by Brian Hodge
Keith had worked diligently to achieve a remarkable number of peculiar but non-terminal health abnormalities. One summer afternoon Keith’s roommate and I walked into their apartment to find Keith molded into the sofa looking like several shades of death. With a fatalistic nonchalance, Keith fired up a Marlboro and pointed down the hallway, directing us to the bathroom, where the toilet lid was up and inviting a peek. Floating atop a blood-threaded raft of toilet paper and sputum was a ragged disc of meaty pink tissue the diameter of a Kennedy half-dollar and the approximate thickness of two Ritz crackers. He’d coughed it up and out in the last hour, just hadn’t worked himself into the proper frame of mind to go back in and dredge it out and plop it into a specimen jar. He was in pre-med at the time.
A few months afterward, in late autumn, Keith developed cardiac arrhythmia and had to go to a hospital for a few hours’ worth of tests, including injection with a low-level radioactive dye, whose progress through his circulatory system was then monitored. That same evening three or four of us were out drinking in a favored bar to celebrate the completion of his tests, and after we’d been there a couple of hours Keith returned from a trip to the bathroom, whose standard of cleanliness was to begin with no higher than the average subpar gas station’s, and announced which corner he had just urinated in, and not by accident.
Was there good reason for this crude deviation in penile aim? Indeed there was: financial gain. Imagine the bets he could win, Keith explained, weeks, months, perhaps even years in the future, simply by utilizing a Geiger counter. No, no radioactivity here, the suckers would all bet, and Keith would know right where to go to prove them wrong and collect their paychecks.
And somewhere even now, years later, in a bar in the midwestern United States, despite a suspicious sequence of owners and name changes, an old stain is ticking away its radioactive half-life with glacial speed. It’ll outlast us all. Sheer genius. The lowly act of elimination elevated to multigenerational performance art. And not a half-bad analogy to acts of creativity, if you’re willing to make the leap to regard them as a form of territorial pissings dotting the cultural landscape.
Which brings us full circle: “Why Pamplona? Why now? Didn’t they already run those bulls a few weeks ago?” But bulls aren’t the point. Any gawking tourist in hideous Bermudas and black socks can wave his passport and view the Darwinian extravaganza of those who can barely tread water in the gene pool zig when they should’ve zagged and take a horn in the kidney. Personally, I’m much too busy to simply wait for that to happen, and can thus cut right to the chase and watch it on video anytime, with the added benefit of rewind.
No, we’re here in Pamplona for very different reasons, although the bulls nevertheless played their part in it. Generations ago they lured none other than Ernest Hemingway, no stranger either to the fruits of Dionysus, and you cannot walk these hot, narrow streets without getting the suspicion that one night Papa was unable to wait until he made it back to his hotel room. Ergo, somewhere, on one or preferably more of these sunbaked streetside walls, an even older piss stain is ticking away its own radioactive literary half-life, a rare and potent narcotic of pure distilled inspiration that we’re here to snort for the express purpose of alchemically transmuting real life into even realer fiction.
You cringe, do you? Well, stop it. Stop it right this instant. We all inhale, some of us directly, some by proxy — it only depends on which side of the page you’re on.
Speaking thereof…
This rumored story-to-be has in the past week become a congealing reality, attracting to itself its very own Periodic Table Of Elements, the same as any good universe in the making.
Working title, which may survive and may not: “Come Unto Me, All Ye Heavy Laden.” Words of Jesus, or purported to be, and apologies in advance for not taking them at face value, so if that’s what you’re expecting perhaps this isn’t the place for you after all. It could get ugly.
Next, characters. The highly evolved lifeforms who will populate this universe. It remains to be seen who else might turn up, but so far the most pivotal appear to be three in number. Point of view will probably alternate between the first two. This is who they are and the fragmentary sweet nothings they’ve whispered in my ear…
Claire Cody: Art photographer in Chicago. No stranger to occasional middling starvation in the distant past. Flirts with silly professional monikers such as “Claire Obscura” and “Claire Voyeur.” She’s won a yearlong apprenticeship in Paris with a world-renowned photographer who likes to keep a stable of young assistants. On the eve of departure she’s returning to her Minnesota hometown to say goodbye to her family, especially to her grandfather. This may be the last time she’ll ever see him again. She’s a strong personality with her likes and dislikes but still isn’t fully settled into her own identity. Sometimes finds herself being what other people expect her to be rather than herself, or making other tradeoffs and resenting them, such as being a cat lover yet having to get rid of them because of hair collecting in the darkroom. Tends to live like a slob. Wonders if she shouldn’t move into film, if the static image of still photography isn’t artistically dead.
Tall. Choppy streaked short blond hair, neck-length. Blue eyes, lots of dark eye shadow, as if trying to smudge over her midwestern small town origins. Small breasted, prominent ribbed. Twenty-nine years old.
Rik Avery: Claire’s fiancé, but it’s been a long engagement, four years and counting with no date in sight. An associate professor in European history at the University of Chicago. Will be going to Paris with Claire, regards the year as a chance for extended independent study. Will earn his keep there by teaching English language classes to the French. Looking forward to lording this linguistic superiority over them, indicative of inner conundrum … he’ll teach their history, but is intimidated by coming face-to-face with France’s rich intellectual tradition, from Descartes to Sartre and beyond. This isn’t limited to academics. He can use superiority to deflect away from the fact that he doesn’t even know how he got where he is in his life. He’s just there, at the end of a path of least resistance. Actually a prime candidate for snapping one day and walking away from it all. Relates well to history because it’s safe, in the past, already happened, not particularly theoretical, with a minimum of having to pin himself down on what he believes. Despite an air of assurance, his whole life might just be a well-constructed lie.
Average height, about even with Claire. Dark hair, short in back but longish in front at Claire’s urging, so he’ll look at least a little trendy at gallery openings and the like. Thirty-one years old.
Edgar Brighton: Claire’s grandfather on her mother’s side. Eighty-seven years old. A year ago, failing eyesight and increasing frailty resulted in having to move him out of his home, into a one-room apartment at a managed-care facility. It’s been a year of hell, during which he’s sunk into deep bitterness that he directs toward his daughter, Claire’s mother, holding her responsible for his own condition and being uprooted from his home after sixty years. His mental faculties are still intact, a crueler fate than senile dementia because of his full awareness of his deterioration. His bitterness is at odds with a lifetime of devout religious faith, although while he takes out his anger on Claire’s mother, for Claire herself he still holds a soft spot, his favorite grandchild.
And I believe all that’s about as much as any of us needs to know to get started, although Claire did show me a mole, but I’m sworn to secrecy on where it is and what it looks like in just the right light, but trust me, if you knew, you’d double over in glee at the irony.
Back next Monday with a bottle of Dom Perignon to smash across the title and get this vessel launched for real, rather than relaying these preliminary yellow legal pad wankings you’re not ordinarily supposed to witness.
• WEEK 3 — IT’S POST-TIME … ANNNNNND HE’S OFF! •
First, a few preliminary remarks. I’d hoped to be a little farther along with the story by now. Really, I had. But, sai
d Lord High Dave a few weeks ago, “I want it to reflect how you tackle a story,” and damned if this isn’t a clear reflection. I always hope to be farther along by this point, and never am. That’s because it and I are still eying each other, sizing each other up. It’s being coy, an unconscionable tease. It flutters its lashes. I offer to buy it a drink. It turns its shoulder. I start to whine and beg and lie.
You see the parallels here, of course.
Once it declares its personality, well then, off we go, infatuated with one another. Stories progress not in linear time, I notice, but geometric, as they build momentum. I’ll often wrap them up by writing the final third all at once. But those first few pages, every single one of them is like pulling a tooth.
Expect the rest of the lower jawful next Monday.
• WEEK 4 — AND HE STUMBLES! •
Let’s all repeat the Magna Carta that accompanied the request to write this story: “I want it to reflect how you tackle a story.” And so far it’s done just exactly that. Of course we had a timetable planned. Six weeks. Go like clockwork, I imagined. Oh, the hubris. Because according to a number of highly literate bumper stickers, a certain messy thing happens.
This past week, which was going to see the story grow by several more scenes, saw instead the unavoidable and time-consuming obligation to fine-tooth-comb the copyedited manuscript of my upcoming novel Wild Horses, and make my final line changes before the type is set. Tasks like this tend to zing in like meteorites, without much warning. If you’ve seen Armageddon you get the idea. And since the novel will be Morrow’s lead title for next March or April, it’s not the sort of obligation one ignores.
Which perfectly illustrates one thing: Novels are marriages and stories are those little passionate flings on the side, and sometimes you’re forced to make a choice. Say the story is sprawled comfortably on the sofa. It’s uncorked a bottle of wine and it has this look in its eyes. And you know that look.
“Come on,” it’s saying. “Explore me. Do whatever you want with me.”
Tempting. Sure is. Except…
“Please don’t be that way.” Now it’s begging. “Without you I’m nothing!”
But no, you have to do the right thing. Have to go back to the novel even though you thought it was over months ago. Even though the novel’s having a bad hair day and one of its chapters has the measles and another one is chewing on the ending’s tail. You thought somebody else could take care of these things. But no. You made this commitment and have to see it through.
So. Not much progress on the story this week. A bit. But not much. The little tart picks up right where its previous installment left off, with no break in the scene. The coming week looks clear, though, so while we may have to add an extra week to the schedule, next Monday you should really be getting your browser’s worth.
• WEEK 5 — SLOGGING DILIGENTLY ONWARD •
A minimum of preliminary blather this time, other than to say that most definitely we will be needing that extra week I suspected after fate intervened. The good news is that by now I know exactly where the story is going, give or take a scene, and we’re on track for resolution next week. Again, this picks up where the previous installment left off, with no scene break.
Should you have any questions or comments about the whys or wherefores and feel like trying to stump the one-man-band that is me, send them via e-mail and we’ll try to get them answered in a separate sidebar and all have a good laugh at where writers really get their ideas.
• WEEK 6 — AND IN (TEMPORARY) CONCLUSION •
THE END … BUT KEEP READING
Because it’s not really the end. This is just the first draft, remember, and right now the whole thing feels to me like a shoddily made set of kitchen cabinets. Yes, it’s for the most part sound and it’ll hold the cups and saucers all right without letting them spill over the cabinet, but the doors are hung crookedly and one of the hinges doesn’t match the others, the stain needs redoing and there’s still the varnish to come, and, well, I refuse to discuss the matter of the bullet hole at all.
Back next Monday for the final time, and for now, bring me the head of Bob Villa.
• WEEK 7 — GRAND FINALE AND FINAL BOWS •
Get your final revised draft here. And dry your tears, because we’ve come to the end of our excursion, and not a moment too soon, because with this wrapped up, plus a nonfiction essay covering some similar territory, written to accompany an upcoming interview in Carpe Noctem magazine, I really must be shuffling off to concentrate on the start of another novel.
In bringing the four weekly installments together, it’s not as though major reconstructive surgery was required. It was primarily cosmetic: nips, tucks, collagen injections. Continuity is always crucial, and I’d screwed up there, starting off by misspelling Claire’s name, and finishing up having the statue carved from two different kinds of stone. The most significant changes were wrought in what was more of an internalized thought process on Rik’s part, before his subconscious wakes him up after solving the name riddle. What I’d originally coughed up there was way too rocky and non-sensible not to need an especially thorough going-over, and in some places starting over from scratch. Beyond redeeming these deficiencies, it was mostly tinkering with language and fixing dialogue that sucked.
And for the contingent interested in the nuts-and-bolts aspects, a question flooded in this past week: “Did you choose present tense to emphasize Claire’s need to break from her past or was it used as a distancing device between Claire and the reader as well as Claire and her family?”
Well, no, neither one, because that would imply that I had the least clue what the story was about or where it was going when I first began writing it. No such helpful state of affairs existed. Although I’ve never found present tense narration to have a distancing effect. Quite the contrary. For me, anyway, it has a feeling of immediacy that can sometimes help me get into a piece more quickly. Then, later, depending on what the story wants, I might go back and change it to the third once things are flowing better, or leave it as is, if that’s what feels right.
And that’s about it. Thanks to Dave Silva for asking me to do this in the first place, and to everyone who wrote during the past few weeks to say they dug what was coming together here. Apologies to everyone — and you were legion — who actually believed I was in Pamplona that one week. Really now, go back and read that one again. Thanks to the music of Raison d’etre, Mortiis, In Slaughter Natives, and Lustmord for the soundtrack, and to Millstone Coffees and Celis Dubbel Belgian Style Abbey Ale for vital minerals and nutrients during last night’s final marathon haul. Anytime you want to talk lucrative product endorsement deal, I’m here.
•
They never called, by the way.
In closing, a few thanks where thanks are due. First, to the editors who, one way or another, wielded the champagne bottles for the maiden voyages into print of most of the foregoing stories: Jeff Gelb and Michael Garrett (thrice over), Richard Chizmar, Marthayn Pelegrimas and Robert J. Randisi, Elizabeth Engstrom and Alan M. Clark, M. Christian, Wayne Edwards, Thomas S. Roche and Nancy Kilpatrick, Christopher Golden, Stephen Jones and David Sutton (twice), Stephen Jones all by himself, Jason Bovberg and Kirk Whitham, Jeremy Lassen, John Skipp and Craig Spector, Charles Grant, Poppy Z. Brite, and David B. Silva. Appreciation also goes out to Mike Mignola for kind permission to reprint “Far Flew the Boast of Him.” It’s one of two stories of mine that I don’t actually own.
And, finally, thanks to Jason Williams and Night Shade Books for publishing the original hardcover edition, and to James Powell for the delectable cover art for this one.
— Brian
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