by Ailes, Derek
His father would take him to the movies when he was a child and that is where his love for classic movies began. Film noir was one of his favorite movie styles. We would sit for hours discussing all the movie classics, and he would tell me about all the behind the scenes details of each film he watched. http://www.imdb.com was one of his favorite websites, and he would visit the website after watching each film. When he was in the retirement home, he would watch all the classics on Turner Classic Movies. I was always amazed at how he could recite every little detail about each movie. I gained a new respect for the classics over the years thanks to him, and my classic movie DVD collection has been steadily growing ever since.
JC went to a school for the hearing impaired where he learned to read lips and to use sign language. He was misunderstood by most people and they never realized how brilliant he really was. It wasn’t until I began reading all of his writings that I realized he was more brilliant than I ever realized. Then again, we are talking about a guy who would read anything he got his hands on. In the months he was in the nursing home, he read over forty books.
His ability to read lips came in handy at work. I heard a lot of interesting tidbits about my co-workers from when he read their lips when they were gossiping back and forth.
He had been living at his mother’s house all of his life and inherited it several years back after her death. He was a very private man and only a select few of us had the honor of being a part of his social circle.
I first met him in 1999 when I started working at Wiseway Foods. I would work as the dairy assistant and on Sundays I would also sweep and mop the floors since my buddy, Jim Butler, would be off that night. I would go over to produce, mop the floors, and talk with JC. We immediately hit it off thanks to both of our love of the Beatles. Neither of us took George Harrison’s death too well. JC and I were both comic book geeks and avid readers. We had endless amount of things we could talk about and JC found it easier to talk to me about his personal life than anyone he knew.
JC and I would talk for hours about music, haunted houses, alien abductions, his experiences with haunted houses and cemeteries, his family and his genealogy research. After my brother, Mark Cusco Ailes, published his first book, JC brought me a yellow notebook that had his story “Sirens of Lake Station” in it and told me he wanted to one day write a whole novel out of it. He also told me several story ideas he had and, luckily for this anthology, he went into detail on how the stories would go.
Over the years, we had many adventures playing tricks on unsuspecting co-workers, our late friend, Jim Hampson, being one of the main ones. I remember one time, Hampson was in produce mopping the floors and JC ran to his CD player and put a Native American Chanting CD on. The moment the CD started, Hampson jumped back in fear. We never laughed so hard after watching Hampson almost hit the ceiling because he jumped so high.
JC and Jim Butler, (we just called him Butler at work. There was a time when we had five Jims working at Wiseway and that is why we called everybody by nicknames) possessed a strange relationship. JC would go out of his way to antagonize him on a nightly basis. Besides the normal arguing with him over comic book trivia and which was better DC or Marvel (Marvel in my opinion, but I like both), JC would wait for Butler to bring his scrubber into his department to clean the floors, and he would deliberately move things into his path. I spent way too much time refereeing the two of them. Butler knew he was doing it on purpose.
JC’s health had always been poor. His diabetes was way out of control and one of his legs was so black from the diabetes that his doctor wanted to have it amputated. JC was a very stubborn individual and didn’t want to have his leg amputated. He searched for a doctor until he found one that was willing to treat his diabetes without an amputation being an option. This was a mistake he lived to regret for years to come. After having a heart attack two years back, his health was on a downward spiral until he ended up in the hospital and his current doctor told him that if he didn’t have the leg amputated, he would be dead within a month.
Finally, he had the amputation which he should have had decades before. He ended up in a retirement and rehabilitation center. He was fitted for a prosthetic leg. Once he was released from the retirement center, he went back to work. He was healthier and moved around with a speed and determination that I had not seen before. He had major plans for 2015. He was going to officially retire this summer and finally write a book. I told him if he wrote the book, I would make sure it would get published. He began writing “Travelers”. The Saturday before he passed, he brought me the first page to see what my opinion of it was. He wanted to write the book and then have a comic book made out of it, as well. He was no longer saying he would write and publish someday; he was serious now. I don’t know if it had to do with the fact I had three published books by that time and was planning a fourth one, but he wanted to see his name on a book.
It does sadden me to think that this didn’t happen until after his passing. This whole project is me keeping a promise to help him get published and show the world the side of him no one else had a chance to see.
Part of this project is me saying goodbye to a friend in a way only I can do.
Before meeting with his family, I began writing the first story for this anthology at the time titled “James Coon Ebook”. I had a lot of stories to tell. This section is a sneak peek into the stories behind the stories. I will try to explain the true stories that go along with each of the stories. There are details of his life spread out throughout the first part of the anthology.
Let’s Begin.
Yes, Mother!: This story is based on an experience JC had in his house after his mother had passed away. JC claimed to be able to sense spirits who hadn’t passed on. He believed he could still sense his mother’s presence in the house. One night while he was sleeping, he felt something heavy pushing down on his chest. When he awoke, he was paralyzed and a black spirit was hovering over his bed. When the spirit vanished, he was able to move around. He claimed that the spirit was of his mother.
I described his house in the story with the stacks of books all over the place. Potatoes were his favorite food, and I thought it was fitting that he would be eating one in the story.
Golden Age Retirement and Rehabilitation Center:
This is based on his time he was recovering from his amputation. I visited him several times during his stay and witnessed a lot of things while I was there. Twilight Zone was one of his favorite shows and the Roddy McDowell episode was one of his favorite episodes. JC had several prescriptions and carried a bag with him everywhere filled with them and several books. He would always have me bring him Lipton Ice Tea and butter flavored microwave popcorn. One day when I was there, the person in the bed next to him stopped breathing and the nurses and doctor rushed in. He was taken away by ambulance.
The two nurses in the story, Breanne and Christine, are the names of two African American women who he knew from Gary. He always claimed Christine was his daughter and Breanne was his granddaughter. His sister and family talked to Christine and she denied it. She said they were just friends, and she would help him out when she could.
Kenner is based on one of the patients there who sat in his wheelchair in the hallway and waited for anyone to pass him so he could start a conversation. I bumped into him and his wife a few weeks back at the Goodwill in Portage. While he was looking at the DVDs, I talked with his wife. She would pick him up, take him out for a while, and then take him back to the nursing home. He really is a nice guy.
During the time JC stayed there, a patient walked out the back door after one of the nurses forgot to lock it. The patient was found walking down the middle of Willowcreek Rd by the police.
A severe storm hit the Portage area during his stay. A large branch snapped off the top of the tree behind my house. It landed on my car and my truck. Luckily it only did minor damage to both of my vehicles. My car was in perfect condition before that. Ironically, a few weeks later we we
re leaving JC’s house. He has a telephone pole right there adjacent to the very narrow driveway on the right. There is a tree where branches have overgrown over the driveway that made it impossible to see pulling out of the driveway. I went into reverse and my passenger side mirror hit the telephone poll. Smack! Now the mirror is permanently wrapped in black duct tape. I refer to it as the result of one of my adventures with JC.
You can tell from the story that JC had a strange sense of humor. Even when he felt his worst, he couldn’t pass up on playing a joke or being sarcastic.
There are elements from the movies “Cocoon”, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and “Alien” in this story.
Sirens of Lake Station: This was written by JC sometime in the 1990s. I took the original story and modernized it. Scott Drugs was the original store in the story, but they went out of business a long time ago. This was the story I wanted to get my hands on. I wanted people to have a chance to read this one. This is my favorite of all his stories. I’m glad his sister was able to find it.
Alien Town: This story is my tribute to JC’s obsession with alien encounters and abductions. Alice and Tara are the names of two Russian porn stars who came to the United States to meet up with American men who JC would correspond with back and forth on the internet. He actually went to Chicago to meet them in person. While they were in California they had a problem with someone (let’s call him a fan) getting out of hand and Alice had to pull a gun out on him. The backstory of them witnessing the Russian mob killing some of their clients, is based on a story JC told me about. I used both of these incidents as inspiration to write this story.
The name of the gas station is Superman’s father and the names of the police officers are variations of different DC comic book characters. Dean, obviously based on JC, is named after Dean Koontz. Being clairvoyant is a theme throughout some of these stories. JC claimed to have this ability and it was also the theme throughout a lot of the stories in his writing file.
Haunted Attractions: One day while doing his genealogical research, JC was at a cemetery photographing the tombstone of one of his ancestors. After having the pictures developed, yes this was before digital cameras became the norm, he discovered that he had photographed an image of a ghost in the corner of each of the images. People argued with him saying there must have been a flaw in the film. He believed it was in fact a ghost. All the pictures before the cemetery and after on the roll came out with no suspicious white image in the corner. This story was about that day in the cemetery. People familiar with haunted houses in Indiana and throughout America will know what house in Gary I am referring to. There was an article in a British magazine about the unexplained published a couple years back about that house in Gary, IN.
Little Town Flirt: Originally titled “Madness Within Our Minds” was written by JC back in the 1970s. I came up with the new title after hearing the song by Del Shannon on the overhead radio at work. I had to change the ending since the last page of the story was missing. I have no idea how the original story ended. I decided to go with a “Tales From the Crypt” style ending.
Master of Discontent: The story was written by JC and was originally published in the Wheeler School Newspaper in 1971. This version includes the original last paragraph that was omitted from the version published by the school newspaper. The story is about suicide.
The Kick: This story was inspired by an encounter JC talked about from his childhood. I heard the story on several occasions over the years and thought a circus was the perfect setting to tell the story.
Games: This one was written by JC. The story is about the moral decline of society and how religion is important for our souls. This is a toned down version of the original story. This story dates back several decades.
Where Evil Shall Dwell: This was written by JC back in the 1970s. This was one of the stories that was a challenge for me to update. JC always wrote in first person, and I find that a challenge to write since I only write in third person. The story was his take on the mystery of the Bermuda triangle. This isn’t the only story of JC’s that Ira was in. The other story is an unfinished alien invasion story that one day I will go back and finish.
The Dogs: Originally titled “Night of The Dogs” was written by James Coon and me. I took the original story up to a certain point and I refuse to acknowledge the last few pages of that story exists. The story went in a direction I will never go. I have a list of a few topics I won’t deal with in my writings and two of them were main components of the rest of the story. I reworked it with the lady actually turning into a dog. I had to rework some parts of the beginning scene since the main character actually does things that is a contradiction to the character JC had established. This story went through a lot of rewrites. I had the toughest time trying to fix this one, but I believed it was one that had to be included in this anthology.
Travelers: This was the story JC started working on a week before he passed away. The Saturday night before, he showed me the first page which sadly was the only page he finished. I took the first page and wrote it in the direction I thought he would have gone in. I spent a lot of time trying to make this story right. I hope he would have been proud of how it turned out. The first two pages of the story is from the one page he wrote.
When JC worked for the insurance company he won a trip to Russia. He often talked about his experiences there. I would say that trip was one of the favorite highlights of his life. JC liked a great bargain. He would buy a lot of clothes, mainly sweaters and flannel, at the Goodwill. With the amount of money he spent on comic books and paperbacks, he had to save the money somewhere. With his fascination with aliens, I thought it would be fitting to have part of the story take place in Area 51.
Agent Rick Venable and Agent Marilyn Austin are not modeled after Mulder and Scully from “X-Files”. They are actually modeled after Phil Coulson and Melinda May from “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” The first time we encounter them was not in the original draft of the story. I was actually asleep when the idea of adding them to the story popped in my head. I snapped awake and immediately wrote the scene where they were in the park in Valparaiso. I compose my best stories while I’m sleeping. I reworked the parts I had already written to include those characters and how they affected the outcome of the story. In the original version of “Alien Town”, Rick and Marilyn were in the ending. I decided weeks later that the scene didn’t work and deleted it.
Yes, I had to mention the Beatles in one of my stories. The Beatles will stand the test of time. The White Album, in my opinion, is their best album and had the most mature song writing.
Reading the story with fresh eyes, I believe it turned out the way I was hoping. Maybe one day I will bring the characters back for another story. I promise you that we haven’t seen the last of Agent Rick Venable and Agent Marilyn Austin.
“Travelers” closes the James Coon section of the anthology. I have plenty of his stories still to work through and someday I will publish some more of them. I hope everybody learned a lot about the man and enjoyed the journey through his demented mind.
For the musings from my mind.
I began working on stories for a new anthology back in December of last year. “Musings From the Demented Mind” was going to be the title for that anthology. I wrote “Lumps of Coal” and published it on Short Fiction Break in time for Christmas. I began working on several stories, but I went through a major non writing phase, writers’ block. I decided I was going to begin writing my first full length novel “Beast Within”. Short Fiction Break’s first year anniversary was coming up and Jeff wanted to publish a new anthology of previous unpublished short stories by us SFB authors dealing with the concept for the first time, becoming one or anything dealing with the number one. I wrote my story “Rastus” to be included in the anthology. I was about to begin writing the first chapter of “Beast Within” when James Coon passed away. From there, my inspiration took off and I began writing religiously.
These stories
prove that I have a demented mind.
Buzz Kill: The original idea for this story dates back to the “Zombie Command: A Horror Anthology” sessions. I came up with the idea from reading an article about a family who had a guest room they hadn’t used in years. They had somebody who was going to stay with them and when they went in to prepare the room for her arrival, discovered thousands of bees had made a hive out of the mattress in the room. I came up with the idea that a girl was kidnapped and placed in a cellar. Bees entered the cellar and made a nest out of her. The outline was one of hundreds of outlines I came up with that I never did anything with. When the recent incident of the truck getting in the wreck on the highway unleashing millions of bees, I thought I now had an element to make my original idea work. I began writing it.
The main characters are based on people I know from work. Anybody who has read “The Freegans” from “Journey Into the Unknown: Deluxe Horror Edition” will get the reference when Julianne sees the guy digging through the dumpster in the back of the store.
This story is dedicated to all those who fear and are allergic to bees.
A Horror Story: This is a behind the scenes of making a low budget horror film. This is also a tribute to the movie “Waxwork”. This story was originally written for Short Fiction Break. There are a lot of scenes inspired by several horror films throughout the story. This was one of those stories that I had a lot of fun writing.
Lumps of Coal: This one was written for Short Fiction Break for Christmas 2014. This is all about the top 1% of our country and what they think of us. It’s all about greed. I will leave it to everyone’s imagination who the rich snob was based on.
