More of my writing.

I was just playing around with something and I came up with this. I think I have the S. King method of writing...you dig up and little fragment and then keep going.



The meeting

We were in Kevin’s kitchen surrounding the green plastic lawn table, Kevin stood because there weren’t enough chairs. Joe shifted in his seat to my left. “We still don’t know if this is right. Maybe we should call somebody? Say something.”

We'd been at this for hours. “Who you want to call Joe? What do you want to say?” I said, I could feel smoke burn into my throat. “I’m just saying.” Joe said and the big man took another drag of his cigarette.

Fran rocked forward again, her shaky arms leaning onto the table for support, it wobbled almost overturning. “The same thing happened forty years ago when my David was alive. First the cats then cows started going missing and then...and then little Samantha down the road. I was open to things like this once, but since David passed I shield myself pretty good.”

Robert sat across from me, the town mail carrier and official snoop, Next to him was Molly, Kevin’s wife, she was a young plump thing nearly bursting out of her tee-shirt. “I heard those stories Fran and I don’t think much of them.” She said. “Anyone want more coffee?" Kevin asked.

His kitchen stank of cigarette smoke, dog and men, I almost gagged at the thought of more bad coffee. “We need to decide what to do and we need to figure it out tonight,” I said. Robert huffed into his mug, “just because you work at the bank doesn’t mean you’re in charge. It’s Kevin’s house and even Joe has more experience with this kind of stuff.”

“Hell Robert I don’t want to be in charge, but I don’t want to spend another night with my family huddled in the basement either.” I motioned toward Kevin. “You want to be in charge?”

“Not me,” he said,

“How about you Joe?" I leaned into him, "You’ve got more experience, that’s what Robert says, you want to be in charge?”

“What experience?” Joe’s arms wiggled as he shook them at the ceiling.”

“Robert says you got experience, that’s all I know,” I said as I collapsed back into the green chair.


“My David had experience, God rest his soul,” Fan said, her mouth moving like a broken jigsaw puzzle.

Robert stood up pointing his finger at Joe. Robert still had is gray uniform on, no one had invited him to the meeting we all just assumed he’d show up. He was an old man, not Fran old but old enough to know when he’d been called out. “You’ve been in that group for years now. I listen to you on the radio every year.”

Joe laughed. “That? The Ohio Grassman Search Team! Robert all we do is camp out in the forest and get drunk.”

“You want to be leader Joe?” I asked.

“No.”

I looked through the stuff we had drawn up, I was the only one who had brought paper, Molly had volunteered to write because she said that none of the men could write worth a damn. We had an address, two names and list of supplies. “Let’s just go over what we know. I said.

Robert started. “Michael Satish and his wife, I think she is his wife moved into the old Kerner’s house last year. Since that time, the cats have up and left--"

“All the cats?” Molly asked, writing again.

“You seen a cat around here in the last six months.” I asked. She wrote all the cats are gone in big block letter on the top of her paper.”

Robert went on, “All the cats are gone, the McRutter’s have lost three cows as of last month and the Shelby kid went missing last week.”

“The boy is fifteen, how do we know he didn’t just up and leave, like the state police says.” Kevin said moving around the table with fresh mugs of coffee. “He’s never been in trouble before and his parents are good people,” Robert said.

“So?” Tammy asked?

“So what?” I said

“So all this makes Satish a monster?”

“I don’t know.” I said

Robert went for the fridge and grabbed a beer. “I know.” He said and popped the can.

He took a swig and began. “The guy is a sheet. White as a ghost. Up during the day but never comes to the door, wife does all the taking, but talking like she is in a dream or drunk or worse. And that boy, I saw that boy talking to her the day before he disappeared.” Robert came back to the table, and looked at Joe again. “Just go camping and party huh?” Joe shrugged and looked at me. “So collage boy does that mean we burn down his house?”

“I don’t know.” I said.

Kevin fiddled with his fish tank and asked if that meant the boy was still alive. No one answered. Then his daughter came into the kitchen with two handfuls of dog food. She’d been eating it again.

“My kids ate it all the time.” Fran said, “I figured if it was good for the dog’s hair it be good for theirs too.” I stared out the back of the kitchen window. It was getting dark and starting to snow.

Coolest thing

I'm not old enough to remember Kennedy or Camelot, but it must have been a bit like this. This week I've never been so happy to be an American. There were 2 million people at the Capital. Two million people!!! God knows how many people watched on television. I watched it on TV, because I couldn't get to D.C.. I'm sorry I didn't go.

Another thing happened to me that puts its all in perspective. I teach at a little technical collage and I talk to the guards when I come and go. One guard (who I will call Sam) and I have been talking about the election for months. He was adamant that America was not ready for a black president. Sam is an old black man and when I went into school to give him more hell this week for not believing he started to say something and then just hugged me.

That's my inauguration story.

No matter how bad things get, how horrible things seem...sometimes we get stuff right.

Wow

God it feels good to be an American!!

What the hell??

I wanted this blog to at least a little bit about my attempt at becoming an author.

I've met another aspiring writer and we are trying to form a writing group in Columbus, Ohio.

Wish us luck. I'll post with the results.

And now....at bit of my fluff.



He looks like my uncle. Christ isn’t that what everyone says. He looked just like uncle Sal, or George or whoever. He is average height, a little round in the middle, but not fat. Salt and pepper hair, soft face, doesn’t have a sweaty palm or greasy brow. I shake the man’s hand and remember that my uncle teaches third grade.

“I need your batting average.” He says, staring through me, caressing my upholstered chair. He eyes the books, frames and then the desk. They always stop at the desk. People want dusty tomes, leather upholstery and the appearance of thick solid wood. After months of bucking the system I finally gave in. The older and much wiser members of my profession have always told me to give clients what they want.

“All depends on the hand I’m dealt. Coffee?” I say not even attempting to get out of my seat.

“No.”

“Why don’t you tell me what happened and we will take it from there.”

“It’s hard. Was easier on the phone with your lady.”

God, I hate this part. Why do they always feel the need to do this? I place my pen on the standard yellow pad. “I’m not your priest or social worker, just take a deep breath and tell me what happened.”

His eyes turn from me to my faux “mahogany” desk, “You gotta understand… they are all beautiful.”

Give them what they want. I’m not here. Do doctors do this? Do they do this discussing spleens and gallbladders? Do they scribble devilish trees and stick bugs as their patients discuss their pain?

“I only took one or two pictures. It’s not like it even showed beaver or nip. I really flushed it down the toilet didn’t I?”

“Go on,” I scribble hangman’s knots from spindly branches.

“She’s thirteen. She should’ve known when to stop. Why’d she have to call my sister? Tammy hates me now. Should’ve known Tammy would call the cops too. They kept me in the squad car for three hours.”

Long time,” I think of sweaty palms and oily scalps.

“I kept telling the Cops I had to pee, but damned if they didn’t just keep me in that car, those bastards. I almost passed out from dehydration! I passed water in there too. They made me do it! I should sue their asses. We should talk about that, I…”

“We just did,” I say with a practiced smile and sympathetic nod. One of these days I’m going to peer over and see just what my doctor is writing on her little pad. Hell, I’m going to check my plumber and mechanic too. Do any of them look at veins, wires or pipes and say, “Man, you’re screwed.”

“So then they give me this.” He hands me the warrant. “How was I suppose to know they’d take the computer? My whole life is in there. Sure, there are shots, but the wife’s disability app, my veteran info, pictures of my kids, it’s all in there. What do I do?”

I hold my breath…and give him what he wants.

Objects in Mirror may be Closer than Appear

The world seems to be as crazy as always. Jobs are gone, there is fighting in the Middle East. Russia has turned off the fuel line to the EU. All the living presidents have taken a picture together.

But...you ask...what about me?....

I went to Chicago this week. To visit with my family. I was born a reared in Chicago. (Children are reared...corn is raised.) My grandfather passed away last summer and my grandmother has taken it pretty hard. They are/ were both part of the Greatest Generation. My grandfather was in the Pacific war and my grandmother built planes bound for Europe and beyond.

They were together for more than 60 years. I can't even begin to imagine how long living with someone feels like. (Hell, I'm only 38) I've been with someone for 10 years and that seems long....and then to times by 6. Wow.

I'm not sure how long one grieves for a loss that large either. Its been 5 months since he has been gone and if anything I think she has gotten worse. She has effectively become a shut in, never learned to drive, or even take the bus. I've heard that some women her age, after their husband dies, travel the world. I don't see her doing this.....I see her fading.

The doctors have given her medication for her blood pressure, anxiety, and depression.

But is she depressed or just trying the cope with a major lost. I hope the medication is helping because I don't think my visit did.

I like to write but I don't know if I do it well.

I've never been to a creative writing class in my life, but I've read and scribbled a lot. One of the interesting things about 2008 is that it was the year that I started my novel. Its not a bit of flash fiction, not a short story, its an honest to god novel. (More than 100 pages so far.)

I'd like to say I've been working on it week to week and now its almost done, but I've never done anything like that. It seems I need a bug and it bites me only when its in the mood. I've heard and read that I can master the little gnat and get it to work on demand but so far I've had no luck.

So far last year was probably the hardest in my life....maybe I'll give my muse a little slack. I lost my grandfather a few months back, this was my first ever Christmas without him. I'm almost 40 so....I mean what could you expect....but loss is loss no matter when it happens and you always seem to think you're entitled to more time than you really are.

We live in the now but our things always seem to get pushed to the later.