Bullets and Whiskey

“But I am assailed with my own ignorance and inability.”

John Steinbeck, “Working Days,” Entry #18, June 18, 1938

“Must get no fatal feelings about it.”

John Steinbeck, “Working Days,” Entry #20, June 20, 1938

I was about eight and a half chapters in when it all fell apart.

Okay, not all.  The first thirty words or so of the first chapter were decent.  And there were ten or fifteen good words in chapter five.  Beyond that….

Honestly, it’s not that bad, but I did have some long hard sessions the last few days where I began to realize the new novel wasn’t working.  Not in a mechanical, “Fix this here strut and that back brake and maybe the headlight and ever’thang’ll be good” kind of way, but in a “I’m not sure this thang’s got a engine” kind of way.

Chapter eight felt forced, is the best I can describe it.  It felt hollow and forced and entirely superficial.  What I came to realize, after much gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair (metaphoric hair, for those of you who know me) was that one character was shouting at me to cut his stage time.

Once I realized that, that chapter came clear.  So I set about writing it, happily tapping away until I realized that to do the chapter the new way meant restaging the players quite a bit upstream.  That realization forced me to rethink the time line in its entirety.

I had been fixated on this book happening about two months after the first book in the series.  Fixated on that because I had a great scene in mind that would happen during a Halloween party in some forgotten tunnels near the jail.  Lots of funky lighting - lurid and angled and shadowed and all the things I loved to do when I was doing theatrical lighting - and people in costumes and a hardcore chase of a murder suspect right through the middle.

I got that in my head and couldn’t get it out, which meant I was writing to that scene rather than to the overall story arc.  Once I found the balls to toss that scene, then I understood what was wrong with the entire book.

So I restaged it, restructured it, and that was a good thing.  Once I get things rewritten upstream, I’ll be able to keep moving downstream and should finish the final two-thirds in a couple months.

And chances are I’ll find a way to use that chase scene anyway, if not in this book, then the next.

It is a lesson Ed Bryant taught me long ago and that I had simply forgotten: don’t be scared to toss it all out.  Don’t be scared to toss an idea or a chapter or some bit of brilliant writing.  If it’s not working, then it’s not working, regardless of how well it’s written.

So I tossed and now we’re cooking with Crisco, as my third grade music teacher used to say.  We’ll see if there’s enough Crisco to get through the entire book.

Actually, given my heart history, perhaps I should shy away from Crisco and use extra virgin olive oil or some shit.

"What the fuck," the old man said.  "What you stopping me for?  I ain’t done nothing."

I’d pulled him over, late at night, as he drove away from a bar in one of our small towns on the west side.  He’d been drifting a little bit in the lane.  Probably nothing, but I like to check.  Because sometimes drifting is a sign of drunk driving.  Sometimes it’s a sign of texting while driving (though probably not with an 80 year old man) and sometimes it’s just a sign of shitty driving.

"What I done?  I ain’t done nothing, you son of a bitch."

I wanted to say, "Sir, you’ve violated the common decency of grammar," but I thought that would be less than professional so instead, I said, "Well, you were drifting a little in the lanes and I wanted to make sure you were okay."

See, usually when I say that, especially to older drivers, they get all gushy and happy that someone is checking on them.  They know they’re older, they know they might be having a medical problem.  So they are quite appreciative when someone’s taking the time to make sure they’re not…you know…dead.

"I’m fine, goddamnit.  I wasn’t drifting and you know it, fucker."

"Sir, we can go back to my squad and watch the video, if you’d like."

"Damn straight."  But he made no move to get out of his truck.  "What’s your name?"

"Deputy Barker."

"I’m gonna talk to the sheriff about you."

"His name’s John Thompson.  I’ll get you his phone number before we’re done."

"Goddamnit.  I ain’t done nothing wrong and you know it, fucker."

"Sir, can I see your license and insurance, please?"

"I ain’t got it," he yelled, his old man spittle flying all over my face (and making me wonder if he’s got AIDS or Hep C from all the old ladies he’s schtupping with his Viagara prescription).  Rummage, rummage, rummage and out pops his insurance card.

"Sir, this is expired."

He snatched it back from me.  "I know that, asshole."

"Well, do you have valid insurance?"

"Do you know who I am?"  Still he yelled and his eyes bugged out and his waddle bounced around and caught the red and blue light my squad car tossed. 

"Well, no," I said.  "Because you don’t have your license.  Now, do you not have it because it’s at home, or do you not have it because it’s suspended?"

"Goddamnit, I’m getting outta here."

But he made no move to drive away.  I think even he knew that would ratchet up his night in a really bad way.

"Fucker," he added.

At that moment, my professionalism slipped…for just a second.  "Wow, you’re quite the little asshole, aren’t you?"

But rather than yell back at me, he stared, like he’d just been slapped.  "What?"

"You’re mean."

"I am not."

"Well, you’re being mean to me."

"I am not…fucker."

"Sir, have you been drinking tonight?"

At this point, I knew he wasn’t drunk, though I was fairly certain he’d had one or two.  I asked because it’s part of my standard patter and because - in this one case - I thought it would be fun to poke him with a stick.

"Drinking?  Goddamnit.  Why are you - "

"Sir, have you been drinking?"

"Well…yeah…I have.  I had a couple of beers."

"Okay, well that’s not too bad.  I don’t think you’re drunk, I just thought you might be having a medical problem."

Then he laughed.  I know, I know, surprised me damn near into a second heart attack.  Laughed and while it was a weak, mean old man’s laugh, it seemed pretty genuine.  "I farm 700 goddamn acres and that ain’t killed me.  I don’t think no beer’s gonna pro’ly gonna kill me, either."

No, I wanted to say.  What’s going to kill you is when your wife and kids get together late one night while you’re sleeping and run a sword straight through your black little heart…that’s what’s going to kill you.

So I an a check on him and got one of our business cards, upon which I put my name and the Sheriff’s phone number.

"All right, sir, I think we’re done."  I gave him the business card.  "Call the Sheriff and set up an appointment.  I’ll come in and the three of us can watch the video of this entire encounter."

He laughed again and tore the card up - carefully depositing it in his truck rather than on the highway - and said, "Naw, I don’t need that.  Thanks for watching out for me…fucker."

Then he stuck his hand out and I shook it and he drove off and I stood on the side of the road, like a retard, confused as to what had just happened, and thinking, Man, you just can’t make this crap up.

I then immediately wrote it all down ’cause you know it’s gonna be in a book someday.  Guy’ll probably want royalties, too…fucker.

"Not an early start today but it doesn’t matter at all because the unity feeling is back.  That is the fine thing.  That makes it easy and fun to work."

John Steinbeck, ‘Working Days,’ Entry #14, June 14, 1938

Well, not necessarily easy to work, but certainly fun again.

Chapter six is done and chapter seven is begun and after lots of preliminary stuff, the book is off and running.  Or, if not running, limping along like a Special Olympics athlete with a knee brace and crutches.

Chapter six was the novel’s engine, that souped up HEMI that gives us the forward motion.  In this case, it was a murder and seeing that dead body will now lead us the machinery of an investigation and a carnival of suspects.  (hehehehe, right now, there are - literally - 300+ suspects)

But then, as so often happens and which I love so much, the ecstasy of discovery also came along with chapter six.  I had forced Jace into a situation where she was getting pummeled verbally and emotionally by one of her own detectives (because of things that happened in the the first book) and as she stood up for herself, as she decided this was the moment when she’d taken enough bullshit, I discovered just how badly things had gone for her during the eight weeks between the end of the first book and the beginning of the second.

I love those discoveries.  This one was small in actuality but huge emotionally.  Just a bit of paper, really, that I realized was defining Jace for this entire book.  The outcome of the definition was there already, but I hadn’t understood exactly where it had come from. 

I know, it sounds smooshy and ostentatious and overly-writerly, but that’s pretty much how it is.  And let me tell you, those kinds of discoveries, where the writer’s subconscious is allowed to stretch out and get some good steam up, do not happen with outlines.

As a writer, I never had much use for outlines and plans and all the rest.  Christie Golden, a fantasy writer friend of mine, and I once had a conversation about outlines.  She writes Big Fat Fantasy with thousands of characters and all kinds of spells and brews and potions and all the things that readers of BFF love and demand.  To keep it all straight, she works from outlines.

But her outlines run 100 pages.

To me, just write the damned thing.  If the outline is that long, that involved, it’s really nothing more than a short version of the book.  Outlines worked for her and she didn’t really give a shit that I thought them a waste of time.

Well, I still don’t use full book outlines but I do find myself outlining chapters.  I have a few paragraphs, a few sentences.  Just enough to get in the important points that I have to get in.  Anything extra I discover I consider the literary equivalent of found money.  I see it, get excited and gleeful, and move on.

So while I don’t yet have a complete picture of what is what in this book, I do now have strands and threads slipping out and away from me like all the roads out of Rome.  But it is in that very mess and entanglement that I find my control over the book building.  It is in the chaos building on the page that I find some of the unity about which Steinbeck wrote.  

I really do think this is going to be fun now.  Not that the set up hasn’t been fun, but hell, now we’ve got blood and vendettas. 

I don’t care who you are, blood and vendettas ain’t nothing but fun.

"Last night the itching, burning jitters and no sleep until 3:00 a.m.  Hope my nerves aren’t weak because they have a long haul ahead."

John Steinbeck, ‘Working Days,’ Entry #17, June 17, 1938, Friday

Well, my nerves aren’t shot at all, but are frazzled a bit.  Got some news last week that there might - MIGHT - be an offer looming in the next week or so.  Yeah, thanks Agent Bob, for letting me know that ’cause I haven’t slept at all since getting the email.  Damn him with his faint note of hope and possibility coupled with a giant "HAFTA WAIT AND SEE."

Aaaauuuuuuggggghhhhh.

So I’m not sleeping and instead spend my time juggling all my little cockroach plans and schemes into some semblence of order just in case there is an offer.  I’ll do this and do that and go here and go there and blah blah blah.  None of it means anything until there is - or isn’t - an offer.

But it’s fun to think about.

(with background music by the Louvin Brothers…appropriately enough because today’s is about tractors)

The First Time

She said the tractor was driving along the road.  Not just anyroad, but a road nearly 30 miles from the Sheriff’s Office.  She said the driver was weaving all over the road.  She said he might be drunk.  Thinking this might be a DUI with a fun little twist, but less than an hour from going off-duty, I jumped in the prowler and headed out. 

Thirty miles.

I didn’t drive crazy.  It wasn’t an accident.  There were no shots fired or knives plunged into someone’s chest.  Just a crazy farmer’s kid, driving drunk on Keystone Light or Boone’s Farm wine and taking Daddy’s tractor for a spin.  But then our lady called back and said it was no longer on the road.  Now the tractor was in a ditch.  It was at a strange angle.  It was running.  The driver was no where to be seen.  Maybe he was caught under the mowing deck.

Now I ran quick.  Lights.  Sirens in the intersections.  Heart rate up a bit.  Skin a bit sweaty.  Got there as quickly as I could, thinking about first aid and compressions and rescue breaths and all that other first responder stuff.

Now…understand that I don’t know anything about tractors, or even farms.  I grew up in the city.  Milk and meat and corn all come from Safeway or Albertson’s, not Joe’s lower 40.  But even with my limited farming experience, I can see the obvious.

The tractor was in the ditch.  It was at an odd angle.  It was running.  But there was no mower deck and there were no left-over pieces of a farmer’s son.

And it sure as hell hadn’t been driving down the road.  It had been there for a few hours at least, using the power drive on the back to run a pump that was pumping out flooded land.

Oh, yes, I had some choice words for our intrepid caller.  See, frequently we have people sex up their calls to get us moving more quickly.  Either she did that or she was a complete idiot with zero common sense. 

Either way, I checked the area twice for dead or drunk people, found none, and went home. 

The Second Time

Not my shift, but the same song, new verse.

The Third Time

Ditto.

The Fourth Time…Sixth Time

The Tenth Time…Twentieth Time…Four Hundred and Eighty Seventh Time

Ditto ditto ditto.

The Last Time

This time the call came through 911.  It was sexed up again.  Crashed and probably dead, with body parts probably everywhere and maybe drugs and probably even weapons of mass destruction!

My shift, but not my call.

Knowing what was what, because we’d done this 9,528 times, the responding deputy finished up something else first.  The dispatcher, a part timer, got a little nervous and asked a couple times if he was going.

"Thirty miles to a call we’ve been on a hundred times?"

"But this is a different location."

True, but all the calls had been within a couple miles of each other.

After the deputy left, the dispatcher looked at me and said, "Well, if he is caught in the mower deck, we won’t need an ambulance by the time he gets there."

"We’ll need the coroner," I said.

"Hell, no, we’ll need a squeegy."

Hmmmm…that was much funnier in person than it is on the cyber page.  Ah, well. 

And just so you know, the guy wasn’t dead.  In fact, there wasn’t even a guy.  There was just a tractor…and a pump.

And an annoyed deputy.

"[My ancestor was a slave trader, but] I don’t have to be a slave trader."

Overheard at the bookstore…not said to me personally, but I was there so that’s close enough.

"I am very happy in this work, I do know that.  It satisfies me so far.  But I wish I could have the music.  I really need the music.  Have to make the sound of the tractors and the dust of the tractors.  I’ll have to have music before that…."

John Steinbeck, "Working Days," Entry #7, June 6, 1938

Coltrane.  Baker.  Davis.  Horn and Horne.  McDuff.  That’s the music of this novel.  Not quite all jazz all the time, but close.

Except, while Steinbeck wrote literally about music (actually, he writes about not being able to hear his music over the washing machine, which is as pedestrian as it gets), he is also talking metaphorically about music.

In other words, does the work - the words on the page - sing?

I’ve begun chapter five and the lady ain’t singing yet.  She’s warming up, maybe, but not quite yet stepped up to the mike and belted out whatever tune is in her head.  That is because, as much as I preach get in and get going immediately if not sooner, I’m trying to slow down in this series.  Much of what I’ve done so far has been warm up.  There is a touch of back story, a bit of set up to minor incidents, and two or three bits of major set up.

Yet now, as of 11:30 last night, we have a body.

At least, the rough draft of  body.  Right now, it’s in the hallway, a shank sticking outta its chest.

So we’re not really singing yet…just sort of moaning.  Hopefully, it will eventually sing.  Hopefully,  the language on the page will match the language in my head and it will all match the music of the death.  We have to hear the shrieking alarm beyond me simply saying, "That alarm was noisy, dude."  We have to hear the last few moments of life beyond me simply saying, "Then the dude was dead…oh, wow, man."  And we have to hear, in the music of the language o the page, the slow spill of blood.

That’s the music Steinbeck was really talking about.  It’s much harder to hear and - hopefully - nearly impossible to compose to the standards of the composer.

Up next?  The machinery of investigation.  Oh, by the way, we are starting with more than 300 suspects.

Hehehehehe…this is where it gets fun. 

It was a heavy day in the city.  The sun blasted through the dirty glass and touched everyone in the store with the fire of a kid holding a magnifying glass over a hapless ant.

Okay, it’s not like a big city, it’s Princeton.  And it wasn’t all that hot, really, and I have no idea if the people at the pharmacy felt hapless or not.  Hell, I wasn’t even there. But I heard this actually happened.

There’s a lady at this pharmacy and she finds a note on the floor.  As curious as anyone, and probably - like anyone - hoping the slip of paper was actually a winning lottery ticket someone had accidently dropped, this lady snaps it up and reads it.

"Murder In The White House," it says.

You know this little old lady, gray hair and special shoes, is thinking What the fuck?

"Murder On Capital Hill," it says.

Holy shit, our geriatric detective thinks.  Murder is afoot, murder most foul and it is up to me, Thou Whost Would Buy Metamucil and bunyon pads, to stop it!

"Murder In The Supreme Court," the note reads.

Surrepticiously, our heroine takes the note to the owner of the pharmacy.  Quietly, so that the plotters and evil-doers who’ve conveniently dropped the note can’t hear, she gives it to the head drug dispenser and asks that she pass it up the line.

"Up the line?"

"We must get this to the police.  Perhaps it can be dusted for prints.  Mine, obviously, will have to be taken as an exclusionary set.  Also, the ink can be analyzed for what kind of pen wrote this note.  We can then trace that back to the manufacturer, the wholesaler, and the retail outlet.  Perhaps they have credit card records of this sale.  The paper, too, can be traced, though it is more difficult.  We shall have to alert the FBI and Homeland Security."

"But - "  The pharmacist points at the note.

"Murder at the FBI," it says.

"Egads, who is left to save us?"

"Uh…the Princeton Police Department?" the pharmacist asks.

"Brilliant.  Call them."

And then our note-finder leaves.  Hey, she’d done her bit, she doens’t have to stay for all of it.

But something about the note feels wrong, like an odd note played in the midst of a contemporary music experiment…I know, it’d be hard to find a wrong note in those kinds of aural train wrecks, but you get what I’m saying.

So our druggist calls Officer Peoria (I don’t want to embarrass him, if you can dig it), and gives him the note.  It feels strange to him, too.  So Officer Peoria takes the suspect note (as opposed to the suspect’s note) to our local bookseller and says, "Does this note, encrypted though it appears to be, mean anything to you?"

Our bookseller looks long and hard, racks her formidible brain, and says - sagely - "Yes."

"What?"

"Well, I believe it to be less a threat of political assassination than a listing of books by one Margaret Truman."

"Who?"

"Mary Margaret Truman.  Once upon a time, she was a singer.  Then a writer.  Also the daughter of President Harry S. Truman."

Officer Peoria frowns.  "Truman was, I believe, a Democrat."

"Yes."

"So the daughter of a Democrat, probably also a Democrat, is plotting a massive political killing spree against the machinery of these United States?  Currently run by Republicans?"

"Well, probably not…as she’s been dead since January 29 of this year."

"Died this year, huh?"

"So did Arthur C. Clarke."

"Well, there you go."

"Exactly."

"So I can throw this note away?"

Our bookseller nods and offers up a trash can.  "I think so."

The End

- editorial fair play: what I’ve written is EXACTLY - almost - how it happened.  I’ll leave it to you to sort truth from truthiness.

Hi Readers Expecting a Posting from Trey,

I’m the Web Guy for Trey and all-around go-to-guy.  As you may have noticed, Trey’s website has gone through an overhaul.  The main website has been redesigned with some cool design elements and a different look/feel.

Trey’s Online Journal has also gone through some changes as well.  It is no longer at Live Journal, but is now directly part of Trey’s website.  Some of the improvements can be seen on the side, with a listing of archived postings, categories, etc.  Trey will have to play around with it for a little while to get the hang of things…so will I.  I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that on a public blog…

A posting by me will not be a regular thing, this is probably my first and last posting…this is Trey’s blog after all.  Just writing to let you know there were some changes and this is part of them.

“Today the argument against sin and the means of losing it - the quest for the true spirit. This should be a good sharp section.”
- John Steinbeck, “Working Days,” Entry #4, June 2, 1938, Thursday

No giant moral arguments for me, at least not yet. Today’s work - tonight actually - is chapter 3. Jace at home after a long shift wherein an inmate has a problem in medical and we get foreshadowings of the underpinning of the book.

Chapter 3, then. Short, sharply delineated (I hope). She’s scared to sleep, scared of the dreams; leftovers from the psychological aftermath of Book One. Though the books are desert-set, this section should have the oppressive feel of the hot and humid, almost like being able to see the humidity hanging in the air. Should feel as oppressive as the Louisiana bayou. Hell, maybe I’ll just ask James Lee Burke to write it for me. Should have long sentences and long paragraphs, almost painful to read because of her fear of sleeping.

No Gramma and none of The Coots. This is all Jace. But short because I’ve already strung out the initiating murder too long. Too much navel-gazing already. But then, pacing never works for me until deep near the end. That’s the only time I can look back and see what’s what.

But like what became the middle part of “Grapes” chapter 4, this should be good and sharp. We’ll see.

And the quest for the true spirit? It may be corny, but there are no other quests. Everything dances to that particular rhumba.