled carefully constructed half-truths of unsolved murderous rampages, eye-witnessed paranormal manifestations, gory corpse discoveries, and other assorted this-should-scare-the-shit-out-of-you stories.  I don’t think we ever really scared each other, and if I had ever managed to frighten one of my brothers, he must have kept it as secret as I did.  But there was one tale, one of shared memory, which we always reminisced: it was our encounter with the Jersey Devil.

I was twelve, I think.  Finally old enough to go deer hunting with Dad and my brothers.  Dad drove us deep into the Pine Barrens to a pre-surveilled spot along a fire break.  We spread out at 100 yard intervals to wait in ambush for Bambi’s husband or son to wander by.  I stayed nearby the car, down a ways was Mark, then Charles, then Dad.  We hadn’t been in the woods long enough for me to lose a toe to frostbite, so I was surprised when Dad and my brothers came back almost at a run.  “Get in the car.  Get in the car.  Unload your goddamn gun and get in the fucking car!”  

Mark told me later that he had seen the Devil hanging by its arm from a tree.  He got my Dad and Charles to show them thinking it was an optical illusion.  Apparently my brothers still believe that illusions aren’t supposed to move, or make grunting noises, or climb around in the trees.  I never saw what they saw, but I did see that it scared the living shit out of my Dad, and at twelve years old, that leaves one hell-of-an impression.

After the tales were told, my conscious dimmed by alcohol (and shhh! that stuff is illegal!), I slipped through the crevice of now and became a then before anyone else.  We slept in the protection of my truck foregoing the lean-to because of a brisk winter wind that started around midnight.  It was crowded and uncomfortable, but in our condition, no one cared. 

The next thing I remember was Mark climbing out the rear door into the pre-dawn darkness.  I stretched the chill from my stiff muscles, worried a little at the way my stomach felt and then I climbed out to join him.  We had one of those silent brother conversations where we decided I was going to tend to the fire while he fixed the coffee.  He unpacked the campfire percolator, it was a perfect pot to brew brown coffee.

Yes, brown coffee.  The fresh water at Cedar Lake Campgrounds had a very peculiar characteristic.  It looked fine, smelled fine, even tasted fine, but when you boiled it, it turned brown, the same color as the cedar waters of South Jersey’s lakes and streams.  This worried us the first time it happened (we even joked with each other that the brown water might be the cause of Groagy Nose).  But hey, who among us wants to face a cold winter morning without a cup of hot coffee?  In deference to the potential risk to our noses, we drank the brown coffee each and every trip.  Besides, we discovered that brown coffee tasted better than that stuff at home; I don’t know why.  Yes, brown coffee.

With the fire bright with new flame, I wandered down to the lake to find a bush worthy of being pissed on, and as I drained the remnants of last night’s beer, across the lake a huge bird took flight from the treetops.  

“That an eagle?”  

“No.  Look at the shape of the wings.  It’s a buzzard.  A turkey buzzard.”  

I watched.  

It circled higher and higher, like a sentry climbing to his overlook post.  Suddenly, two more soldiers took to the air, and I watched.  Then several more, and then a dozen more, and then dozens more, and then hundreds more lifted high above the trees, and I watched. 

There is something spiritual about seeing a thousand winged giants silhouetted against the dawning sky.  We watched together, neither of us spoke, neither of us thought to wake Charles.

I always think of those trips to Cedar Lake as a preamble to our lives.  It would not be but a handful of years before Charles will have been married and divorced twice, and reconciled to live a life of bachelorhood.  Mark will have been married and divorced, gone through a slew of bad relationships, remarried his first wife, found a mole on his leg and died of melanoma.  Me, I got married, started raising the ex-husband’s two daughters, and fearing I might replicate the fate of my brothers, left.  My New Jersey roots were buried in the polluted soils of childhood antics and teenaged mistakes.  I felt stymied and root-bound like a plant left too long in the nursery.  I had to get free.  My wife and I, along with the girls, transplanted our family on the gulf coast of the Sunshine State.  I successfully segregated myself from the many bad influences and well-earned reputations of my early years.  We would spend the next twenty-five years in Florida where all there was to worry about is hurricanes, tornadoes, alligators, lightning strikes, and the occasional shark attack.  It was paradise.

Whenever I get depressed from the inevitable stress and pressure of life, I remember back to the camaraderie of my brothers, the satisfaction of harvesting and eating fresh game, our campfire stories, the awesome nature we witnessed, and the one-of-a-kind taste of brown coffee.  It was a wonderful time.

Afterword

In the years since Cedar Lake and those adventures with my brothers, I came to realize that Florida had become stale with the same types of pollution that taints the soils of my youth.  My wife and I transplanted again into the mountaintop forest of the North Carolina Smokys.  The girls both stayed down on the peninsular raising families, reveling in the camaraderie of sisterhood, and building their own stories of life.  My oldest brother suffered with hemorrhoids for a few years before discovering that the entire cellular structure of his digestive tract was a metastasizing cancer.  My little brother and sister (not included in this particular tale) remain rooted back there in New Jersey; both parents are dead, both older sons are buried, and the middle child, the nerdy son, the rebel, the bookworm and the black sheep, now sits as the head the family.  I do my best “leading” my baby brother and sister, and as for those who are gone, I do my best to keep them alive and well in the words I write, although admittedly, sometimes I still get lonesome for a silent conversation and a cup of brown coffee.