Only holdup to that little plan was that I didn't have any stories like that lying around. No problem. I'd write one. I'd do it fast, because I didn't know if Joe had a deadline or not. After all, this was an anthology I really wanted to crack, edited by a writer I really admired. That kindled what you might call your basic fire-in-the-belly, which is something every writer needs when he's trying to set the bar a little higher than it used it be.
By the time I finished my walk, I had an opening scene and the skeleton of a plot. By the time I went to sleep that night, I had completed a rough draft of a 3,800 word story called "Dead Celebs." Next morning I got up and started polishing my manuscript. By the time the clock hit five that afternoon, that sucker was in the hands of the United States Postal Service and on its way to Nacogdoches, Texas.
Two weeks went by. This time I didn't get a rejection letter. Another two weeks passed, and I started thinking, "Well, maybe Joe's holding it for another look." Two weeks after that I was torn between feeling like I might have a pretty good chance of making the final cut and hoping that my manuscript hadn't gotten lost in the mail.
Two weeks later I opened my mailbox and yanked out an acceptance letter from Joe... which I never would have received if I'd sat around staring at my rejection slip for "Black Leather Kites," feeling sorry for myself, and not writing a damn word.
Now he didn't set out to do it, but that was the first lesson Joe Lansdale taught me about writing. It's one you need to learn, too. Simple fact of life—your stories will be rejected. When that happens, don't feel sorry for yourself. Don't give up. Toss that rejection in the waste basket. Pin it to your wall and use it for inspiration. File it in your filing cabinet and forget about it. But whatever you do, get back in there. Sit down at your desk. Turn on your computer. Get to work.
Or as someone I know says when offering up one-size-fits-all writing advice: "Put ass to chair in front of typewriter...."
I'll leave you with a few words about writers further up the food chain. If you're lucky starting out, you'll meet up with more experienced writers who'll answer your questions and give you advice. Of course, there's no set way to "make this happen," and it's not a good idea to try too hard to do that. But if it does happen (at a writer's convention, or in an internet chatroom, or through an editorial relationship or a review of your work), take advantage of it. Listen. Learn. Because there's no book or website that can teach you as much as a professional writer who's already been down the road you want to travel.
As a green newcomer, I was lucky enough to have a few experienced pros in my corner. There were the gentlemen I have come to think of as The Two Ed's—Messrs. Bryant and Gorman. As mentioned earlier, Ed Bryant noticed my work early on, reviewed it enthusiastically in Locus, and was generous with both his time and his praise. The same goes for Ed Gorman, a fine writer who took an interest in my fiction, bought stories when I really needed the sales, and (like the other Ed) answered my questions without once making me feel like a wet behind the ears beginner.
I got to know Joe Lansdale a little later. After accepting "Dead Celebs" for Dark at Heart, I met Joe and Karen at the World Fantasy Convention in Phoenix. We had a couple of short chats at the con and met up again a year or so later at the Little Bookshop of Horrors in Colorado—first at a reading and then at a barbeque at Doug and Tomi Lewis' house. That's when we really started to get to know each other.
Joe never sugar-coated things much when offering advice, especially when it came to relating mistakes he made when he was starting out or the innumerable ways a writer can be screwed by editors, publishers, or agents (easy to do the latter once you learn the ropes, tougher to develop the self-critical eye that allows you to do the former). Joe learned from his mistakes, and when he offered them up as warnings, I learned from them, too. Certainly, the knowledge I gained from Joe spared me making some mistakes of my own.
Joe's a good man and a good friend, and I'm always happy to pick up the phone and find him on the other end. If I've got good news, he's one of the first to hear about it. Over the years I've been lucky enough to use him as a sounding board, and I think he'd say the same of me.
Of course, it doesn't hurt that we share similar backgrounds and a similar view of the world, human nature, and the business of writing. Maybe that's why many readers who enjoy Joe's work also enjoy mine. Stylistically, we're really pretty different, but that doesn't mean we haven't got a lot in common when you cut through the meat of the writing and get down to the bones of the stories. We do.
To tell you the truth, most relationships you'll develop as a writer turn out to be pretty disposable. You'll work with someone on a project— say an editor or a publisher—and for a while you'll have close contact, but in the end they move on to other things and so do you. Sometimes business itself can get in the way of these friendships, especially if business goes bad. Unfortunately, that's just the nature of the beast. Even under the best conditions, writers and editors/publishers are naturally on the opposite sides of the fence and will often butt heads.
Relationships between writers can be just as tricky. No matter where you live on the food chain, lots of things can ruin a friendship. You can start your list with jealousy and envy ("You sold a story to that anthology and I didn't!"), toss in pride and hurt pride ("Your lousy story won an award and my brilliant masterpiece wasn't even nominated!"), and go on from there. In other words, the same old human emotions that sour everyday relationships are apt to sour relationships between writers.
But please remember this: it doesn't have to be that way—not in life, and not in writing. Sure, it might take some work, but most worthwhile things do. Because when you come right down to it, no matter how hard you work on your writing or how much you invest in it, the end result is a stack of paper that'll end up between the covers of a book or jammed in a desk drawer somewhere.
Your friends are worth a little more than that.
For me, that's the good news.
I hope it'll be the same for you.
BLACK LEATHER KITES
The riderless Toro mower rounded second base and headed for third, and from his perch atop the pitcher's mound Dennis Wichita eyed the mechanical beast the same way a man stranded on a desert island eyes a hungry shark. At least that's the way the scene looked to Deputy Chavez, who admired Gary Larson's Far Side cartoons.
"All this one needs," Bernardo Chavez said, "is a palm tree and a duck."
A dust devil swirled across the baseline and chalk powdered the deputy's Nocona boots. The Toro motored toward home plate, coughing like an aged DH. Then the rampaging mower suddenly changed course, and the trio of flashlights duct-taped to its chassis illuminated Dennis Wichita.
"C'mon, Nardo!" Wichita's expression melted from simple concern to full-bore hysteria. "Jesus H. Christ, c'mon!"
The deputy's fingers danced over the grip of his .357. The Toro had red fenders and a blue body, a custom paint-job that left little doubt in Nardo's mind as to the identity of the mower's owner. But reason reared its ugly head, and his gun remained in its holster. Nardo didn't want to piss off Letty, though a dead mower would serve Bill right for putting a relative through this kind of grief on the third watch.
Nardo Chavez charged the Toro. He was a stocky man, 209 pounds the last time he'd bothered to tangle with a scale, and he mounted the mower gracelessly, cutting the power just as the machine skirted the mound.
The deputy leaned against the steering wheel and worked up his Jack Webb voice. "Let's hear it, Wich."
The junkman popped a Lifesaver between his thin lips and endeavored to stay downwind of the deputy. "Damnedest thing, Nardo. I was heading home from the junkyard when I seen the lights. I thought some bikers were tearing up the field... figured it for a Halloween prank, y'know. Anyway, I helped coach one of the teams last season—Ascot Funeral Home Panthers, we finished in third place — and I sure don't want my boys fielding balls out of a bunch of tire tracks next year, so I pulled over and started hollering. Just about
then a truck pulled out from behind the equipment shed. Damned thing headed right for me and creased my fender, and about the time I scraped my chin up off the seat cushions I seen—and I swear to God this next part is true, 'cause it's a full moon tonight and I could see just as plain as day anyway, what I seen in the back of that truck was a bunch of boys all dressed up in hoods and such. And you know how windy it is tonight and all, and when I seen what happened next I figured it had to be a prank for sure 'cause the bastards let loose with a half-dozen kites right off the truck-bed while they tore down Highway 63!"
The deputy laughed. "I think it's time for you to toe the baseline. Or you can try lobbing a few quick ones over home plate...see if you can strike me out. Take your pick."
"Shit, Nardo...."
A dry breeze drove a wave of dust across the field. Nardo squinted, fighting the urge to rub his eyes. "Okay, let's try this again, with some ground rules this time. Lights I can buy. I can buy a truck sideswiping you. Hell, tonight I can even buy guys in hoods and you being sober. But box kites? C'mon, Wich."
"Not box kites." The junkman's hands went as wide as an imaginative fisherman's. "They were big enough, all right. And they were made of something heavy and shiny, like leather. Black leather. But they looked like.... Aw shit, the damn things looked like bats."
"Bats. Uh-huh. How about the truck then? It look like the Batmobile?"
"Shit no. Dodge."
"You sure?"
"Dodge Dakota. I know a goddamn Dodge Dakota when I see one, Nardo. Same truck that I'm driving. A damn good one. For an Eye-talian, that Iacocca -"
"Spare me." The deputy shined his flashlight across the field, pausing when the beam illuminated a blue-and-red baseball cap that had been ripped to bits by the rampaging Toro just short of second base. "Blue-and-red truck?" he asked.
"Yeah. How'd you know?"
The deputy flashed his light on the blue-and-red mower, then on the shredded blue-and-red cap. "I'm a trained observer," he said.
Nardo sent Wichita to check the concession stand and the equipment shed for signs of a break-in. Then he thumbed the extender mic fastened to his left epaulet and hailed dispatch by way of the handpack radio attached to his belt. "71SAM1 here," he said, and Sylvia Martin acknowledged. "Put me out of service, Sylvia —investigating suspicious circumstances at the little league field. Let's go code 4 with this one. We'll let 71NORA1 enjoy his nap, wherever he might be." Sylvia laughed and Nardo signed off, happy to get a jab in at Ron Allen, the deputy who was working the northern end of the county.
Wichita hadn't returned. Nardo found a pay phone behind the bleachers and was embarrassed when he had to look up Letty's number in the phone book. Of course, he flipped to "Chavez" before he remembered that she'd be under "Bleu" these days. Her voice was groggy with sleep. "Billy, it's one o'clock."
"Not Billy, nina... it's only your big bad big brother."
"Nardo! What's up? Don't tell me something happened to — "
Not wanting to answer the obvious question, Nardo cut her off with a half-truth. "Looks like my least-favorite brother-in-law left some of his precious equipment here at the little league field. I thought I'd save him a trip, if you can tell me where I might find him."
"It's hard to say. With this heat wave and the full moon, he decided to work late, when it's coolest. He left here about nine tonight, but he could be almost anywhere because he's got to change the timers on all the watering systems he services. You know — daylight savings time ends tonight."
"Tell me about it. I've got to pull an extra hour of mandatory."
"Sorry I can't help you." Letty's voice brightened. "You can always drop Billy's stuff here at the house. I can make some coffee. Bill left a slice of peach pie in the fridge, and there's some Haagen-Dazs in the freezer... vanilla, I think. It's been a long time, hermano.”
Nardo almost swore. His baby sister baked peach pie for the bastard! Bill Bleu sure as hell didn't deserve that. And they ate designer ice cream, too. Hell, they were probably doing well enough to afford that imported beer with the tin-foil jackets. The landscaping business must be pretty damn solid.
"Well?" Letty said. "How about it?"
"Naw. I think I'll just hunt up your husband. Who knows, he could be stumbling around with amnesia or something." Nardo sighed. "And I'll pass on what I'm sure would be a damn fine cup of non-instant coffee, and the pie, and the ice cream, and the truffles and finger sandwiches and whatever other goodies the maids and butlers didn't get into today."
"Watching your weight, El Bandito?" she teased. "Making a comeback?"
"Your husband wishes," Nardo said, and he hung up laughing.
El Bandito. It had been a long time since anyone had called him that. Nardo walked to second base and scooped up the tattered cap. Before he could straighten up, another blast of hot wind sprayed dust in his eyes. He swore, squinting, not rubbing because he remembered all too well the doctor's warning about rubbing an eye that had suffered a detached retina.
The injury had come in his biggest fight, a bout with Carl "The Truth" Williams, who at the time possessed the best jab in the heavyweight division outside of Larry Holmes. Best thumb, too. Anyway, the detached ret had ended the career of Bernardo "El Bandito" Chavez, an in-your-face boxer with a good left hook who had KO'd a string of fringe contenders.
While the doctors had been able to repair his eye, they had also recommended that he retire. Nardo had taken their advice, and since then no one had succeeded in finding him another career that satisfied his lust for designer ice cream and foil-sheathed beer. Lately, he settled for the in-store brand when it came to ice cream, and his beer of choice was canned and the special of the week.
At least he'd earned enough from his loss to Williams to buy a new house in his hometown and a used Firebird. And time. Time to think things through for the first time in his life. And when the money ran out he was done thinking; he took the law enforcement exams at the county office and now here he was. A deputy. An upstanding member of the community. But drawing county pay meant that luxuries came few and far between—his Noconas were on their third set of heels and three of the four speakers in his Firebird were long dead — and the things some people called him these days made him long for the days when they'd called him "El Bandito."
At first, Bill had pushed for a comeback. Training Nardo was the only job he'd ever had, and he wasn't happy about losing his one-and-only client. "Look at Sugar Ray Leonard," he'd whined. "He didn't quit when they fixed his eye. He made big money afterward."
"The gravy train's done run its course. Bill. You'd better get yourself a job, because if you don't take care of my sister I'll put your ass in a sling." Those had been the deputy's exact words.
Fuck it. Nardo rubbed his eyes and felt blessed relief from the dust. He dribbled in some eye drops as an afterthought and was still blinking when a blurry Dennis Wichita came jogging toward him.
"You were right!" Wichita called. "There is something missing! The equipment shed was busted open, and the chalker is gone!"
"The chalker?"
Wichita pointed to the indistinct first baseline, which disappeared under a cloud of dust. "You know —the machine we use to line the field.”
Nardo took Wichita's keys and told him he'd be back in a hour or two with a full report, suggesting not too subtly that Lee Iacocca had designed the seat of the Dodge Dakota especially for sleeping off tough nights. Then the deputy thumbed his extender mic and arranged a meeting with Ron Allen at the Ascot Funeral Home parking lot.
After Nardo related the story of the missing chalker and a good bit of family history, Ron asked, "Is your brother-in-law drunk, or is he just naturally insane?"
"Who knows? Maybe the whole thing is a Halloween prank. Bill and his buddies might do something crazy if they got a real snootfull. They might be out there this minute chalking dirty words on decent folks' lawns."
"Halloween night." Ron laughed. "And a full moon, to boot. Shit, I hate working mids. The o
nly time to deal with nuts is in the light of day."
"If then."
They decided to soft-pedal it for a while. When they found Bill, they'd try to talk sense to him, convince him that the thing to do would be to pay for Wich's truck repair and return the chalker. And maybe skip a couple of the county's field maintenance bills, too, just to show that he was genuinely embarrassed about the whole thing. If Bill did that, and if he was very nice about it, maybe they wouldn't worry about the 459, the 2002, and the big bad deuce rap. It sure as hell would save all concerned a whole bunch of paperwork, and Dennis Wichita had already told Nardo that the last thing he wanted to do was deal with his insurance company. Again.
Nardo got behind the wheel of the patrol car and headed for the county line, thinking about Bill's biggest contracts, the places he was likely to visit first. He'd start with the cemetery, then work his way back toward the heart of the county. Soon he found himself thinking about Haagen-Dazs and foil-wrapped beers and steak dinners — thick filet mignons smothered with mushrooms and garlic and red onions—but he couldn't work up a good head of jealousy over Bill's success. His brother-in-law was a real entrepreneur. Two years ago he'd started out with a mail-order book called How to Earn $50 an Hour with a Pickup Truck, and now he was....
Hell, now he was driving around drunk while his loony buddies flew black leather kites off of his truck-bed.
Nardo eased the blue and white Dodge Diplomat onto Old Howard Road, careful to avoid the many potholes that dotted the blacktop. Up ahead, a blue-and-red pickup was parked on the sloping shoulder. Nardo killed his lights as he pulled in behind it.
Stepping onto the gravel shoulder, he took his nunchaku from the inside door panel. When he was a teenager, he had seen every Bruce Lee movie that had played at the Visalia Drive-In at least a dozen times, and he'd been sold on the preferred weapon of Okinawan rice farmers ever since, even though his police training with the chucks had disappointed him, concentrating on wrist locks rather than elegant flourishes and passes. Still, he had seen many a perp freeze at the very sight of them, and he thought that the chucks were a hell of a lot more intimidating than the nightsticks most cops carried or the tonfas favored by the California Highway Patrol.
Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales Page 7
