It's been too long, I know

It's been a pretty long time, yeah.  I've been writing other things, and grading papers, and teaching writing classes, and being a TA, and working on my Masters, and working at Whole Foods, and watching TV.  I've been playing a lot of Earthbound, of course, like usual.  It's what I do.

So I thought I'd do this as quickly as possible and then get back to grading stuff.

                                                 DOGS

"You haven't rode in my car before so you don't know what I do, do you?"  Jeremy asked Janelle.

"What do you do?" She asked.

Cars whipped by on both sides.  He inched forward and backwards out of the spot, like a dog wiggling its butt.

"I sing.  That's what I do."

He accidentally sung the N word.  Janelle is black.

"I didn't know you felt like that."

"It's a lyric in the song!  That's not how I feel.  I'm just singing along."

"No no no no, you're racist."

"How can I be racist?  I like the music."

"That's like saying you have black friends so you can't be racist."

"But I do have black friends!  And I'm not racist."

He expected her to thank him for the ride.

They showed up at the party. 

He normally wouldn't have been home on a Saturday night at all.  With all of this free time on his hands, he ended up using most of it to play videogames. 

Opening coffee store

        "Think of it, in just a few days this place will be covered in grime and dirt, young couples will be making out on our upstairs sofa, we'll have to continually fix the expresso machine."
        "Homeless people will have conversations with our baristas about whether or not World War 2 happened."
        "Drunk passerbies will vandalize our windows!  If we're lucky, we'll get some graffiti."
         Charlie wiped down the counter.  It felt like moving into a new apartment.  Other than the rent check, which was more and didn't include heat or electric.  And all of the annoying certificates they had to file for.
         John opened up a UPS envelope and pulled a plastic sign out that read "Now Hiring".
         "Seriously, you ordered a sign online?  That's an unnecessary expense."
         "But look, it's nice."
         "Write that into our budget."  Charlie said, drawing out a sign on a piece of computer paper that said "Now Hiring", and placing it next to the plastic one.

         "Welcome to the neighborhood."  A man wearing a suit with the pant legs rolled up said, extending his hand at the door.
         "You've been here for awhile?"
         "Yeah, I run the bar across the street."
         The sign read "Bar and Coffee Lounge."  This was a massive oversight.  They had direct competition across the street.
         "I think we can coexist.  My clientele is mostly college kids.   They'll get bored of my store and go to yours, then get bored of yours and come over to mine."

         "We better open earlier than him."  Charlie said to Damian. 
         They changed the "open" sign to 6:00 AM.  That was a full two hours before the Bar and Coffee Lounge opened. 
         "We should probably have a more interesting name for our little shop than his, too."
         They produced a sign.

Study guide for Rick Popps 562

Geertz:  Social Anthropology
Symbolic anthropology studies symbols and the processes,such as myth and ritual, by which humans assign meanings to these symbols to address fundamental questions about human social life (Spencer 1996:535). According to Geertz, man is in need of symbolic "sources of illumination" to orient himself with respect to the system of meaning that is any particular culture (1973a:45). Turner states that symbols initiate social action and are "determinable influences inclining persons and groups to action" (1967:36). Geertz's position illustrates the interpretive approach to symbolic anthropology, while Turner's illustrates the symbolic approach.

Carey:  Communication

Two alternative conceptions of communication have been alive in American culture since this term entered common discourse in the nineteenth century. Both definitions derive, as with much in secular culture, from religious oirigins, though they refer to somewhat different regions of religious experience. We might label these descriptions, if only to provide handy pegs upon which to hang our thought, a transmission view of communication and a ritual view of communication.
The transmission view of communication is the commonest in our culture–perhaps in all industrial cultures–and dominates contemporary dictionary entries under the term. It is defined by terms such as "impaffing," "sending," "transmitting," or "giving information to others." It is formed from a metaphor of geography or transportation. In the nineteenth century but to a lesser extent today, the movement of goods or people and the movement of information were seen as essentially identical processes and both were described by the common noun "communication." The center of this idea of communication is the transmission of signals or messages over distance for the purpose of control. It is a view of communication that derives from one of the most ancient of human dreams: the desire to increase the speed and effect of messages as they travel in space. From the time upper and lower Egypt were unified under the First Dynasty down through the invention of the telegraph, transportation and communication were inseparably linked. Although messages might be centrally produced and controlled, through monopolization of writing or the rapid production of print, these messages, carried in the hands of a messenger or between the bindings of a book, still had to be distributed, if they were to have their desired effect, by rapid transportation. The telegraph ended the identity but did not destroy the metaphor. Our basic orientation to communication remains grounded, at the deepest roots of our thinking, in the idea of transmission: communication is a process whereby messages are transmitted and distributed in space for the control of distance and people.


 Guy Debord:  Commodity as Spectacle

The Commodity as Spectacle

  The commodity can only be understood in its undistorted essence when it
  becomes the universal category of society as a whole. Only in this context
  does the reification produced by commodity relations assume decisive
  importance both for the objective evolution of society and for the stance
  adopted by men towards it. Only then does the commodity become crucial for
  the subjugation of men's consciousness to the forms in which this
  reification finds expression.... As labor is progressively rationalized
  and mechanized man's lack of will is reinforced by the way in which his
  activity becomes less and less active and more and more contemplative. 

Raymond Williams:  Cultural Materialism

cultural materialism. This book was in part a response to structuralism
 in literary studies and pressure on Williams to make a more theoretical
 statement of his own position against criticisms that it was a humanist
 Marxism, based on unexamined assumptions about lived experience. 

Paul Willis:  Symbolic Creativity

"Every day is full of ideas which, although they are not art, share the same 

symbolic creativity of art processes."

Language, active body, drama, symbolic creativity.  "Remaking the world for 

ourselves"

Jonathan Gray:  Blowing up the brand
In the realm of film and television, promotional culture is often a key
and indistinguishable part of the artistic product. Behind corporate conglomerates’
horizontal and vertical integration and plans for synergistic
conquest of the audience are frequently videogames, posters, ad campaigns,
merchandise lines, toys, and trailers that are active sites for the creation,
consumption, and enjoyment of the narrative. Many of these “spinoffs,”
“extratextuals,” and “peripherals” surround film and television texts with
hype, generating revenue themselves at times but also serving the larger goal
of directing audiences to the film, show, or franchise. Comparatively little
has been written about them, even though they command an inordinately
large amount of public space.

Adorno:  Pop music snob

Adorno believes that there are 'two spheres of music'. He calls these, serious and popular music. In this article, Adorno talks about the differences between the two. He talks about 'standardisation', how all popular music is the same. It repeatedly uses the same subjects and the same rules.

In comparison, he says that every detail of a serious piece of music is unique, if notes were missing the music would not be the same. Unlike popular music where, 'every detail is substitutable; it serves its function only as a cog in a machine' (Adorno, On Popular Music, 1941). Therefore, to listen to this music you don't need to think or be engaged.

 

Another one!

        So I'm driving up to the fancy art place to meet her.  It's an exhibit and I have a free ticket.  The hall is packed with finely dressed people and I am wearing a green hooded sweatshirt and jeans that are too long (all of my jeans are too long). 
        I drive up to the valet parking guy, because up and down the block there is bumper to bumper parking.  There's even some people parked on the grass, but the grass is on the other side of a construction barrier and it's hard to tell how they got there. 
        "10 dollars."  The valet states.  He is wearing a white tuxedo and a hat with a red feather in it.
         "Do you take cards?"  I say.
        He looks up at me nonplussed.  This is the perfect opportunity to use that word.
        The silence continues.
        I ease off the break a little and he slaps the hood of my car.
        "Can I just park for free?"
        "No one ever asks that."  He shows some humanity.
         It seems like he is going to let me do it when a car behind pulls up. 
         "That guy is going to know you didn't pay if you don't pay, so you have to pay."  He says.
         "But I don't have any cash."
         "Then you can't park here."
          I put on the brake and get out, and knock on the tinted window of the black limousine behind me.  A gentleman with a monocle and a top hat is driving... and there's no one else in there. 
         "Are you the limo driver?"  I ask.  "Why are you driving a limo with no one else in it."
         "Sir, what are you doing?"  The valet pulls me aside.  The line of cars is full of well behaved drivers, still.
         "Can I have 10 bucks?"  I ask.
          He just stares at me through his one squinted eye.
       ___________________________________________
         I park a few miles away, in a section of downtown by the Chili Store.  I don't like chili, but I like that places chili.  So I get chili and then I'm on my way.
         I look at my watch.  I'm already 20 minutes late.  The plan to initiate this part of the plan was more fun and interesting than the actual plan. 
         I pivot on one foot and nearly turn around and stumble back into the car and drive it home.  My raggedy legal pad has all of the questions I've planned out to ask her on it.

Continuing my Fiction

           This is a secret, don't tell anyone this.  You know the internet?  Of course you know the internet.  Let me stop trying to be funny.
          Well, you can look up any celebrity on the internet.  You know this as well.  You can find most celebrities email addresses on here, sometimes their PR teams.  It does not take very much energy to write an email, and some celebrities are susceptible to personal appeals.
          Find someone who has done some minor work, someone who does not feel like they are famous yet.  Maybe someone who wrote an article that you kind of enjoyed, not one that will change your life or leave any kind of lasting impression, just a decent story.  They probably slaved over this writing for longer than you would ever imagine, to them it's probably the equivalent of one hit wonder band that has been touring for 30 years and playing that same song over and over.  Write them and tell them that you enjoy that article, maybe break that article down sentence by sentence, apply it to real life situations, tell them that it made you feel better when you're having a bad day, something like that.
            Let them email gestate for a few months.  Maybe drop one here or there about their recent goings-ons, google them occasionally.  Tell them you do a lot of writing but you aren't confident enough to let them read it, they probably will offer to.  This is called a personal connection. 
            Now you can use this relationship for whatever reason you want.  At any given time, you can send them an email with a humble topic line like:  "Remember me?"  or "Your biggest fan."  (Your biggest fan in the outro line is a winner every time as well).  If it turns out somehow that this person is extremely successful, atleast at whatever place they happen to work, write and ask them about available internships, random writing advice, if they have any friends who are looking for personal assistants, etc. 
            I'm writing this because I did this.  Not me, the blogger, me the character in this fictional essay.  This is a fiction blog, so everything contained here is fiction.  Even the real stuff.
            So this woman who was a quasi-successful writer in the late 50s (came in second for a Pulitzer, something like that) has offered to lend me her tutelage.  She has a basement room with wall to wall file cabinets of correspondences with other semi-successful writers, newspaper articles of importance, dirt on the now defunct newspapers she worked at, and many more odds and ends.  She doesn't do anything now, doesn't even write (picture a wilted flower), but she still has a name that semi-famous people in the area will recognize.
           It's called networking.  It works retroactively this way.  It's about getting your feet into as many doors as possible, metaphorically as well as literally.
          Then the problem sprang on me:  What do you do when you get there?  You wonder if she's worrying about the same things, but it's the next morning already, and this is when you planned to get together.  You watch The Graduate that night, and wonder if she's going to be attractive.

Internet Sign On

This has become more of a mission to get as many words onto the page as possible in increasingly short periods of time.  Since grad school started my creative writing has really taken a hit.

Hamburgers.  He wanted hamburgers.

"I'm on the phone, buddy, can you wait just a minute?"  His bespectacled old man waved him off.

"You want hamburgers, buddy?  Hamburgers?"  The maid asked, stooping down to his eye level.

All of the internet connections were titled things like:  "Funny cock" and "Pocket pussy."  The kid better not learn any words like that, he thought.

First update in awhile

Hey it's really easy for me to just keep on typing.  This is an exercise in typing.  I have twenty minutes before a class.

So there's this guy.

He lives in a cave.

He has sandwiches that he makes from the animals that he hunts.  He looks in his pantry, which is a pile of rocks.  There's no more sandwich stuff left.  There's a residue left where the blood was.

He rolls out of bed, it's a large log.  He has cut out the inside.  It's pretty comfortable, so far the termites haven't gotten to it.

He picks up his sling and his bag of rocks.  He hates carrying the bag of rocks, but he hasn't thought of any easier way. It leaves a big red line on his shoulder blade, and the line has slowly became an indentation. 

He walks outside with his rocks, waves at the mailman and next door neighbors.

"Going down to creek, yup."  He says to himself.

The neighbor ladies are outside drinking tea.  They wave.  He is handsome.  They knew his mother.

He comes to a stop sign.  It's a big red circle painted on a rock.  There's a lot of noise coming from the forest.  He ignores the stop sign, if that's what it's supposed to be.  He's unclear whether or not it's trying to keep him out of the forest, but hunting is always dangerous.  He's been trampled by boars on multiple occasions.

There's an animal he hasn't seen before.

A new one

I have not proofread this, but I did write it.  I write every day yadda yadda yadda.  You can see improvement (maybe).

            It hadn’t been a year since my accident at Dr. Shoeman’s Shoe Emporium had got me all of the money I needed to last for a year on my own.  Mr. Shoeman was still angry with me like I had stolen the money directly out of his pocket, and my lawyer Hank Hannigan was still calling every day asking for his piece.

           I didn’t feel like the rest of the bums at the unemployment office.  A lot of these people were unemployable, as you could imagine.  Others looked like they had been forced to go by an angry spouse or money-mongering relative.

            “If you haven’t yet filed for direct deposit,”  The automated voice on the overhead speaker said.  “You can not yet appreciate the convenience.”  I had no bank account, no credit cards.  I cashed my checks at Walmart after they handed them over.  The front of the line was blocked by two elderly african american women with giant steel cage looking walkers, who were complaining about something completely unintelligible.

            Lucky for me, my old friend Bernard popped up.  “I can help YOU down here, sir.”  He said.  I skipped others in line who scoffed, a man on a cellphone looked particularly annoyed (although it could have concerning what his cellphone conversation was about.)

            I looked at the check, which was once again more than I felt like I should be getting.  1,100 dollars was far more than I had ever accrued through gainful employment at the shoe store.  

            Don’t get me wrong, I love shoes.  I love Nikes, I love Siconi’s, I love Adidas, sports shoes in general.  They have that appeal of a nice sports car, except they are much more comfortable. 

            I always got weird looks from cops.  I think maybe they could tell I was nervous around them. 

            “Good evening, officer.”  I said to this particular mustachoed bespectacled gentleman as I stepped out onto the steps adjacent to city hall.  

            “What have you got there, buddy?”  He asked with a smile.

            “Just a little unemployment check.”

            “Are you disabled?”

            “Nope, not that I know of.  Other than maybe my will to live.”

            “Sorry to hear that, friend.  Good luck.”

            He ended it there, it was nice of him.  I was sweating bullets.

            I decided to intern at the new Carnival Style Theme Park for a minute.  It was still a week before the place opened, and everyone looked generally nervous. 

            “Mr. Simon is going to be here in a minute, cover all the sharp edges.”  The owner, Mr. Belvedere, proclaimed.  You could see the sweat poring out in a thick line from his balding mountainous scalp as he typed haphazardly into a dirty wordpress.

            I put everything from on top of my desk into the first drawer, pulling them off like I was attempting to pull a table cloth out from under some dinnerware.

            “My desk looks good, boss.”  I said, with feigned compliance.  “Don’t have to worry about my desk.” 

            He didn’t even look over.  His boss, ostensibly the man who had put together these rides and architechtured the setup, was storming up with two stocky gentlemen wearing hardhats and carrying machines that wouldn’t have been out of place on an episode of Star Trek.

            “The tiltawhirl is running fine, fine enough.”  One of them said.  “We need a test run, would you like to volunteer?”

            They weren’t talking to me, they were referring to Mr. Simon.  I knew this was a pretty good opportunity to jump in and earn my place.

            “Me?  I don’t ride these things.  This is for my sons and daughters, the kids, the greater good.”

            “If you think these rides are safe, you should give them a shot.  A day from now they’re going to go through endless wear-and-tear, obese people and sticky disgusting kids will be sitting in those seats.  Not that I care about those kids, but any sort of accident in the first week is bad publicity all around.  Hole In The World Themepark would do greatly to avoid any conspiracy.”

            So there I was, a guinea pig.  I usually enjoyed themeparks while growing up, mostly because I didn’t have to pay for anything.  This was more of the same.

            They watched as I spun guilelessly, the most basics of blues and reds spinning into my eyes as the ride thrust me against the side of its inner chamber.  I reached out with an arm to attempt to regain balance and pull myself to the middle of the ride, but I was stuck much like the Gravitron would do to me later on.

            I played some of the carnival games, which inevitably proved to be fixed.  I played some baseball all the way through college, and although the reader tracked my fastball at a measly 65 miles an hour I’m sure it was atleast mid 70s.  It struck the pin which was in a state of frozen inertia.  Each ball fell sterilly to the ground.

            They allowed Mr. Randy and Mr. Dove to take me on the rest of the ride-proofing, while Mr. Simon and his Honchos walked off nervously.  Mr. Simon looked very guilty, and his dark blue polo did little to hide his excessive armpit sweat. 

            “Let us know if there are any problems at the end of the night, Charlie.”  Mr. Simon exuded the utmost confidence in me.  I did a stunted double take, stunted in that I really only did a single take before I realized how he was trying to make it sound.

            “Yes sir, only the best from me.  Do you expect anything else?”  I oversold it.

            Mr. Randy turned to Mr. Dove.  He had an oversized pineapple head, and his ponytail looked like a horses tail.  He really could have used a hat.

            Mr. Dove looked completely normal, only his jaw hung open when he talked or was being talked to, the lip disappearing under his lower row of teeth.

            “Ya know, Mr. Dove,”  He started.

            “What’s that, Eugene?”  Mr. Dove added unfelicitously.

            “I think there’s something they ain’t telling us.”

            “What do you mean?  We don’t get paid to think.”

            “Well, they’re aiming to open this place tomorrow, but they’re doing the first test rides today.”

            “Naw, I know what you’re getting at.  Have you seen the serial numbers on this rollercoaster?”

            “I have.”

            “Well, does anything surprise you?”

            They stood over the V-Shaped blue beam that anchored this beast.

            “I ain’t never seen one like it.”

            “Yes, that’s true.  Well, you already know this, but you probably don’t, Charlie.  Get over here.”

            I threw the flavored toothpick I had been chewing on towards the blue aluminum garbage can, and it dinked off the side somewhere.

            “Well, me and my partner here have been working in this business quite a long time.  Really long time.  There are three major rollercoaster builders.  This one wasn’t built by any of them.  What do you make of that?”

            “A private contractor built the coaster?  Or it’s from someone’s personal collection?”

            “Could be from a personal collection could be.  There ain’t no other coaster like this one.  Most such coasters vary minimally in design, usually based on whatever promotional gimmick gives the ride its name.  Superman has upright cars so you feel like you’re flying, Batman is supposed to make you feel like being in his Batwing.  Get a load of this middle part here, by the loopty loop.”

            I looked up at it, there was something peculiar about it, or maybe I jumped to that conclusion based on the fact that he was trying to get me to find it.

            “What’s wrong with it, Charlie?” 

            I bit my lip and rubbed my eyes. 

            “Maybe we can get a closer look?”  I asked.  “I could probably tell from closer.”

            “He could probably tell from closer.”  Mr. Dove laughed.  Mr. Randy shook his head.

           

            “So how’s this one run?”  Mr. Belvedere asked sheepishly, leaning against a load bearing pole.

            “You probably don’t want to lean on that pole.”  Mr. Randy cautioned him.   “It’s bad luck in this business, seeing as no one has ridden the ride yet.”

Revisions revisions revisions

Look at how different this is after my first series of revisions.  You can't say that's not constantly improving.


 

            Ron stared out of the window of his little shack with eager anticipation.  He read the letter from Stacy over and over again.

            “I hate my mom,”  He read to himself with zest.  “Remember that movie star auntie you said you had?”

            Ron shook continuously as he drank coffee straight out of the pot.  A police cruiser came down the street and he ducked, reaching up to twist the blinds shut.  He heard the car door slam and the crunching of footsteps coming up the drive.  Two sets of feet.

            The doorbell rang and Ron ran into the bathroom, parting his hair with a wet comb and throwing a polo shirt on over his mother of pearl wife beater.  There were a couple of loud knocks, followed by a few more rings of the doorbell.  He could hear his step daughters voice outside.

            “Officer McKenzie, first division.  I found this young lady wandering down the side of the road.”  Officer McKenzie said, flipping up the shades on his eyeglasses.  The air conditioner blared in the window, the cool lines coming off of it were almost visible powder blue squiggles.

            Ron was taken aback by the unfriendly greeting, and used it to buy time to think of something to say

. “Your mother couldn’t give you a ride? That woman is no-good.  Do I have to do everything for this family”  Ron said unconvincingly.

            The officer looked over at the closed blinds.  “Why’d you close the blinds? Is there something I should know?”

            “No, I just don’t like the police, you know?”  He looked at Stacy pleadingly.

            “Step aside.  I’m going to come in and take a look around.”  The cop said.

            “Don’t you need a warrant or something?”  Ron said weakly as the cop pushed him aside with a flattened outstretched hand. 

            Ron stepped outside and looked desperately at Stacy.  She removed a piece of gum from its tinfoil and rolled her eyes up at him.

            “I think I hear your police radio.”  Ron said.  “It sounds like something important is going on.”

            “You know it’s illegal to lie to a police officer, daddy.”  Stacy said with narrowed eyes.

            Luckily for Ron, he had cleaned up a little for Stacey.  He vaccuumed the purple shag carpeting, although it still had a few inconquerable stains.  The wicker coffee tables flanking the lumpy loveseat looked clean enough, granted you didn’t remove the coasters and lamp that were stuck to them. The beads hanging off of the multicolored chandelier were dust free.  However, the garbage can sitting next to the TV was overflowing with empty soda bottles, and a few had jumped ship onto the few on the floor next to it.

            “You weren’t planning on having this girl stay with you here, were you?”  The officer asked.  Ron walked back in sheepishly. “This looks like a single mans apartment if I’ve ever seen one.”

            “I was gonna sleep on the couch.  They’re fumigating her mom’s place.”  Ron said, the cop crossing his arms.  His moustache stood bristling at full attention.

 Ron knew he had to lay down on the couch.  The cushions crunched underneath him, and the best he could do to get his whole frame onto it was to cram his legs and head into a V shape.

            “It’s not comfortable but I have done it before and I’ll do it again.”  Ron said.  He added:  “I’d do anything for my little girl.”

            The cop gestured at Ron to come over into the kitchen and whispered. 

            “I saw the periphenalia in your bedroom.  I smell drugs all over this place.  I know you aren’t thinking of taking that car out front and running away with her.  You’ve got your rough spots, but I think you’re an honest man.  I don’t want to embarrass a man in front of his daughter.”

            The police officer rubbed two fingers together.

            Ron looked up dumbfounded for a second and then understood he was being solicited for a bribe.

            “I’m a little short, right now.”  Ron said.  The cop crossed his arms and shook his head.

            Ron and Stacy stood in the driveway silently as the cop pulled away.  He drove slowly, and Ron rearranged the thick stack of money in his wallet, unbeknownst to him Stacy was watching the entire time.

            “Are you sure we should even be driving this thing?”  Stacy asked.  Ron stepped heavily on the gas and a stream of smoke formed around each window like they were sitting on a hot spring.  Stacy rolled up the passenger side window and wiped dirt out of her eye.

            “It’s my car, Stacy.  It’s tougher than it looks.  Got a lot of character.”  Ron responded and dropped the car back into neutral.  “Get out and help me push it.”

            “Ron, I heard that cop say you shouldn’t be driving it.”  Stacy said and picked at peeling sea-green paint covering the rust that grew like a barnacle underneath.  She dropped to her knees and looked under the thing, and stood up and kicked the rotting exhaust pipe.  It fell off easily, like a dead part of a house plant.  Ron grabbed it and pushed it into the black circle it occupied.

            “We gotta get going or we’ll never get to Auntie Fiona’s house.  The pools a lot more fun during the day.”

            “I’m going to call mom.”  Stacy said as Ron pushed from the open drivers side door.  The front tires plopped up on the lawn, the car looking temporarily like a hungry killer whale.

            “What?  No, no no! You know mom, she gets jealous.”  Ron said, hitting the red button on Stacy’s Iphone.  “As a matter of fact, I’m going to hold onto this in case she calls.  We’re going to have a nice, quiet, relaxing day.  Besides, she’s always been jealous of Fiona’s looks and success.  You know your mother used to want to be an actress.  It will only upset her.”

            The car started fine, three gutteral coughs and then a long wheeze that diffused into palpatations.  It sputtered like Porky Pig’s car in an old cartoon as it flung pebbles in each direction as it scurried onto old Arvsdale Avenue. 

            “Wave goodbye to the house.”  Ron said wistfully.  Stacy found this remark more ominous than Ron intended. 

            “This death wagon.”  She said under her breath, popping her head out of the window and breathing in the hot, musky desert air.

           

            Mr. Beasley stepped out onto the turf for his ten A.M cigarette.  He pulled off his plain blue sweatstained visor and squinted. 

            He was down to the nub of it when he noticed the gaping hole between his tractor trailor and haywagon.  He took his flip phone out of the front pocket on his overalls and dialed whilst swearing to himself under his breath.

            “Boy ain’t paid his rent in months, now he’s taken my old Impala.” 

            “Ursa-Mae, get your sister.”  Rita said between puffs.  “That girl could sleep through a thunderstorm.”

            Ursa pushed into Stacy’s room, her alarm clock blaring.  The bed was a mess, girly magazines laying open.  And the window was wide open, the curtains fluttering in the breeze.  She pulled the blanket up to the pillows and went over to the window.  Her mother was out in the yard.

            “Ma, she’s run out again.”

            Ursa Mae:  Jealous of the fact everyone is paying more attention to her sister.  The more bookish of the family.

            Rita:  Afraid Ron is going to have sex with daughter.  40s

            “She sleep over at Harlie’s house?”

            “She isn’t friends with Harlie anymore.”

            “Well she better not be out that deadbeat creep Ron.”

            “He’s not that bad.”  Ursa said.

            “What was that?”

            “Ron, he’s not that bad.”  She spoke louder but didn’t quite yell.

            Ursa dug through Stacy’s drawers and retrieved two crumpled twenty dollar bills.  She took a dress out of her closet and hung it over her arm.

            “I called and she ain’t answering, phone must be off.”  Rita burst into the room.  “Get dressed we’re going to go find her.”

            “Yer boy took the truck and he’s gone.”  Words leaked out of Beasley like air out of a flat basketball.

            “He isn’t MINE.  We got DIVORCED.  And you’re his boss, not some friend of the family.” 

            “No matter.  If you see that boy, tell him not to come back.  He’s fired, and he can’t live here anymore.”

            The car rumbled past the “Population 500” sign, along a freshly paved onramp and onto the thick tar of the city road.

            Stacy smiled over at Ron.  He looked back sheepishly and refocused on the road, a light blush painting itself onto his cheeks. 

            “What’s she like?”  Stacy asked.

            “Oh, you know.  Like any other movie star.  She is nice, rich, nicest woman I’ve met.”  He reached an arm over behind her head.  “When I was growing up, we always looked forward to going to Fiona’s house.  She would cook up lobsters on the grill, she had fancy juice in a big pitcher with ice cubes and limes floating in there, we would spend the whole day by the pool.  Some of her movie star friends showed up, too.  They came and went like it was their hangout.”

            Stacy checked her makeup in the mirror.  “You know, if you didn’t always sound like you were full of shit I’d say you were BSing me.”

            “What’s all this crap?”  Stacy said, climbing halfway over the backseat and putting her butt up in Ron’s face.  “This is all of your shit, isn’t it?”

            On the side of the road, Montgomery sat in his smoldering black leather police cruiser.  Ron’s car flew by, and it wasn’t dark enough he didn’t notice their tail light was out.  He reached up at the siren switch tentatively, and took a sip of his gas station coffee.  He mulled it over, and typed in the license plate number on the laptop.

            “Ron Durante.”  Montgomery said outloud to himself, sipping more of his coffee.  He picked the computer up and put it on his lamp.

            Right about this time, Ron’s air conditioning decided to stop working.

            “All this sweat’s making my makeup run.  Hey, there’s a car guy.  Pull over.”  Stacy said.

            “No can do, Stace. 

            The heat thermometer had its arrow pointing firmly off the spectrum, past H.  Stacy turned the radio down and the whirring noise of the engine was truncated by a persistence bump.

            “What’s that noise, Ron?  That does it, I’m calling mom.”

            Ron cringed at the idea of his ex wife being “mom”.  He turned the radio back up, and a reporter interrupted their soft adult contemporary music.

            “…on the lookout for a green rusty truck…”

            Ron turned the radio off and drove in silence.  When Stacy seemed like she was going to talk again, he interrupted.

            “Alright we’ll get the car fixed.”

            They pulled into a rest stop and Ron pushed his legs out to open the heavy door.  He came around to Stacy’s side and pulled hers open. 

            “Go in and get yourself a bite to eat.”  Ron said, handing her a twenty from his wallet.

            The mechanic had a wide smile and was standing upright.  With his blonde hair he looked like a ripe ear of corn.

            “Jim.  Nice to meet you, Jim.”  Ron said and extended a hand.  Jim’s handshake was a vice grip compared to his own.

            “Mister,” He said, looking under the hood.  “You better find yourself a place to stay, this car might going to take a very long time.”

            “You don’t know what you’re talking about.  What’s wrong with it?”  Ron planted his hand on his forehead.

            “Well you see,”  The mechanic said, propping the hood up and resting it open.  “Your coolant is out.  You’re lucky the car didn’t start smoking on the way here.  On a hot day like today, you could have baked alive inside this thing.”

            “Ok so I get some more coolant.”  Stacy looked at him from across the street, two teenager boys on each side of her. 

            “That fast food is going to destroy that girls figure.  Damn shame too, she’s a real piece.”  Jim said with a slight whistle coming from between his teeth.

            “That’s my goddamn daughter.”  Ron said.  He looked at Jim sternly, and Jim kept glancing out the window.  “Show some goddamn respect.”

            “The festival’s beginning.”  Jim said, tossing his wrench down onto the big metal slab the car was perched next to. 

            “What about my car?”  Ron asked.

            “No work during the festival, state law.”  Jim said with his arms up akimbo.  “Your daughters already there, anyway.”

            “Yep, looks like he took that big rusted thing.  Unbelievable he even got it started.” 

           

Here's a new one

         It's day a million.  Kevin Vokes has been reading this blog of mine.  I am not sure but I think things are getting better.  I'm understanding the role of conflict.  I'm working on a second book and this one is a lot better than the first one (ie: constantly improving)

 

            Ron stared out of the window of his little shack with eager anticipation.  He read the letter from Stacy over and over again.

            “I hate my mom,”  He read to himself with zest.  “Remember that movie star auntie you said you had?”

            Ron shook continuously as he drank coffee straight out of the pot.  A police cruiser came down the street and he ducked, reaching up to twist the blinds shut.  He heard the car door slam and the crunching of footsteps coming up the drive.  Two sets of feet.

            The doorbell rang and Ron ran into the bathroom, parting his hair with a wet comb and throwing a polo shirt on over his mother of pearl wife beater.  There were a couple of loud knocks, followed by a few more rings of the doorbell.

            “I found this young lady wandering down the side of the road.”

            “Your mother couldn’t give you a ride?”  Ron said.  “That woman is no-good.”  Ron said unconvincingly.

            The officer looked over at the window Ron had shut the blinds at.  “Why’d you close the blinds?  You in some sort of trouble with the law, boy?”

            “No, I just don’t like the police, you know?”  He looked at Stacy pleadingly.  There had to be some way she could vindicate him.

            “I’m going to come in and take a look around.”  The cop said.

            “Don’t you need a warrant or something?”  Ron said weakly as the cop pushed him aside with a flat hand. 

            Ron stepped outside and looked desperately at Stacy.  She removed a piece of gum from its tinfoil and rolled her eyes up at him.

            “I think I hear your police radio.”  Ron said.  “It sounds like something important is going on.”

            Luckily for Ron, he cleaned up a little for Stacey.  He vaccuumed the purple shag carpeting,  it looking frayed and stained but attentive.  Wicker coffee tables flanked a lumpy loveseat, beads hanging off of the chandelier.  The garbage can sitting next to the TV was overflowing with empty soda bottles, a few on the floor next to it.  Two doors on the opposite side of the room led to the kitchen and the bedroom.

            “You weren’t planning on having this girl stay with you here, were you?”  The officer asked.  Ron walked back in sheepishly.

            “I was gonna sleep on the couch.”  Ron said, the cop crossing his arms.  Ron proceeded to lay down on the couch, his legs and head elevated in a V shape.

            “It’s not comfortable but I have done it before and I’ll do it again.”  Ron said.

            “Are you sure we should even be driving this thing?”  Stacy asked.

            “It’s my car, Stacy.  It’s tougher than it looks.  Got a lot of character.”  Ron responded.

            “Ron, it’s a truck.”  Stacy said incredulously and picked at peeling sea-green paint covering the rust that grew like a barnacle underneath.  She dropped to her knees and looked under the thing, hitting the rotting exhaust pipe with the back of her hand.

            “We gotta get going or we ain’t never going to get to Auntie Fiona’s house.  The pools a lot more fun during the day.”

            “You promise this won’t kill me?”

            The car started fine, three gutteral coughs and then a long wheeze.  It sputtered like Porky Pig’s car in an old cartoon as it flung pebbles in each direction like a lawnmower on old Arvsdale Avenue. 

            “Wave goodbye to the house.”  Ron said dryly.  Stacy found this remark more ominous than Ron intended. 

            “This death wagon.”  She said under her breath, popping her head out of the window and breathing in the hot, musky desert air.

           

            Mr. Beasley stepped out onto the turf for his ten A.M cigarette.  He pulled off his plain blue sweatstained visor and revealed the tanline underneath. 

            He was down to the nub of it when he noticed the gaping hole between his tractor trailor and haywagon.  He took his flip phone out of the front pocket on his overalls and dialed whilst swearing to himself under his breath.

            “Ursa-Mae, get your sister.  That girl could sleep through a thunderstorm.”

            Ursa pushed into Stacy’s room, her alarm clock blaring.  Her bed was a mess, which was completely unlike her.  And the window was wide open, the curtains fluttering in the breeze.  She pulled the blanket up to the pillows and went over to the window.  Her mother was out in the yard.

            “Ma, she’s run away again.”

            “Yer boy took the truck and he gone.”  Words leaked out of Beasley like air out of a flat basketball.

            “He isn’t MINE.  We got DIVORCED.  And you’re his boss, not some friend of the family.”  Carline said. 

            The car rumbled past the “Population 500” sign, along a freshly paved onramp and onto the thick tar of the city road.

            Stacy smiled over at Ron.  He looked back sheepishly and refocused on the road, a light blush painting itself onto his cheeks.

            “What’s she like?”  Stacy asked.

            “Oh, you know.  Like any other movie star.  She is the nicest woman I’ve met.”  He reached an arm over behind her head.  “When I was growing up, we always looked forward to going to Fiona’s house.  She would cook up lobsters on the grill, she had fancy juice in a big pitcher with ice cubes and limes floating in there, we would spend the whole day by the pool.  Some of her movie star friends showed up, too.  They came and went like it was their hangout.”

            Stacy checked her makeup in the mirror.

           

            On the side of the road, Montgomery sat in his smoldering black leather police cruiser.  Ron’s car flew by, and since it wasn’t dark enough he didn’t notice their tail light was out.

May 10th

          Oops I took a lot of time off.  I've been writing during that time but haven't been putting it up there.  Rest assured, it's still constantly improving I assume.  So here's something I have been writing today and yesterday.  Notice how it's constantly improving.  I'm going to try to do these atleast a couple of times a week.


 

            “Did anyone see a man with a hat and a beard come through here?”  MacDonald asked the group of onlookers, who all turned around rapidly as he rushed behind them.

            A man wearing a silly hat pointed at the elevator. 

            “Thanks, bum.”  MacDonald said.

“That could mean any floor.”  O’Malley whined.  “We could be here all day.”

“I don’t care if it takes us weeks, O’Malley.  Matter of fact, if you want to go home, go ahead.  I can’t have anyone half assing it here.  Go home to your videogames and your Michael Bay movies.”

O’Malley took the stairs next to the elevator.  A security guard approached MacDonald.

“Where’s your clearance?” 

“Are you fucking retarded?  I have a goddamn badge.  There’s a very dangerous man somewhere in your building.  If you don’t want any pedestrians getting hurt on your watch, you should follow me.”

O’Malley walked dejectedly out onto the street, and he stared at the little burger joint on the opposite side.  Cars flew past him on both sides, but a suspended bridge accessed by two stairwells granted him safe passage across.  He checked his police walkie talkie, there was no reception, and he clicked the thing off and shoved it into his bag.  He grabbed the railing and started up the stairs in a halfjog.

MacDonald combed through the halls with an inexhaustible supply of energy.  Sweat was seeping through his blue cop jacket on each armpit and he tipped his hat and scratched the top of his head with it.  When he stopped moving his eyes focused like those of a hawks.  Each floor was packed with people coming from either side, he was starting to doubt whether or not he would recognize the perp.

“Excuse me, sir.”  A younger man wearing a beige polyester shir tucked into jeans approached him.  “My girlfriend was supposed to meet me here an hour ago, and she’s not usually late.”

“I bet she’s breaking up with you.  Now beat it, Romeo.  I’m on the hunt for a dangerous man.”

“You fucking dick.”

            MacDonald stared through the window of the little café on the twentieth floor of this office building nonplussed.  He ducked into a little storage room and flipped the light switch on, removing a clipboard from his bag.

            “So this is what we know,”  He said to himself.  “

           

            O’Malley burst in and rushed the hostess at the counter. 

            “I need a quick table, a quick bite to eat.”  O’Malley said.  He looked plump and overweight in his police outfit.  A group of construction workers on break laughed without turning around at the bar.

            The place looked like a ritzy old hotel.  The wallpaper was an ornate brown-orange, pristine condition.  The wall fixtures were covered by felt that blended into the exterior, fake candleholders with lights inside of them hung above fake fireplaces.  The functionality of the décor was secondary.

            “Off duty cops sit over there.”  The waitress said.  The guys at the bars guffawed.  O’Malley shrugged and took a seat at a table near the entrance of the ballroom.           

            “So you’re a cop now?”  An old colleague of O’Malleys put his hand flat on the table and leaned over.  His breath reeked of vitriol.

            “Barnaby Haynesworth.”

            “I’d pull up a seat but I’m afraid to be seen with you.  Couldn’t get a decent teaching job?”

            Barnaby returned to his table.  To O’Malleys horror, he was sitting with a whos-who of unsupportive colleagues.  Stitch Madsen was there, wearing his hat with the feather in it and explicating some complex chain of logic with his hands.  Arnie Hemfield sat on the opposite side, celebrating what was surely his most recent academic victory with a plate of high brow dessert.  Flanked on both sides were Cindy Carlisle, an old girlfriend of O’Malleys who looked nothing like the girl she had been then, and Barnaby’s girlfriend Sally.  As he sat he put an arm around her and gestured over at O’Malley with a twitch of his neck.

            O’Malley waved at the bar ladies for a menu and they continued gabbing.  He checked his watch and looked out the window at the high rise building, and got up and hobbled to the bar to get a menu.  The waitresses congragated around a table of thirty men in the back of the restaurant.  The group guffawed loudly

            “Hey!”  He got the nerve up to say.  He coughed into his hand as the room turned momentarily toward him. 

            A man with a bib on and a lobster in front of him removed a wad of cash from his wallet and handed it to the man next to him.  He received it with his hand turned backwards, his other hand pulling the brim of his hat down in front of his eyes.

            O’Malley wondered what MacDonald would do in this situation. He didn’t have to wait for long.  His cheeseburger was finally on the way, he could see it sitting under the heat lamp where the chefs left the orders to be picked up, when MacDonald pushed through the door.

            “…One?”  The hostess asked nervously.  MacDonald lumbered past her with his slightly bow legged gait.  She looked around frantically for someone, and then pushed through the swinging doors to the kitchen.

            O’Malley attempted to shield his face but it was futile, he was like a panda in a snake enclosure.  Macdonald stood next to the bookie, facing away toward O’Malley.

            “So you have been sitting here the whole time, while this has been going on?”  MacDonald said.  He was noticeably wobbily.

            “You don’t look so good, MacDonald.”  A man in a pinstriped suit asked from the back room.

            “You’re not going to look good in just a minute.”  MacDonald said.

            O’Malley got up and went to grab the burger.  He ate the thing in no time, stopping once to apply more ketchup.  He licked his fingers and walked over to MacDonald.

            “We are a little outnumbered, I don’t know if you noticed.”  O’Malley whispered behind his left hand.

            “Get out of here.”  MacDonald slapped O’Malley in the face.  He snapped open his holster and pulled the gun out.

            O’Malley retreated to the street and turned around before he reached the door.  He slammed a ten dollar bill down on the table right before the shooting started.

            He covered his head and ran down the street, and noticed a bearded man leaning on a light post.