It Should Have Been Easy

This is another piece of flash fiction. This one is part of The Hilary Davidson Flash Fiction Initiative, as launched once again by Mr. Dan O'Shea. Here's the setup from his blog:

So a little while back, Hilary Davidson let slip she’s had a bit of a health scare — seems some of her skin cells maybe caught a few too many rays and went rogue on her. She had to go in for a biopsy (everything turned out fine, thankfully) but that’s gonna leave a bit of a scar on her bicep. I jokingly suggested that perhaps Hilary’s Scar should be the subject of my next flash fiction challenge. I was kidding, but my subconcious wasn’t. Something nasty bubbled up — something, dare I say it, Davidson-like.

So this isn’t a challenge per se, just my modest offering thanking the cancer gods for getting their asses off Hilary’s dance card. Now, if any of you guys want to join in and maybe leave a link to something in the comment box, well, it’s not like I can stop you.

So Hilary, whose debut crime novel, The Damage Done, will be published by Forge in October 2010, and her scar have been the subject of various pieces of flash fiction over the last couple days. This is my offering. You can check out links to the rest here. Be warned -- many aren't for the squeamish. This is a rough crowd, you know -- they're all friggin' writers!


It Should Have Been Easy

A smelly dive in a shithole town on the inner rim of the unwashed asshole of America, that’s where we linger. No one comes here. Not anyone with anywhere else to be, anyway.

A bunch of us were in the bar just sitting around, drinking and waiting, smoking like there was a prize for catching cancer. Couple three guys shooting pool, shitty white boy blues playing on the juke box. We figured someone would be coming. We just didn’t figure on her.

Slappy nudges my shoulder and nods toward the door. “Check this shit out, man,” he says.

A woman strolls in that looks about as out of place as a Reno stripper in the last desperate hour of a Wednesday night working a bombed-out street corner in Afghanistan. I can see she’s pretty hot from where I’m sitting, even if she does look like she should be chasing a van-load of kids out onto some grassy suburban playground. She’s got a white t-shirt on, fairly tight, some kind of bag over her shoulder, and those goofy pants chicks wear that barely reach past the knee. And running shoes.

I watch her go to the bar and talk to Wimp. He scowls a bit, says something, then his expression changes to a little bit of surprise. He jabs a finger in my direction.

Chick walks right up to me from across the room – not even paying attention to all the looks and little whistles she’s getting – smiling like I’m either a celebrity or a re-tard.

“You must be Collins,” she says, sticking her hand out like she’s running for office, “I’m Hilary.”

“Hilary, huh?” I nail her with my eyes. She doesn’t blink. I let her see my gaze start slow down the front of her chest, totally checking out the rack. Except this t-shirt throws me; it’s got a big black “I” on it, then a big pink heart shape, then a big red maple leaf. I’m like, what the fuck?, and it throws me off my game and I have to look down at the table to refocus. I come back to her, but I feel like I lost my advantage when I say, “What can I do for you, Hilary?” Totally meant to say ‘what can I do to you’ instead.

She smiles again, winks at Slappy, then sets her bag on the table and sits down in the empty chair. The bag is leather with stickers on it that say shit like, “I Ran With the Bulls in Barcelona” and “I Did It Like a Rabbit on Easter Island.”

“I believe you have something that belongs to me,” she says.

The package. She was the one I was told might come for the package, and that I shouldn’t let her have it. Under any circumstances. I throw a nod toward Wimp at the bar, then shoot a look around the room. I can hear people shifting and sidling closer. She either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care.

“Maybe I do have something, maybe I don’t,” I say.

“You do. We both know you do.”

Wimp arrives with a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses. He sets them on the table. I splash some booze into each shot, put the bottle aside and push a glass toward her. I pick mine up, salute her with it and toss it back. “So what?” I say. “What the fuck are you gonna do about it?”

She’s still beaming that smile, that smile that might make me feel like an awkward teenager that’s never been laid if things weren’t so serious. She throws her tequila back and holds it out for more. I fill it and she takes it right down the hatch, then says, “I figure either we’ll do this the easy way, or the hard way.”

She glances at the bottle. I know the game, feel the challenge. I top off both of our shots. We hold them up, clink them together, then toss them back and slam them down on the table. “Wimp,” I say, loud, “get us some more goddamn glasses.”

***

The chick could fuckin’ drink. I don’t know how long we’ve been at it, and I can’t hardly see good enough to tell if it’s two tequilas or four. It’s hot, I’m sweating, I’m farting almost non stop and can barely sit up.

She doesn’t look much better, that dark hair of hers keeps falling in front of her face so that she has to blow it out of the way. Hell, I’m too drunk to even get turned on watching her mouth anymore.

We each do another shot, Slappy pouring. I just want to die, but then she looks like she’s finally gonna keel over, her eyes fluttering, and that will be that. I don’t know if I said something, or grinned, or what – but somehow I screwed up. Her eyes snap open. “You think I’m done, you big, big, smelly . . . loser?!” she says. She reaches in her bag and pulls out this huge Rambo-looking knife. Everyone around the table, who had all pushed real close, take a big step back with a collective, “Whoa!”

Hilary pulls the sheath off the knife and throws it over her shoulder. She’s brandishing the blade, but not really threatening. Hell, I figure she sees three or four of me anyway, but she could probably stab each one and there wouldn’t be anything I could do to stop her.

“You think I feel your stinkin' rot gut tequila?” she says. “I don’t feel nothin’. I don’t even feel this!”

She takes the edge of the blade and draws a nasty gash right across her upper arm. Blood starts flowing, and her eyes light up like a badger snarling into headlights. She slaps the knife down on the table, challenging me. I just stare at it. “Give this man another shot!” she yells. “See if he can drink up a little courage!” She wipes at the blood with her hand, then licks her palm and laughs.

The room really starts to spin as I reach for the knife. It all catches up to me at once, and I don’t know what hits the floor first; me, or my fucking puke.

***

So yeah, I lost the damn package. Don’t know how she got it, and no one wants to talk about it. The rest of my crew seems damn embarrassed by the whole thing, but that don’t explain the bruises and abrasions they’re all wearing either. Thing is we got bigger problems now. We scatter in eight directions, hoping to hell we can buy ourselves some time before the one who left the package with us finds out that it ain’t ours anymore.

Things to Do in San Diego When You Aren't Dead

Next week I have to travel to sunny San Diego, CA. I've only been there once before, very briefly, in January of 2008. This time I will be there a couple days -- I'll have one full afternoon/evening the day I arrive, then two subsequent evenings to check things out. As I don't intend to spend my time holed up in my room waiting to die like I did last week, I'm looking for things besides the beach to check out. Anyone have any suggestions? Interesting places? Bookstores? Record stores? Comic shops? I'm all ears. . . .

Arrogant Bastard

There are those who might suggest that Sunday night's libation has my name written all over it. To those philistines, I say: get bent.

More Updates from the Sidelines

Last Friday I got back into Missoula in the early afternoon following my trip to Texas. My evening itinerary was already packed with action, as Julia and Sid both had events taking place damn near simultaneously. They were only two blocks apart, so I had high hopes to be able to attend both. So here's how it all shook out!

Project Selvedge, Challenge 3

As I've mentioned here and here, Julia is competing in Project Selvedge at Selvedge Studio in Missoula this year, and she is now three challenges in. This is a contest for clothing designers, where contestants are slowly eliminated over the course of six challenges until two face off in the seventh and final challenge. If you recall, she actually WON (!) the second challenge, which means she was granted immunity for this one. In other words, she was advancing on to the fourth challenge regardless of how her design fared against the others. That didn't stop her from pulling out all the stops, though.

This time around they were given $50 to spend at Selvedge on fabric, which they only had 20 minutes to choose and purchase, to make a dress combination that would be suitable not only for "spring break in Cabo" but also could be worn out on a chillier evening in Missoula. Julia decided that since she had immunity she would really push herself to make something that was a bit beyond what she felt her abilities were. So she made a dress that was reversible, and had a jacket for the more formal, "cooler" weather incarnation. It turned out pretty awesome, and her model, a student from Ghana named Felicity, looked great.

Of course there was a lot of competition from other designers showing off their own great creations, with pretty models too!

I wasn't the only one taking pictures either!

As this thing goes on, it gets harder and harder to decide who moves on and who doesn't. I'm glad I don't have to decide. My favorite part is when the designers answer questions from the judges and explain their designs, what they were going for, the problems they encountered and how they got around them, etc. It is a very creative process, and I find all that fascinating.

So after all the parading and questions and answers, the judges hid themselves away to vote, and the crowd turned in their votes. There wasn't the stress of the previous rounds because of Julia's immunity, but it was still exciting. As they worked their way down, Julia once again found herself in the top two. Then the judges announced:

Popular (crowd vote) Winner: Julia!
Overall Challenge Winner: Friggin' JULIA!

A two-fer! So she gets immunity again! The judges gave it to her because they said she really displayed what immunity is all about by totally pushing herself, and her design was a home run. Aimee from Betty's Divine said when Felicity came out with the second outfit and she realized it was reversible, she was blown away like she never has been in any of the Project Selvedges previous (this is the fourth). That is high praise! Julia was excited, and I was ecstatic. What a great night, especially considering she wasn't feeling very well! Now it's on to challenges four and five!

Judgment Hammer

Immediately after the winner was announced, I hustled down the street two blocks to Higgins Hall, where Sid's band JUDGMENT HAMMER was playing an all ages show. They were just getting started, so I watched a couple songs and then dashed back to fetch Julia. She came back and watched the show with me. They were great, as usual, though there were some gear-related technical difficulties to overcome a couple times.

As I've said before, this has always been a great band since before Sid (and Dustin on bass) joined them. Their talent level was certainly higher than Sid's previous band, if only because they are older and have been playing together longer. However, Sid has really stepped up and more than holds his own. He isn't all that flashy, but his meter is near perfect and he gets every change and stop/start. Sometimes when I'm watching him I can't believe he's my kid. It's pretty exciting.

Once again, another great night for me to be a fan of my people!

Texas Fever

I left my visit to the Howard museum feeling about like the critter in the lower left of this image must have been feeling shortly before collapsing:

I have a pretty stout constitution and don't get really sick very often, but something ambushed me in Texas, because I began to endure one hell of a fever. The four-hour drive from Cross Plains back to Bonham, TX, was one of the longest drives I've ever taken. Alternating sweats, then uncontrollable shivering, the works. It was a nightmare. I got in about 10 PM and crashed, and spent a pretty sleepless night tossing and turning in the throes of whatever was having its way with me. I tried to get up for work the following morning and just flatout couldn't do it -- in eight years of doing this, that's never happened. So I made a couple phone calls and went back to sleep. I got up and made it into the customer site around 1:30 PM. It was still messing with me pretty bad; at one point I was trying to move my mouse on my laptop and my hand was shivering so badly it was all I could do to make it do what I wanted it to. As a Montanan in Texas, though, I knew I needed to show these yayhoos a thing or two about "cowboyin' up" so I friggin' did. Luckily it was an easy project, and I knew I'd still have time to pull it off.

Soon as work was over, I was back to the hotel to collapse again. What a hovel to have to spend so many hours in:

Luckily the weather was still nice out -- real nice. I sat in my doorway and read a while. I would have liked to have gotten out and done some sightseeing, but just wasn't feeling it. The view out my front door may not have been much, but the sun and breeze were nice.

There are some interesting sights to see around Bonham, historically speaking, but I just didn't have it in me to get out and see them.

By Wednesday the weather had changed and it was getting dark and dreary. Here is a shot of the place I was working for the week:

This sign right along the road out front is one of those that always makes a guy feel good about his position in life. Unless you're running from the law or something, I suppose. . . .

There was a good-sized jail a couple miles down the road, with big fences topped by razor wire, grim looking buildings, etc. I could see the inmates in bright white clothes out in the yard. It made me shiver all over again. I can't think of a worse place to be incarcerated than friggin' Texas. I imagine they must have a lottery system for executing people in there, you know? It's hard to imagine a death row long enough to keep up with their bloodthirsty executioners.

By afternoon I was feeling decent, finally eating, etc. I went driving around just to take a few pictures. This was nice:

People and their friggin' garbage, man, let me tell you. I can't believe just how much garbage one sees along country roads, whether it's Texas or Montana or Ohio. Hell, my car that was stolen back over Christmas is probably down some embankment around here. I hope those fuckers are at least preparing for a summer of enjoying the excellent camping gear that was in the trunk. I think the owner of this property sums it up best:

This place was pretty nice:

By the time I was finished cruising around, it would have been a good time for a movie. Not here, though, unfortunately. It really bums me out that drive-ins have become relics of the past.

When I wrapped things up Thursday afternoon I drove back to Dallas (Irving, to be specific) to stay in a hotel closer to the airport. For the second time in one week I hit the jackpot on luxury accommodations.

I just hunkered down with my book, called out for dinner, and waited for my chance to get out of town. My 3:30 AM alarm to get up and head for the airport was due to go off all too soon. Thankfully I made it home without any further difficulties, and as I write this Sunday afternoon, I seem to have weathered the storm. Even if I'd been delirious, I would have known I was home when Julia and I were at breakfast Saturday morning and I looked around at all the North Face and Patagonia and realized I was, once again, the fattest guy in the room. That wasn't the case in Texas, believe me. I looked positively svelte compared to most of the people I was around.

Texas tried to take me out, but it'll take more than anything it can bring to the table to get that job done, let me tell ya. . . .

"The Pickle" at Beat to a Pulp

My story "The Pickle" is now up at the online fiction site, Beat to a Pulp. Check it out and leave a comment to let me know what you think. Many thanks to David Cranmer for publishing it! Here's the opening:

I guess you never think about how you got to where someone's got a shotgun pointed at you. At least not until after it's over, if you're lucky enough to survive it. It's just you and that big, fat barrel, and some jerkoff pointing it at you. Everything else just kinda goes away. I don't know how long I sat there staring with my mouth open, a couple seconds maybe, though it seemed longer, then reality came back like a massive head rush. The rain hammering the roof of the van, the guy yelling at me, and Bryan about pissing himself in the seat next to me. Sometimes I laugh a little when I think about it. Usually I just try not to remember it at all.

I wrote this story last fall in a short fiction workshop I did through the 406 Writers Workshop here in Missoula. It was actually the first bit of short fiction I'd written since high school. I'd done a couple other things during the workshop, but they were chapters from novels I was working on. This one was different, which makes it kind of special to me. The night before I wrote it, I was at a reading featuring Austin writers Annie LaGanga and Bill Cotter. They made us sit in a circle, then each read a little bit of their work. Next, they had everyone at the reading -- maybe 8 or 10 of us -- tell a story, or share a game, or whatever came to mind, with everyone else. It was a lot of fun. When my turn came, I had been toying with this story idea, and basically made it up "in the oral tradition" and unleashed it on these guinea pigs. Those there didn't seem to know if it was real or not, and it went over very well. So I dashed home and wrote it out. Of course since then it has been modified and tweaked with a little bit, but it isn't much different than the original story I told. That was fun.

I hope you like it.

This is Just a Great Picture

In the Home of Robert E. Howard

I flew into Dallas/Fort Worth Airport early Monday afternoon on a work trip. As I arrived fairly early in the day, with no work scheduled until Tuesday, I had made arrangements ahead of time to drive out to Cross Plains and visit the Robert E. Howard Museum there. For those who don't know already, Robert E. Howard is the man who created the character Conan the Barbarian, a favorite of mine since I was young. He wrote much, much more than just Conan, though, which many people don't realize. He was one of the giants of the Pulp Era of the late 20s and 30s, cranking out stories for the magazines of the day up until his death by suicide at the age of 30. The museum is actually a restoration of the house he lived in with his mother and father from 1919 until 1936.

After a couple hours of driving, I was finally able to get off the main highway.

Roads like this are so much more interesting than 4-lane interstates.

I passed the Cross Plains high school, Home of the Bison!

I'm sorry, but that's kind of a sorry looking bison if you ask me.

My first stop was the library, which is right on the main street through town. I thought I took a couple pictures of Main Street, but I must be mistaken. It hasn't changed much from Howard's time. The library is what you would expect from a small town, but I'm thrilled they actually have one. These days, when tanks, missiles and no-bid contracts are more important to this country than education and public concerns, libraries seem to be a dying breed.

They sell photocopies of Howard's actual manuscripts there, but I didn't have time to look into that, as I was running a little behind schedule and the library was due to close. Instead I got directions to the Howard house, and in minutes I was there. This is what the front looks like from the street.

The driveway took me around back to park. Here's a shot from the rear.

There I met a fine woman named Arlene, with whom I'd corresponded to arrange my visit. She was waiting there for me, and was my guide through the house. She is with an organization called Project Pride, which purchased the house in 1989 to preserve it as a memorial to an era as well as its history with the Howard family. It's not a particularly large house, and they have done their best to preserve it in the state it is believed to have been when the Howards lived there. These photos from inside the house show a before and after of the house from when they bought it and after they restored it.

click to make bigger!

They don't have many personal effects that actually belonged to the Howards, but they do have some. In most cases, they have furnished the place with period pieces to represent what a house of the 20s and 30s would possibly look like. This is the dining room (which was unusual in itself, as most homes of that era did not have a separate dining room):

And this is the living room.

In the living room, there were several paintings on the walls that did actually belong to the Howards (as well as a case with some of Robert's father's books). They also were likely to have had a radio as in the following picture, as Robert was an avid radio listener. Arlene told me that he was instrumental in bringing radio to Cross Plains.

Robert's father also upgraded the house to have plumbing and a bathroom, which was quite a luxury for those times.

This next picture is a bust of Cleopatra that Robert bought on a trip to New Orleans with his father. He was 14 at the time.

This next picture are photographs of his mother and father.

Robert's father was a doctor. Early in Robert's life, the family had moved around quite a bit, all over Texas, before settling in Cross Plains. His mother was sickly, suffering from tuberculosis, and Robert was much involved in caring for her. The house had only one bedroom (and only one closet in the entire house!), and that was his mother's. The room had a window that looked into Howard's room, which would be a little . . . weird.

When the family moved in, there was no separate room for Robert, so they walled in an outside porch and turned that into Robert's room. The room is tiny.

The bed is little more than a cot. Robert grew to be a large man, tall and broad; about my size, though I'm sure I'm a little bigger since I have had regular access to Tower Pizza. This next one is me standing in the middle of the room, and with my arms outstretched I could touch both walls.

They don't have the actual typewriter and desk that Robert used, though they know where both are -- the collector who has them is not willing to donate them. However, the ones here are pretty much identical to Robert's. These next couple pictures I feel speak for themselves.

In his letters, Robert talks about sitting up late into the night, hammering away at his typewriter, shouting aloud the words he's writing, swept up in the heady elation of creativity. With the windows open against the stifling heat, the neighbor woman would hear him and holler for him to shut up because "I'm trying to sleep!" Robert's mother would shout back, "You shut up, my son is working!"

The only thing in this room that actually belonged to Robert is this ink well, which was given to him by a Cross Plains citizen who had brought it back from Jerusalem for him.

These aren't Robert's books, but the represent editions from the time, as well as titles he mentioned in his letters as being books he read and enjoyed.

Elsewhere in the house they have a lot of photocopies of various documents, canceled checks, manuscripts, etc. They display the copies, with the originals kept in a vault at the bank in town. This particular one is an essay Robert wrote while in school.

The teacher has a note on the side margin that is very interesting; it says: "Robert, I believe that some day you will be one of our major writers. Develop your talent."

There are many photographs throughout the house. Robert was a boxing fanatic, and actually fought amateur bouts himself.

There are also many photos of what Cross Plains was like in that era. It was actually a booming oil town for a short time.

This last photo is one of my favorites. The picket fence you see was actually destroyed by a storm that blew through town in the years after Project Pride bought the house. After they rebuilt the fence, they used the old pickets to make picture frames, and sold this picture framed with them. Of course they're no longer available.

Robert E. Howard's story is a sad one. The last hours of his life are documented as well as anyhere via Wikipedia:

In June 1936, as Hester Howard slipped into her final coma, her son maintained a death vigil with his father and friends of the family, getting little sleep, drinking huge amounts of coffee, and growing more despondent. On the morning of June 11, 1936, told by a nurse that his mother would never again regain consciousness, he walked out to his car in the driveway, took the pistol from the glove box, and shot himself in the head. His father and another doctor rushed out, but the wound was too grievous for anything to be done. Howard lived for another eight hours, dying at 4pm; his mother died the following day. The story occupied the entire of that week's edition of the Cross Plains Review along with publication of Howard's "A Man-Eating Leopard." On June 14, 1936 in a double funeral, the sermon was held at Cross Plains First Baptist Church and they were both buried in Greenleaf Cemetery in Brownwood, Texas.

Why would a guy, whose career was just beginning to take off, kill himself so young? Some blame an Oedipus Complex. Others blame clinical depression, or just an overwhelming amount of stress related to everything that was going on in his life at the time (including his love life, as documented in the movie Whole Wide World). Some just think he was loony. We'll never know of course. It makes me sad to think what else he might have written if he'd stuck it out.

My only disappointment is that I didn't have the extra couple hours it would have taken to visit his grave site. Maybe next time. I'm thankful that a small group of people have done so much to make sure this piece of an important writer's life is not just shoved aside and forgotten. It was quite an experience for me to stand in that room, walking the floor boards he'd walked, and know that I was in the very space where all those stories I've loved for more years than he even lived were born right there.

RIP, Robert.