Blindsided

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A while back I wrote a nice setting. It was a moment, compelling but worthless without a context. I let it sit for a while, then picked it up and clothed it in an idea. It was a good read, a good idea, and I liked it, but it left me unsatisfied. Even as I considered where to submit it, I knew there was something missing.

I sent it to a couple of friends. One, I think, is so busy criticizing utter crap that when she recognized that it was not crap, that was about all she had to offer. The other, fortunately for me, is not constantly barraged for criticism (if word got out how good he is at it, that would change). I sent him the prose and he  sent me back pure gold.

What was missing with this cool moment wrapped in a great idea was a story. My job is telling stories. Maybe the story will teach you something or maybe it will make you think or maybe it will make you chuckle, but in the end, it’s a story. That’s all. Some storytellers touch closer to the heart than others, and they get the Big-A Artist label put on them, but ultimately that just means they are very good storytellers.

It is fiction that separates man from the beasts. (That, and the ability to misuse tools.)

So there I was, inspired, wrapping the chocolaty story goodness around all that intellectual nougat, when suddenly, I find I have to define the nature of death in one easy sentence that won’t interrupt the narrative. Bam. Just like that. Out of nowhere comes the moment that decides the story. It’s off-plot but I like sneaky messages. One phrase.

No better time to break off and write a blog episode. Maybe I’ll pull that one phrase off, maybe not, but this candy bar is going to have crunchy bits. I love my job.

Thanks!

Episode 24: Reunion by the River, part two

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Our story so far: Charles Lowell is a private detective in some-time-in-the-past New York. A few days ago he didn’t know how he was going to pay his secretary or even where his next bottle of booze was going to come from. Now he looks back on that time nostalgically. He’s got clients now — several of them — and cash, and not much nope of living until tomorrow morning.

The problem is that his clients all want the same thing, exclusively, and they’re the sorts of people who express displeasure in creative and violent ways. No matter what Lowell does, someone is going to be angry. He already has a broken gun hand and a fresh bullet wound, among other aches and pains. Now it is Sunday evening, and it is time for him to find Lola Fanutti, widow of a crime boss, client, and possibly the person who shot him.

What will happen next? Heck, I don’t know. If I planned this story would there be five different factions who all want slightly different things, people with the same last names fighting on different sides, one character that is massively schizophrenic, and characters who are built up only to fade away again? Nope. This is all about having a good time spewing prose that’s in the classic noir voice. I also rather like the schizophrenic.

To read the entire story from the beginning click here. I’m sure there are some continuity issues, but life is that way.

I opened the door and stepped into the darkened taproom, imagining an arsenal pointed at me as my eyes adjusted. I wasn’t sure who would be there waiting for me, but there would be someone. And there would be whiskey.

No bullets came my direction, just the low murmur of conversation and the reek of stale gin. I was home. When I could see well enough I shuffled past the row of losers and boozers lined up along the bar until I came to my spot at the end, empty and waiting for me. Before I sat I scanned the tables with their odd assortment of punks and schmoes, listened to the low mumbles of deals being made and promises being broken. If the city was a machine then here was the grease, doing the messy job of keeping things moving.

It’s no accident that the table in the corner is in the deepest shadow. The small-time hoods at the other tables knew instinctively that the corner was for only the most serious of business, and most dangerous of businessmen. I couldn’t see who was sitting there, but I smelled lilacs. I sat on my stool. She could wait while I had a drink.

Jake looked over at me, his eyebrows raised, his hand poised halfway toward the top shelf. You still drinking the good stuff? I nodded and he pulled down a new bottle single malt. He poured a tall one and set it in front of me. With my good hand I held the glass to my nose and let the graveyard smell of the peat fill my sinuses.

“So I guess they found you,” Jake said, glancing significantly at my sling and my bandages.

“Who would ‘they’ be, Jake?”

“Didn’t say. They looked like trouble, though. Big guys.”

“Trouble? Yeah, then they found me.”

“The way they looked, I thought you might be at the bottom of the river by now.”

“Nope, still treading water. Anybody come around I might recognize?”

“Just the regulars, and…” he gestured with his eyes to the darkened corner.

I nodded. I’d been hoping to find her here, but that wasn’t going to make it easy. “Pour me another, would you?”

While Jake poured he asked, “Heard you were mixed up in that shootout.”

“You can’t believe everything you hear.”

“Yeah, I guess not.” Jake paused for another moment, hoping for more, then turned back to his other customers. I took a sip and stood, gathering my strength. I felt the eyes of the small fry on me as I walked back to the shark tank.

“It’s not polite to keep a lady waiting.” Lola Fanutti’s eyes were just two sparks in the gloom.

“I’m not generally considered a polite man.” I took a seat opposite her.

There was a moment of silence, then, “that’s it? That’s all you have to say? Not even ‘hello’?”

“Nice to see you again Mrs. Fanutti.”

“Mrs… Jesus, Charlie, what’s got into you?”

“A .45 full metal jacket slug got into me, that’s what.”

“Oh, my gosh!” A bit of Kentucky slipped into her voice. Whether she did it intentionally I wasn’t prepared to guess. “Are you all right?”

“I’ll live.”

She reached across the table and touched my hand where it touched my glass. “Don’t worry, Charlie, we’ll find whoever did this.”

I watched her for a moment. “What makes you think I haven’t already?”

She rocked back in her seat. “What the… you think I did it?”

“I’ve got to consider the possibility.”

“But… after all we’ve been through? No, Charlie, no.” She sounded like she was about to cry. “I could never…” Even as she held back the tears, there was something else growing in her voice. Anger, but not the cold stiletto anger of Lola Fanutti, but the Kentucky heartbreak of Meredith. “Didn’t our time together mean anything to you?”

It meant something all right; I just had no idea what. “Okay, Okay, I’m sorry. I’ve had a bad couple of days. I don’t know who to trust anymore. But I know you didn’t do this.”

Her voice changed again, still the Kentucky girl, but with the hard, cold edge of a killer. It sent a chill through me and I knew that for the first time I was talking to the actual woman, not some facade she erected for the occasion, and I knew she was speaking the absolute truth. It was Meredith Baxter, assassin, who said, “I don’t miss. If it had been me, you’d be dead.”

“That’s very reassuring.” I had meant to be glib, but it was also true. Here was one person who didn’t want me dead — yet.

“It was good, though, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. If I ever meet that girl again I’ll have to buy her flowers.”

Her posture relaxed; I was forgiven. She tapped a cigarette and waited for me to light it, steadying my awkward left hand with her own. She blew the smoke out in a long plume, the smell of tobacco mingling with her perfume, becoming something exotic. She shifted and the light played over the black silk that clung to her like a second skin. I took a sip of whiskey to moisten my throat.

“Who else have you spoken with about this matter, Mr. Lowell?”

“Well, there haven’t been any eskimos, but just about everyone else.”

“Cello?”

“He was onto me the minute I met you.”

“Don’t worry about him. He just wants his cut of any business that passes through here. My in-laws?”

“I promised Paolo that I’d give you to him. I plan to keep that promise.”

“Oh?”

“I am very unhappy with him.”

Meredith gave a ghost of a smile. “I see. You are a clever man, Mr. Lowell. Anyone else?”

“A couple of people I don’t know who they worked for, and some people who call themselves the Blood of the Saint.”

Meredith froze for an instant, then her cigarette resumed its arc up to meet her red lips. “I see. I should have expected that. They might pose a problem.” She stubbed out the cigarette with violence. “Damn Vic! Why couldn’t he just keep his mouth shut? Whoever whacked him, I just wish they did it a little sooner.”

“I heard a rumor he wasn’t dead.”

“I started that rumor. Should have told you. Sorry.” She fished out another cigarette and in her distraction lit it herself. “Who else knows the Blood is here?”

“Not sure. I heard people talking about Spaniards. And Alice knows, of course.”

“Of course.” Her eyes were scanning the room, but I knew she was watching me. “I don’t like her.”

“Don’t be fooled by that meek exterior,” I said. “She’s got the heart of a lion.”

“Oh, I’m not fooled at all. How are you shooting left-handed?”

“Even worse than with my right.”

“Well, I didn’t hire you for your shooting skills, I suppose.”

“Why did you hire me?”

“Would you believe your rugged good looks?”

I almost snorted my whiskey. “No.”

“I’m afraid that’s the only answer I have for you right now.” She thought for a moment. “Except this. You’re still alive. I think that shows I made a good choice.” She lifted her Colt from where it had been resting in her lap and slid me a little automatic from her handbag. “Just try to make some noise and not shoot me,” she said. “It’s time to blast our way out of here.”

Tune in next time for: Reunion by the River, Part 3!

Thanks!

A Day of Coding

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It’s a mixed blessing, having a word processor that you wrote yourself. On the one hand, you stand a pretty good chance of having a tool that works the way you do. As I mentioned previously, for me that means having a tool that helps me not forget stuff, and not worry about the details until it’s time to worry about them.

There is a downside. This morning I was thinking that I would much rather write Feeding the Eels episodes using Jer’s Novel Writer than this here blogging software. It’s not a big deal, I can write it there and paste it in over here. The thing is that Eels has special formatting, and setting all that up in the blog software is a pain. When I paste the stuff in formatted the way I want it, the blog software produces some pretty ugly markup that I then feel compelled to repair. Things are better in the new version, but still not as easy as it should be.

What I needed was an XHTML export feature in JersNW. That way all the correct markup will be there already, neatly done my way, and I can paste it in as source code. The blog software can just leave it alone. (Whether it actually will leave the code alone has yet to be demonstrated.) I’d been mulling how to implement that feature for a while now, and well, today was the day. Now JersNW has XHTML export. As JersNW’s biggest customer, the developer really hops to it when I want a feature.

The feature is mostly there, anyway. It has all I need for Eels, but now that the feature is there I have to make it so it’s useful to everyone else, also. Darn those other customers.

Meanwhile, I didn’t actually get any writing done today, and I probably won’t tomorrow as I make the export feature versatile enough for other users. I tried to get a bit of writing in this evening but my head is entirely in the land of logic right now. I would look at the page and I didn’t see words, I saw a word processor. That’s the big downside. I’ve got a confrontation between Felix and Schmidt, a battle of wits and subtle words (Schmidt is an underdog but don’t count him out), and all I can think about is overlapping <span> tags. Then I caught a margin note’s anchor shifting, and that was it.

On top of that, it’s not really a good business policy to add a major feature mere days before the big rollout of version 1.0. But there you have it. That’s how things work here at the Hut.

Thanks!

Ideas

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It’s a common occurrence, unfortunately. I will get an idea. “What a good idea!” I say to myself, “that’s a keeper!” Happened just last night.

The next thing that happens is I talk myself out of dropping whatever it is I’m doing to write it down. (This is exactly why Jer’s Novel Writer has margin notes, so I don’t have to drop what I’m doing to jot things down.) Of course, if I don’t write it down immediately all I will ever remember later is that I thought that idea was so good I wouldn’t forget it.

Last night’s idea happened between the Little Café Near Home and home. I was walking, had the idea, and thought “OK, first thing when I get home, I’m writing this down.” “Relax, dude,” another part of my brain said, perhaps personified by a little devil sitting on my shoulder. “There’s no way you’re forgetting this one… uh, what was it again?”

Just like that it was gone.

Thanks!

Hockey World Championship Day

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Originally, my subtitle for this episode was “…friggin Finns!”, but you really can’t blame them for doing too well. It’s what they were trying to do.

A few days ago I wrote that it looked like a contest between Russia and Canada. Those who read the comments around here might have picked up that the Finns weaseled their way past the US team in a shootout. Not shocking that the Finns beat the United Statesians, but a shootout? In a single-elimination tournament? That’s just plain nuts. That’s just TV stations wanting to make sure the game doesn’t run too long.

Shootout? pf. It’s not hockey.

So the Finns moved on to face the Russians. It was a good game. I think the Russians were taking the win for granted, but it went 1-1 into overtime. The Moscow crowd was going completely nuts.

Then the Finns scored, and the game was over.

Imagine a balloon filled with gasoline fumes popping without a sound. Whoosh, and that’s all there is. In the aftermath Russian players were staggered, unable to hold themselves on top of their skates.

I was in the wrong city last night. On the TV there were astonishingly beautiful women weeping because their hockey team had lost. A woman weeping over hockey is the second sexiest thing I have ever seen. I fell in love with one woman right there and then, so shattered was she. If you want to review the footage, track that girl down and tell her there’s some dissolute American writer who wants to marry her, go right ahead. But – she was weeping alone! Were the Russian men so caught up in the horror that they were unable to offer comfort, or are beautiful women weeping over hockey so commonplace they merit no consolation? What the hell is wrong with you guys over there? She’s hot! She loves hockey! She’s sad!

It’s probably delusional to think that were I on the scene that I would do any better, but any place where pretty girls weep over hockey is a place I want to be.

So, the Finns won, to set up today’s games. The Russians demolished the Swedes (don’t be fooled by the 3-1 score, it wasn’t that close and the Russians weren’t trying) for third place, and looked bored doing it. The home crowd was quiet. They had not recovered from the night before. The championship game’s not over, but the Canadians are having a pretty easy time with the Finns. How much better it would be, how much more fun, if the Russians were playing and the crowd was in full voice. Canada probably is the best team this year, but I’d give Russia the edge in this place. It would have been a classic. Except the Russians dropped the ball.

The Finns, however, aren’t buying any of that. I’d be praising them as scrappy (but really they’re not), and having good team chemistry (which they do without question), and being everything I like in an underdog, except they ruined my final. On top of that, at least while I write this, the Canadians are skating easy. I’ll forgive the Finns all the other stuff if they make a game of it here in the finals.

Watching the Finns play, I think I can see how they do well against the big teams. They’re pretty good, but I think the Swiss would have their number. Just a chemistry thing.

But man, you should have seen the Russians.

Thanks!

Service with a Schmile

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I almost didn’t go in to LCNH last night, I was tired as I trudged up the hill from Saxova Palačiknarna, and a little bummed out. I had spent the afternoon sifting through drifts of prose fragments, searching for ones that deserved another shot at life. Some were stories I’ve attacked several times, others just little fragments with a nice turn of phrase or an unusual voice. I also made a little list of the stories that are ready to get into print.

When I was done I rocked back and said, “That’s it?” Not a lot to show for all the years spent staring at this here keyboard. No novel published, practically nothing sold, and just a pile of random fragments in the hopper.

I knew if I went home I would probably just end up wasting the evening puttering on the Internet, so as I passed the door to LCNH I decided to make one more go at productivity. I’m glad I did.

I stepped inside and What’s-her-Name was relaxing at a table reading, and there was no one else in the place. I ordered tea and settled in to maybe get some work done. It was Friday evening, so I knew that I would not have the place to myself for long. Still, I entertained thoughts of a bit of conversation with What’s-her-Name. The change of scenery had done my brain a bit of good, however, and I was soon absorbed in my work.

It wasn’t long before another guy showed up, sat at the bar, and began talking amiably with What’s-her-Name. I was a little jealous, I must admit, but I reminded myself that she’s been having conversations with guys for a long time now. Meanwhile, service was getting friendlier.

It wasn’t nearly as friendly for me as it was for the next guy to come in. He got a nice big kiss. Hm. So there you go, then. With the next cup of tea, What’s-her-Name brought questions. She was curious about what I was up to, where I sent my stories, and so forth. We chatted a bit and then she went back for a bit of face-sucking with her sweetie. Any shyness I might have attributed to her was quite absent now. In fact, her ardor for her boyfriend seemed to be growing steadily as the night wore on.

Meanwhile the place was filling up. I was doing pretty well with the writing (or more accurately thinking — not a lot of typing going on), so I held fast in my corner and tuned out the kids playing cards and drinking more than they should. The caffeine was starting to make me vibrate with an audible hum, however, so I thought a nice beer would take the edge off and prepare me for an early bedtime. What’s-her-Name returned with the golden beverage and placed it on my table with a little faux-trumpet fanfare. Brr-pr-pr-pr-pr-pr-pr-brrr!

I have, in all my time in Czech bars, never seen a bartender or waitress do anything remotely like that.

What’s-her-Name hesitated and looked at me. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m a little drunk. I’m drinking wine.”

I stayed until closing time, which luckily for all concerned is pretty early there.

Thanks!

The Mankind Show

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“The World’s a Stage, and we are merely players,” Shakespeare said (or something like that).

What if that’s true? What if we’re just some big puppet show God’s putting on for the kids in his neighborhood? So if those kids can see all six billion of us running around like ants in a rainstorm, are any of them watching you? Most of us would just be extras, milling around in the background, maybe not even on the same continent as the interesting people.

When we die, what happens next would probably depend on whether we had a fan club or not.

Thanks!

The Golem of Prague

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I’ve fallen behind on my resolution to write a brief bit about the books I read. Not a review, really, as much as things I thought of as a result of reading the book. Recently I read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, and I have just finished Some Danger Involved, by Will Thomas.

The latter of those two follows a template you might find familiar: A man in victorian London becomesan assistant to an almost legendary yet enigmatic private detective. Detective Barker has assembled around himself an odd menagerie and the newcomer, Thomas, gradually discovers that each of them, even the little dog, has hidden abilities. As the story progresses, he even discovers some hidden potential in himself.

The story takes place at a time when Jews were being purged from large parts of Europe (see “Fiddler on the Roof”). The Jews have been moving west, but when they reach England there’s no more west to go. As always happens when there is a large influx of refugees into a country, the people that are already there resent the newcomers, accuse them of taking jobs, and so forth. So far, London has been reasonably tolerant, but things start to come unglued in the face of a rather horrible murder — a young Jew has been crucified. Things are heating up, but none of the usual suspects seems to be the one behind the trouble.

It’s a good story, with twists and turns, and while the prose reflects the mannered speech of Victorian England it does not weigh down the modern ear. There is humor and intrigue, but not so much suspense. The whodunnit element was pretty easy to untangle early on, when the bad guy makes a mistake that is glossed over at the time, but was pretty much a giveaway. There are a few distractor suspects, but none of them are developed that much.

The good news is that I don’t think the author really intended for the story to hinge on the dramatic revelation at the end. It is more of an adventure story than a mystery, and a quite enjoyable one.

As the Jews are discussing how to defend themselves, the subject of the Golem of Prague comes up. The Golem was, legend has it, a creature of animated clay, created by a rabbi to protect the Jews there during some long-ago pogrom.

Clay. Reading that, I realized something about another book I read, something that should probably have been obvious. In Kavalier and Clay, Joe Kavalier is a Czech Jew who is a talented artist and a passable escape artist as well. His greatest escape was getting out of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia and reaching New York, with a bit of help from the Golem of Prague.

In New York he shares a room with Sam Clay, his fast-talking fast-thinking cousin. Almost instantly Sam sweeps up the newcomer in grand plans, and they embark on a career making comic books. With Joe’s ground-breaking art and Sam’s ability to spew a compelling story out in minutes, their character, The Escapist, is a runaway hit. Joe never gives up trying to get at least some of his family out of Europe, and finds that as his comic books become more popular that he might even have the money to make something happen. He grows increasingly desperate, as it is clear that things are getting very bad for Jews in Prague.

As a side note, the first place I ever saw the word ‘golem’ was in a comic book. Like the Escapist, his job was beating up Nazis.

Stuff happens, lots of stuff, some good, some not. People change. Superheroes who wear their underwear outside their tights aren’t popular anymore. The golem reappears, but it has changed also, the magical spirit is no longer there, it is just a mass of clay. Where did that spirit go?

That’s what I figured out last night. I’m a little slow, sometimes.

This was a darn fine read, with the whole mixture of joy and sorrow and anger and uncertainty and just a bit of magic that adds up to life.

Note: if you use the above link to buy this book (or a Kindle, or a new car), I get a kickback.

Thanks!

Episode 23: Reunion by the River, part one.

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Our Story So Far: Um… heck, I’m not even sure myself. There’s this thing, something really valuable, and lots of people are willing to do just about anything to get it. One key to the location of this treasure might be a painting, and Charles Lowell has been hired to protect the person with that painting. He’s also been hired to recover it, and to keep it from being recovered. It was last seen in the company of Lola Fanutti (neé Meredith Baxter), widow of a major figure in the mob and herself a crack shot with a .45. Lowell has been through some difficult scrapes with Fanutti; perhaps the most dangerous was being alone with her in a hotel outside the city. Lowell’s faithful and spunky assistant Alice really doesn’t like Lola Fanutti. Paolo Fanutti, Lola’s former brother-in-law and the man most anxious to see her dead, recently beat up Alice, and Lowell isn’t going to let that slide. He has agreed to hand Lola over to Paolo, mostly because he’s pretty sure she’ll kill him.

As well as the Fanutti family, there is a ruthless and powerful man named Cello, a group that may or may not answer to Lola, and a secretive group of Spaniards known as the Blood of the Saint. That is also the name of the painting….

This episode has a little more thinking in it than its predecessors, as I wrote it in two hours instead of the traditional one. The lack of thought in constructing the narrative gives the whole thing only a little more structure than the TV show “Lost” (from what I hear they must write that thing with the same amount of planning and attention to continuity). And wow! Who thought Charlie would get shot last episode? When I started writing it, I certainly had no idea. But there he was, bleeding on the sidewalk, shot with a .45. I didn’t want to split Reunion up, but it’s taking a lot of words to get from bleeding on the sidewalk to a confrontation at the waterfront. That’s what happens when I pick a title for the following episode more or less at random.

To read the entire story from the beginning click here. Continuity issues are probably starting to pile up, but so it goes.

My ears began to work before my eyes did. I lay still, strange apparitions scattering back to the darker corners of my mind like cockroaches when you turn on the kitchen light. They’re not gone, but best forgotten, at least until the lights go out again. In the final lingering image I was staring down a gun held by Lola Fanutti. “Trust me,” I thought I heard her say.

“Oh, I trust you completely,” another voice said, a man’s voice from outside my head, and I realized that the first voice I had heard was not Lola’s, but Alice’s. I forced my eyes open.

Alice was there, talking to a dark-haird man in a suit. His back was to me, and I was still foggy; I couldn’t place him. Alice saw that I was awake and stepped to my side. Her hand was smooth and cool against my fevered brow. In her eyes was relief. “Charlie! Thank goodness! I was so frightened.”

I tried to say something witty, but my throat felt like the sahara during a dry spell. It probably wouldn’t have been funny anyway. Alice took a glass of water from the table by the bed and helped me drink. I reached up to guide the glass to my parched lips and that’s when I discovered that my right arm wasn’t working. That’s when I remembered being shot.

“It’s OK, now,” Alice said. “We’re safe.”

I was pretty sure Alice was wrong about that, but I didn’t have the strength to argue. I looked around for the man Alice had been talking to, but we were alone. I filed it under “potential hallucination” until I could think of the right question to ask. Trust me, Alice had told him. “Anybody see who did this?” I asked her.

Alice shook her head. “He got away.”

“It was a pistol, he must have been pretty close.”

“He was probably trying to hit Mr. Santiago. No one knew we would be there.”

“Whoever told Santiago how to find us could have told other people.”

Alice digested that. “Mr. Santiago did know a lot about what happened with Paolo Fanutti.”

“It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that Santiago would take you to his pet doctor.” Alice wasn’t looking that good; her face had had time to puff up and her bruises were in full bloom. She had bandages here and there where she had been stiched up. “How are you doing, anyway?” I asked.

“OK. They said the scars shouldn’t be too bad.” She traced her finger along one of the bandages on her face. “I must look horrible.”

“You look great, doll,” I lied. “A couple of scars just add character.” That’s what I told myself each time I collected a new one, anyway.

“Thanks.” It looked like she was about to start blubbering. “You think the guy was really after you?”

“There are plenty of people who want me out of the picture. There might be some in this building. Santiago seems square, but he’s got leaks of his own. We need to get out of here. Without Santiago knowing where we went.”

“I got you some new clothes,” Alice said. “The other ones were all bloody. I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t let anyone see you,” I said to the closing door, though that seemed optimistic.

While she was gone I took stock of my condition. My right shoulder was bandaged and very stiff, my right hand was taped up as well. It seemed like a long time since I had broken it on the goon’s face. I paused, then looked around the room for any indication of what day it might be. How long had I been out? Lola was supposed to get the painting on Sunday. Had I missed it?

Alice returned with a suit that was considerably nicer than anything I had worn before. Shirt and tie were silk, and fit me perfectly, as far as I could tell. “I don’t suppose there’s any whiskey in the pockets,” I said.

I guess that’s not the reaction she was hoping for. Her look darkened and I clammed up and got dressed. She had to help me get my arm down the shirt sleeve and then into the jacket. She stood close to me while she tied on my tie, and I watched her eyes as she kept them resolutely fixed on her task. A little crease formed between her eyebrows when she concentrated. I was a little disappointed when she finished.

“Now a sling,” she said. She folded a large white bandage into a triangle and helped me settle my arm into it. When I was at a less-uncomfortable position she took the ends of the the bandage and reached up around my neck.

“How’s your mouth?” I asked.

“My…? Oh!” She blushed and looked away shyly, conscious of her bruised lips. “It’ll be all right. They’re not sure about the tooth.” She turned back to look at me, and her lips were very close to mine. Her hands were still resting on the back of my neck. “I’m not supposed to… um…” We held that tableau for a terrifying second before she whispered, “we should go. Mr. Santiago will be coming to check on you soon.”

“Right,” I said. Alice held a coat for me and I slipped my good arm through the sleeve. She draped it over my other shoulder. I wasn’t going to be moving very quickly, but I was moving, and that’s all that mattered. The next move would be mine. I kept saying that, and one of these days I would be right.

I made an awkward attempt to help her into her own coat, really only making things more difficult with my left hand. “We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?” I asked when we were ready to go.

She smiled a bit. “I hear black and blue is the new black.”

It hurt to laugh. “That’s the spirit, kid. Ready for the ballet?”

“Let’s go.”

We walked past the protesting sawbones and his pretty assistant, past a bulky but disinterested man reading a paper in the outer room, down a dimly-lit hallway, through a heavy wood door and onto the city street. The rain had stopped, days ago for all I knew. It was early afternoon and the sun was back in command. The air was gravid with the moisture from the rain; the streets were sweating, so were the buildings, the people and the cars. Everything except Alice.

I paused, triangulating on visible skyscrapers. I turned toward Jake’s. Lola would expect me there. So would Cello, but I didn’t think he had reason to kill me at the moment. There would be booze there. “What day is it?” I asked as we walked.

Alice hesitated. “Sunday.”

“Listen, I’ve got to meet with someone. Alone.”

“Her.“

“Yeah, her. I need you to back me up.”

“I didn’t do so good last time.”

I gave her an address. “Ask for Artemis. You ever shoot a gun?”

“Me? No.”

“We’ll leave that for another time, then. Get me a .38 – Artemis knows what I like. Get plenty of ammunition.”

“Where should I meet you?”

“Be at the diner tonight at eleven p.m.”

“Be careful, Charlie.”

“What could possibly go wrong?”

It looked like she wanted to say something else, but instead she squeezed my good arm once, hesitated, and turned to head up the street. The man who was following us stayed with me. There wasn’t much else I could to keep her out of the fray. “Good luck, doll,” I muttered as I turned and continued toward Jake’s. I could taste the whiskey already.

Tune in next time for: Reunion by the River, Part 2!

Thanks!

Sweden 7, Slovakia 4

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I was composing sprots-journalism like thoughts throughout this game. The theme was the contrast between the Czech team and the Slovak team, both overmatched, but the games they played were very diffferent.

At least, that’s what I was going to say when the Slovaks led the Swedes 2-1. Although the boys in yellow and blue were on the attack most of the time, the red, white, and blue weren’t rolling over. Scrappy, tough counterpunchers, you could be having a tea party at their end of the ice only to turn around and discover that they’re sitting in your living room, reprogramming your remote control.

Not long after that, Sweden was up 4-2 and I was mentally erasing all that I had thought. The dominant team had arived.

Then it was 4-3 and the Slovaks were looking pretty tough. They’d figured out the Swedish forechecking and their swift strike had drawn blood. The Swedish goaltender faced relatively few shots, but could never rest — when the Slovaks took a shot it was often out of nowhere and consistently dangerous. There was a face-off at mid ice; the Slovaks surged and two seconds later had a scoring chance.

I love watching games with teams like that. There is never a moment that doesn’t hold the potential for something breaking out.

Then Sweden scored again, and it seemed that all was lost. I revised my story again.

While Slovakia never had the lead again, they were never beaten. When the jerks scored to go up 6-3 my brother wrote to me: ‘Not a good day for the slavs’. I had barely tapped out ‘Not unless you count the russians’ when the slovaks went bing-bang-boom and made the game interesting again.

The final goal, the swede’s seventh, was an empty-netter. The only thing that would make hockey better would be a tradition where the winning team just drops the puck behind the net rather than ringing up the meaningless empty-net goal. That would be classy.

I’m sorry the Slovaks didn’t win. They had the fire in their bellies, the hustle, the grit, the je ne sais quois of a championship team. In the end the Swedes were better, however. Now I think it’s between the Russians and the Canadians. The Russians looked awfully good today, and the tournament is in Moscow this year.

Thanks!

Russia 4, Czech Republic 0

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I don’t know where those Czech kids have been playing, but you try those passes all the way across the ice against the Russians, and you’re going to get hurt.

So much for a Czech-US final (not that the US is a powerhouse either).

Thanks!

AiA: White Shadow – Episode 3

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Our story so far: Allison is an American high-school student who has transferred to a private prep school in Japan. Since the moment she was introduced to the class, not much has made a whole lot of sense. Some of the girls in class have befriended her, but the boys remain wary, for reasons she cannot understand. She is unaware that the entire class assumes she has super powers of some sort or another. She’s a transfer student, after all, and in this Japan transfer students always bring trouble. She is staying with distant relatives, who are becoming more distant all the time. Her “aunt” is completely uncommunicative, while her “uncle” is content to sit in front of his computer day in and day out. Allison spent last night with the girls who live at the old monastery, and while they are friendly, Allison suspects that they are all insane. There have been a couple of mysterious strangers, but let’s not worry about them, yet, all right?

If you would like to read from the beginning, the entire story is here.

Her uncle sat exactly as he had the night before, staring into the shifting patterns on the monitors, moving only occasionally to sip a thick liquid from a plastic cup. Allison hesitated. Had there been four monitors the night before? In the morning light some of the cables strewn around had an organic look, slightly shiny and slowly pulsating. A hum rose from the machinery, punctuated by the occasional menacing hiss. Her uncle’s clothes were stained; she suspected he had been wearing them non-stop for several days.

Allison made her own breakfast; her aunt was nowhere to be found. She reflected that even her poor attempts at cooking were better than anything her aunt had produced while she was in the house.

“’Bye!” she called out as she left for school, then wondered who she thought she was talking to.

Outside the fresh breeze carried what seemed to be a snowstorm of plum blossoms. They coated the ground and stuck in her hair. She looked around, searching for the source, but there were no plum trees nearby.

There was a boy waiting for her by her front gate. Allison recognized him from her class; he was one of the boys that seemed to spend most of their time huddled in some sort of serious conference. She knew it must just be paranoia when she got the feeling that they were talking about her, but she couldn’t help it. Now here he was, doing a horrible job of pretending to just be passing by.

She had heard his name before, she was sure, on that first confusing day, but the only boy’s name she had managed to retain was Seiji’s. This boy was taller, angular in an awkward way, and he peered at her through thick-framed glasses. A mild case of acne spotted his cheeks. “Allison!” he said louder than necessary. “You live here?”

“Uh, yeah…”

“What a coincidence! Hahahaha!” His laugh was awkward, his arm behind his head, a light blush coloring his cheeks.

Allison racked her brain for any clue what the boy’s name might be. There was no hope. Maybe she could fake it until she could ask Ruchia. “Um… Hi! Do you live nearby?”

“Yes! Uh, well, that is, no. I was just, er, making a delivery.”

They stood for an awkward moment, then the boy said, “Are you going to school now? I could walk with you.”

Allison tried to conceal her surprise. Other than Seiji’s sarcastic comments, none of the boys in class had even spoken to her. She was beginning to think she must have some sort of horrible deforming disease the way they avoided her. Maybe this guy would be the start of turning things around. He seemed nice enough, anyway, even if he was watching her with a slightly unsettling intensity. “All right,” she said.

“Great!” They stood there for another awkward moment, then Allison started walking. The boy fell in next to her, but he was unable to say anything. He seemed a little less nervous, though.

They had taken only a few steps when the front gate of the house next to Allison’s rattled and there was Seiji. He blinked, looking from one to the other. “Hello, Kaneda,” he finally said. “Hello, Allison.”

“Kaneda, Kaneda, Kaneda,” Allison mumbled to herself, committing the name to memory, then, louder, “Good Morning, Seiji.”

Kaneda had become so nervous Allison thought he might melt down. “Oh! Seiji! Good Morning! I was just in the neighborhood to make a delivery!”

“Is that a fact?” Seiji asked with a flat voice.

“Do you live here?” Allison asked.

Seiji looked at her with mounting suspicion. “Yeah…”

“I live right there. We’re neighbors!”

“Neighb… k-k-k-k-k” Nothing more came from Seiji except a choking noise from his throat.

Allison was annoyed. “Jeez, Seiji, is it that terrible?”

Kaneda said, “Seiji, I thought you lived over in…”

“Not anymore.”

“Did you move after—”

“We don’t live there anymore! That’s all!”

Seiji’s outburst left them all standing in silence for a moment.

“Well, somebody got up on the wrong side of bed this morning,” Allison said. “Come on, Kaneda, or we’ll be late.” She turned and strode off toward the Academy, Kaneda hurrying to catch up. Seiji stood for a moment longer under a little personal cloud, before he too turned and trudged toward the school.

He did not see the shadowy figure emerge from the bushes after he left, or notice the mysterious figure as it followed him up the road.

It was quieter than usual when Allison and Kaneda arrived in class. As they walked in the door a knot of boys wheeled around and stared at him openly, their faces portraits of hungry curiosity. Allison felt herself turning red.

Kaneda seemed unaware of the scrutiny. “Hey, guys!” he said. “Where’s Yoshiki?”

“Haven’t seen him,” said Kouta. “I’m a bit worried. You know how he likes those games…”

Shinta looked over to where Rei was sitting. “Hey, Rei, you were hanging out with him yesterday after school, weren’t you? Uh… Rei?”

So intent was Rei on the gameboy he held that he did not hear his friends. They exchanged an uneasy look. Kouta looked over the intent boy’s shoulder at the game. Rei was not moving, not even his thumbs, he was simply staring in mute fascination at the screen of the game. “Hey! Rei!” Kouta called out. “Oi!” He passes his hands in front of Rei’s eyes. Nothing.

“White Shadow,” Kaneda whispered, then glanced at Allison guiltily, as if regretting letting her hear the phrase.

Without warning Shinta grabbed the game out of Rei’s insensate fingers. For a moment nothing happened, then Rei began to tense up, tilting his head back, then arching his entire back and clawing at the air with crazed crooked clawlike fingers. His eyes began to bug out, bloodshot, pupils so small they were almost invisible. “Reset! Reset!” he screamed, then toppled to the floor.

“Stupid!” Seiji called out, pushing into the group. He tore the game from Shinta’s surprised grip and held the screen in front of Rei’s eyes. “Come on, Rei,” Seiji urged, “focus!” Seiji slapped Rei, hard, then a second time. Rei’s breath caught and his eyes focussed on the game. With a desperate grab he tore the game away from Seiji. He curled on the floor, staring at the screen once more, openly weeping.

Seiji inspected his hand, injured when Rei took back the game. “Call the Institute,” he said. “They need to come and get Rei before his batteries go dead.”

“Not the hospital?” asked Allison. “What’s wrong with him, anyway?”

Seiji looked at her with deep suspicion. “You really don’t know?”

“Have you ever been to the Institute?” Kaneda asked coyly.

“What institute? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” As usual, she added to herself.

“Stand aside, please.” the deep voice was oddly distorted, like it was coming through a small speaker. Allison turned to find three big men standing behind her. At least, she assumed they were men, it was impossible to tell for sure who was inside the bulky rubber suits. The suits had hoses and backpacks and dials and it was impossible to see through the tinted face shields. On each suit was a number and the logo that read “Biological Computation Institute”. They each carried a weapon and they moved with military precision.

The students stepped back and the Institute men gathered up Rei without any wasted movement or commentary. As swiftly as they had arrived, they were gone, and class began to return to normal.

“Will he be all right?” Allison asked Seiji when they sat down for lessons.

Seiji paused for a moment before answering. “The Institute is trying to find a cure, but so far all they can do is keep the victims alive.”

“Victims? Of what? What’s this White Shadow thing?”

“It’s a kind of computer virus. Do you know much about computers?”

“I’m pretty good with them.”

“Really? Hm. Well, this computer virus is different. It doesn’t just infect the computer, it gets into people’s brains. It resonates with their nerves and causes the brain to release chemicals. Before long the brain becomes dependent on the signals; the natural chemicals in the brain are way more powerful than heroin and once you pass a certain limit you can’t stop looking at the patterns or you’ll die.”

“That’s terrible! Why would someone make something like that?”

“So, just how good are you with computers?”

“You think I did this?”

“Nooo…” Seiji said, but he didn’t sound very certain.

From the roof the Emergency Committee watched Allison and Ruchia eating their lunch beneath a tree in the yard below. It felt strange to Seiji to have a meeting without Yoshiki or Rei, but they all had to face the grim truth that they would probably never see their friends again. People didn’t come back when a place like the Institute took them.

Allison was mixed up in this somehow, he was sure, but her innocent act seemed genuine.

Kouta took charge as usual. “Kaneda, you walked to school with her?”

Kaneda nodded smartly. “Yes.”

“Did you see her teeth?”

“No. I was just starting to charm her when Seiji here showed up and with his usual tact and wit put her in a bad mood that lasted all they way to school. Boy, was she pissed off.”

“Nice move, Seiji,” grumbled Naota.

“You’re blaming me? The girl’s impossible!”

Kaneda interjected, “It turns out they’re next door neighbors.”

Kouta turned on Seiji, a sparkle in his eye. “Reeeally?”

“…” Seiji muttered.

Kouta returned to business. “So we still don’t know if she’s a demon.”

“She’s good with computers.”

“Interesting. Perhaps she’s a killer robot after all.”

“Or some sort of hyperintelligent mutation,” suggested Masashi.

“I bet the Institute made her,” said Bando.

Seiji nodded. “I’ve never heard of a demon that’s good with computers. I don’t think we need to have Kaneda be nice to her anymore.”

Kaneda smiled. “You know, I still think I should. She might be a demon from a technologically advanced realm. I owe it to the school to stick with her until she smiles. Only after I see her teeth will we know for sure.”

Seiji’s voice carried a hint of anger. “Really, Kaneda, that’s not necessary.”

“Oh? Does it bother you?”

“Of course not! I just don’t want you wasting your time!”

“Well, it’s my time to waste if I want to.”

Kouta intervened. “Look, we have to work together on this. Kaneda, you continue to be nice to her.”

“Can I be nice too?” Masashi asked.

“Certainly. Seiji, we need you to begin surveilance of her home. Report any suspicious activity.”

“Surveillance? You want me to peek in her windows?”

“We need facts, Seiji. Does she display superhuman strength when no one is watching? Can she see in the dark? Do her eyes glow? Plus, we need to see if she has wings, and if so, whether they are feathered or leathery. Horns? Are any parts of her made of metal? Is she anatomically correct? Scales? Corporate tattoos or serial numbers? In short, gentlemen, we need to see her naked.”

“I volunteer!” all the boys called out at once.

All the boys, that is, except Seiji. He knew what would happen to a boy who saw the transfer student naked. It would be painful, embarassing, and ongoing. Whoever the poor sap was would be publicly humiliated before the entire school, and his reputation would never recover, unless…

Seiji resolved to never, ever, see Allison naked.

Thanks!

I’ll never forget what’s-her-name.

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There’s a new bartender at the Little Café near nome. I first saw her a couple of days ago. The place was empty when I got there, and I sat at my customary table (lowered back to a more dog-friendly level), plugged in, and set to typing. (Some days it’s writing, others, typing.)

As I worked the place began to fill up, and a few of the arrivals were faces I recognized but had not seen in two months. Happy greetings were exchanged and I went back to work. That didn’t last long, however, as the place was getting crowded and I was getting very, very tired. It was time to go home before I fell asleep in the café.

When I paid, the new bartender said, almost shyly, “May I ask? You are Jerry?”

Hey! I’m famous! I assured her that everything she had heard was nothing but a pack of lies, paid my tab, and left. Forty meters up the street I realized I had not asked her what her name was. I was too wrapped up in being spoken of. ONE person has heard of me and already I have the superstar’s inflated head.

Last night I was back at LCNH watching hockey and writing during the intermissions. There was a rambunctous table full of hockey fans, and the vibe of the place was good for watching sports. The bartender was not so much a hockey fan, but we did occasionally exchange smiles over the antics of the more rabid viewers. Then other friends showed up, writing was done, and fun was had by all.

As I left I apologized for not asking previously and got the bartender’s name.

If only I could remember what it was.

Thanks!

Under Reconstruction

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Some of you may have noticed a mention in the “What’s New” box up there that I’ve been having a wee bit of trouble with the blog. The executive summary is this: it broke. iBlog, the software that maintains all the episodes, generates all the interconnected pages and whatnot, took a powder. I tinkered around with it for a while with no success, and I held little hope of getting any meaningful help as the company that makes it is waist-deep in releasing a major upgrade to the program. The sensible thing, therefore, was to move this monster to the new software, so that any further problems I had would be things the developer really wants to hear about.

iBlog 2 is really much better than its predecessor, but there are still some rough edges. Three categories didn’t make the transition successfully, so I had a pile of episodes to cut and paste into the new version by hand. One feature of the new version is much more direct handling of fonts and stuff; unfortunately all those episodes were made with the assumption that there wasn’t any of that stuff, so it all had to be stripped back out.

Anyway, things are getting back to normal here, whatever that is. Let me know if you spot anything strange or if yo miss something that used to be there but isn’t anymore.

Thanks!

Driving Topless

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A few events have converged to lead to this episode of little consequence; first, I just had the pleasure of logging a few thousand miles of top-down driving fun, third (chronologically), my sister just wrote an article in her blog about the singular pleasure of the experience, and second, I was recently ribbed for coming to a gentle stop at a yellow light while driving in Southern California.

In her blog Carol Anne mentioned that one feels more connected to the world when the top is down. This is undeniable, but it has effects on the driver that go far past what you might expect. Convertible drivers, by virtue (I believe) of their less-insulated state, are more courteous drivers. That’s not just the random assertion of a convertible driver, it’s based on Science. That’s right, there’s been a study. I can’t link to it, but I heard about it from the Actual Scientist. I think I did, anyway; my recollection is vague, but I’m pretty sure Click and Clack actually spoke to the individual involved. That’s NPR right there. Unassailable.

In any case, the Actual Scientific Study (a Master’s thesis, as I recall), involved driving around, stopping at traffic lights, and then not moving for ten agonizing seconds after the light turned green. The conclusion: drivers of convertibles were far less likely to honk their horns during those ten seconds. Someone got a Master’s degree for that.

There are lots of rude things that people do in cars that they would never do anywhere else. If everyone had no top on their cars, the roads would be much more civil. Heck, you might even have a nice conversation at the next traffic light. They’re good places to hang out.

Thanks!