Writer's Washroom Annex

I Think I've Made a Decision

2010-12-16T20:37:00.000-08:00

I think I've decided that maintaining two separate blogs makes no sense. I originally split the Annex off from the Washroom so I could use the Washroom to focus on real-world events at Southwestern College and my own personal rants-and-raves.

The Annex was to be for writing. But very quickly it became apparent that I wanted my Washroom readers to see what I had up on the Annex, and I began cross-posting every bit of fiction I had posted.

Then - to keep things simple (he says sarcastically) - I created the SWC Board Must Go to seriously focus on the Southwestern College situation. Because of this fall's election, that blog got 99.5% of my attention, and both the Washroom and Annex suffered. With the election over, and the side of Justice, Truth, and All Things Good and Decent (our side) victorious, the SWCBMG blog is pretty much stagnant - and will likely remain so.

So now I'm back with my personal blog, and my other personal writing blog. The Washroom is the home of all this, so I'm going to start folding the Annex back into the original.

There are a few of you who follow the Annex in addition to the Washroom, and a few who do so instead of the Washroom. I'm going to suggest you might want to change over. I'm going to start gutting this soon. I may use it to archive a few things, but likely there won't be much, if any, new pieces going up over here. It's time to simplify things, and I think this is the best way to do it.

Ploughman

2010-08-19T00:45:00.001-07:00

This short story is down. A completed, edited version will be published (in print) early next year in the anthology, "A Year in Ink, Volume 4" by San Diego Writers, Ink.

The short story will return a few months later.

"Conduit" - Prologue/Chapter 1

2010-08-05T11:35:00.000-07:00

Howdy, readers. I'm going to be honest about this bit of fiction: it's fairly long. It is both the prologue and the first chapter of a completely different thing I've been working on. Which means I had the idea about two years ago, started it, stopped, started again, stopped again, rebooted it, rethought it, regurgitated, reduced it, enlarged it, and got enraged with it. Then I just started over and am much happier with it.

Should you choose to read on, you'll notice that the prologue is an entirely different flavor that the first chapter. That is correct. Don't think you stumbled into two different works.

As always, I thank you for reading, and I'd like any feedback you have to give.

--------------------------------

The hermit stepped out of his shack and into the sun. He covered his eyes with a leathery hand, squinted up into the sky. The sun seemed to be closer to day than usual – and moving quicker. The day would shorten if it was. Walking onto the hardpan dirt, he hurried around to the side of his shack where a split-rail fence surrounded his little garden. Rooted more in sand and loose dirt than in real soil, it was difficult to maintain, but not impossible. The straw-man propped in the corner helped keep the crows away, and they were as destructive on the few green plants as the sun was. He pulled a wide-brimmed hat off the straw-man and slipped it onto his own head. His eyes not yet adjusted to the sun and unable to see, he turned and stumbled over a rough patch of ground. He dropped to one knee. He rubbed the knee for a minute before standing and gathering his robes around him.

Glancing back up at the sun again, he blinked his eyes and struck out down the slight hill, away from the shack and toward the pen where he kept his goats. Tending the goats was at least a thrice-a-day venture: milking and feeding the morning, feeding in the evening, and watering them early in the afternoon. But it was a necessary thing. It took him only a few minutes to shuffle down the bare hill to the pen and check the trough. It wasn’t empty, but would be within the hour. He sighed as he always did, and reached for the nearby pump handle. Faded by sun and time, the once-blue handle was now barely gray. He used both hands to loosen it. When most of the shrill squeaking stopped, he pumped using only one hand. He rested his other arm atop the short fence and leaned against it. As he waited for the trickle of water to appear, he looked north toward the horizon.

The vast wall of the Kohina Mountains scratched a jagged line across the sky, its edges blurred by the clouds that frequently gathered across the peaks. He’d traveled there once. Storms of rain were common in the spring and summer there; in the fall the peaks were blanketed with frozen water –what the locals called snow. He’d played in it like a child, never having seen anything like it before. He’d seen it a few times, but in the Gethren Mountains to the west, where the tinkers lived. Twice a year, in the spring and fall, he’d load his cart and push it across the desert floor and up into their town. He’d trade what he could for more seeds and more wood. Nearly all the wood on his plot came from the trees high above the tinkers’ town. It would take him three or four days to make the journey, but in their vehicles, they could bring the load of wood in less than a day.

The first trick of water had started to splash down the chute and into the trough. He switched positions and worked the pump with his left hand now, found himself staring south into the rocky, rugged mountains he’d never visited. He had dealings with the dragon-men, but no interest whatsoever in visiting them. He’d never return from a visit to their town, or their village, or their city, or whatever it was they lived in. He’d never given them any reason to take him, but going to them would likely be reason enough.

The trickle had finally become a flow and he focused on working the handle for a few minutes more, until the trough was full. Before he was done, he picked up a bucket lying on the ground and sat it upright. He swiveled the pump-chute to fill it. He wasn’t dry yet, but it couldn’t hurt to have a little more in the house.

When he’d filled the bucket, he released the handle and rubbed his hands together. His fingers ached just a bit, but it worried him. If the time came when it hurt too much to work the pump, he wouldn’t be able to survive out here. He might have to go elsewhere. Maybe the tinkers would take him in. He started up the hill, bucket in hand. As he did, he glanced east, toward the vast plain and mountain-less horizon. As always, the only things he saw there – excepting the scrub brush and sedge grass – were the three flat-topped stone obelisks. Each stood a mere three feet high, about three feet across. Each was sixty feet from the others, in a perfect triangle. All manner of images were carved into the cylindrical sides, but he didn’t know what any of them meant. He knew what they did, and that was enough.

He was halfway up the hill when the ground began to rumble.

He stopped where he was and glanced up, into the sun, then down toward the obelisks. It couldn’t be. The rumbling continued. A crow cawed and flew away from the garden, frightened by something more than a straw-man. Another one flew up out of a patch of scrub near one of the obelisks, its wings furiously beating as it escaped the tremors.

He started to hurry up the hill. A few seconds later, thunder boomed along the sky. A dark cloud started to form directly over the stones. He stopped and pulled the hat from his head, wiped his brow. The stones themselves were vibrating. This was wrong, all wrong. Above, the clouds congealed into a roiling black ceiling. Thunder boomed again as a bolt of lightning leapt from the cloud to one of the obelisks. He rubbed his eyes. A second and third bolt struck the remaining stones. The obelisks shuddered, the rumbling grew louder.

This was entirely wrong.

The shuddering stopped and the obelisks grew, emerging from the ground, rising above the hardpan. No longer ornamental stones, they rose as columns hidden under the desert. As they climbed from sand to sky, the thumping in his chest became a hammering. He’d never seen this happen – not this early. This was nearly two months early.

He turned and ran toward his shack, staggering and stumbling up the hill. Behind and above him, lightning struck again, dancing from the flat summit of one rising spire to another. His hat fell from his fingers as he scrambled up the bare hill. As he burst through the open doorway into his home, the obelisks climbed past forty feet. He rushed around the table and chairs in the center of the room. Most of his belongings were on open shelves or hung from hooks, but there was one cabinet in the room, one cabinet with doors that closed.

He dropped onto the foot of his bed and flung open the bottom door of the cabinet. Inside lurked the device given to him by the dragon-men, the device he used to call and alert them whenever the obelisks rose. He’d never called them this early, and he didn’t know if anyone would be listening. They might be angry, but he knew they’d be furious if they found out that he hadn’t alerted them. He reached for the device and pushed the red button on its front.

The button clicked, glowed red. The small black box hidden in the cabinet hummed loudly enough to be heard over the rumble outside. Three switches protruded from the front of the device, but he was only supposed to touch the first one. He flipped up the switch; a burst of noise that the dragon-men called “static” filled the room. He found the coiled cord atop the device and the palm-sized piece attached to it. He wrapped his hand around the piece. There was one button here, and he had to push it to talk into it.

“Dragon, are you there?” He released the button and waited a few seconds. No one answered.

“Dragon, are you there?” He released the button again. He waited before calling a third time.

“This is Dragon. Is that you, Hermit?” The old man didn’t know the other voice, but it seemed to know him.

“Yes, this is Hermit.”

“What do you need, Hermit?” The voice sounded angry, but he couldn’t be sure. Living alone for so long meant one never quite knew how other people were thinking.

“It’s the obelisks, Dragon. They’re rising now.”

“What? Hang on, Hermit.”

He waited, holding the device until a new voice came out of the black box in the cabinet.

“Hermit, did you say the obelisks are rising now?”

“Yes, right now.”

“They’re early. Are you sure, Hermit?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. It’s going to take us a little longer than usual to get some people up there. You know what to do.”

“I do.”

“Good. Hermit, you better not be wrong.”

He considered answering, but felt that he’d been dismissed. Leaving the cabinet door open and the device on, he set the hand-piece on his bed. He went back to the doorway. The obelisks had risen to about sixty feet in height. The rumbling had stopped and the clouds had begun to disperse. Perhaps they’d spew a little rain before they did; they had before.

He looked west, wondering if they tinkers were watching. Would they be able to get here before the dragon-men arrived? For that matter, would the dragon-men get here before the new arrivals started to appear?

Two months early – something was going to go wrong. This he knew.

Chapter 1 – Underpass

It wasn’t the story that sold him, as much as it was the faces of the homeless people that had told it to him, blank but watchful, like jurors in the courtroom. A half-circle of eight, all insisting in the truth of this urban legend – a legend he’d never heard, seemingly one only the street people of San Diego knew.

“Who’s been to this other world?” he asked. A few glanced around the half-circle at the others. One looked down. One looked up at the overpass above them. The rest just looked toward him.

“Reggie went,” a young woman in jeans and a long sweatshirt said. A couple of others countered her, said he hadn’t.

“Can I speak to Reggie?” He aimed the question at the young woman. She shook her head in return. Dirty long hair moved.

“He went there. He can’t come back.”

“Oh, that’s right. It’s a one-way trip, you guys said.”

“It is,” answered one of the older men, nodding. His matted beard scraped against the top of his shirt.

“Did anyone see Reggie go?” He glanced back at the young blond woman. Her eyes flashed then looked down.

“Anyone else go to the other world?” This time they glanced from one to another. “Little Dwayne went,” one said. “Mama Taylor went,” another answered. “John Parson,” a third said.

“None of them came back?”

They shook their heads or mumbled “no.”

“Has anyone seen these people since they left? Did they go together or separately?”
Separately, they said. Little Dwayne went a year ago. Mama Taylor a few months before that. John Parson a couple years ago. Nobody had seen any of them since they left. Chances were good that they’d either found a new place to stay, or more likely that something bad had happened to them; it was common among the homeless population anywhere to come to a bad end.

“So how do you know they’ve gone to another world? If they don’t come back to tell you, how do you know?”

“It got to be better,” a thin, balding woman somewhere between 50 and 70 answered. “Or they’d come back, right?”

“What if they just found a better place to stay?”

“Up in North County?” the bearded man responded, “don’t think so. Cops there would run them off. Best places are in the city, unless they found someone to take care of them.”

“All of them?” the young woman asked. “We’d have heard something.”

“What if something bad happened to them?” he asked, tapping his pen against his camera.

“Nah,” a small, hunched-over man waved his hands. “Something happens to one of us, someone hears.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “Do I have time for another question?”

“Beside that one?” the balding woman said. He smiled at her, nodding.

“Go ahead,” she said.

“Who started this story? Who was the first person to talk about it – John Parson?”

“What do you mean?” the bearded man asked.

“Who first started talking about it?”

The balding woman spoke:

“I don’t understand. We’ve always talked about it.”

The others nodded. The hunched-over man waved his hands again.

“I heard the story first time I was on the street – twenty-five, twenty-six years ago. It was old then.”

He thanked them for their time, handed out five-dollar bills, and sent them on their way with bottles of juice and bags of burgers. As they shuffled away, he was not surprised to see the young woman lingering.

“Tell me about Reggie.”

She looked up, shuffling from foot to foot in thin shoes. “He went through that door,” she said.

“How do you know?”

She bunched her hands into fists and touched them together.

“Because I saw him go.”

* * *

About forty miles north, there’s a place where the interstate crosses another road, he had been told. It’s just a nothing little road, not dirt, just old pavement. It connects an outlying neighborhood with a bigger road. Almost no one used that road anymore, not since they connected that village to a new bypass to the west. Underneath the interstate, two retaining walls, north and south, kept the soil in place. On the north shadowed side was a door in the retaining wall. Painted gray on gray stone, it was practically invisible most of the time. Only when the sun shone on it from between the lanes above could it be seen. Through that door led a passage to another world.

So the homeless said.

* * *

“What do you mean you saw him go – you were there?”

“I was there,” she said, looking into his eyes. “I was going to go with him. Reggie and I were kind of together, but we were keeping it quiet. Nobody thought Reggie’d be into me, so they don’t think I went with him.”

“Okay,” he said. “Why do they say he didn’t go, with or without you?”

“Reggie was smart. He was a teacher before shit happened and he ended up here. Everyone says he’s too smart to believe that story.”

He nodded, making no comment.

“Why didn’t you go?”

“I was afraid. He vanished.”

“That night?”

“No. I mean he vanished. Right there in front of me, he opened the door and disappeared.”

“He went inside and you didn’t see him again.”

“No, God damn it! He vanished! He went inside, but vanished before he could get all the way in.” She looked down at her feet. She pushed one of her lightly-shod feet forward, hokey-pokey style, and rested it on the heel. “His foot was the last thing I saw, while he went in. But you could see through it. You could see the door and stuff through it.”

“And you didn’t follow him?”

“No. I couldn’t. I got scared. I opened the door, though,” she said, looking back up at him. “There was nothing but a tunnel. He wasn’t there.”

“Could he have gone down the tunnel?”

“No. It just ended in a wall. He wasn’t there.”

* * *

He’d heard the story his third night out with the homeless. Taking photos of them for a photo essay had raised him to a fairly casual level of interaction with them. In direct opposition to getting as many shots of them frowning or looking depressed, he had spent a few hours trying to get positive emotions on their faces – contentment, satisfaction, curiosity, even the occasional flirty look. While trying to coax a smile of an elderly Mexican woman, he asked her to smile by phrasing it:

“Think of a better place!”

It hadn’t worked, but the response from the man behind him had:

“You mean that place up in North County?”

North County – that stretch of San Diego north of the city center – was considered by many to be a fairly nice place to live. But never had Michael heard it referred to as A Better Place. Focusing his attention on the man, he had listened to the unknown urban legend for the first time. He told the bearded man to gather up a few others who knew about it. He wanted to find out more. Armed with burgers and juice, he’d heard eight variations on a theme. Of all them, Reggie’s story – the girl’s story – captured his attention the most.

* * *

“Where is it?” Michael asked the young woman. She shrugged in response.

“You don’t know, or you don’t want to tell me?”

“I know. At least I think I can find it. I don’t want to tell you.”

“Why?”

She suddenly sat, pulling her thin legs up to her chest. She began to rock.

“Why?” he repeated.

“You’ll go.”

“I’d like to see it.” He crossed his legs and sat on the pavement across from her. He preferred not to loom unless he needed to.

“I know. But I mean you’ll go. You’ll go inside, and you’ll vanish like Reggie.”

“I’m not sure about that.”

“I am. I saw it. There’s another world and you’ll go to it.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You’re not taking me seriously,” she said, standing. “If you’re not going to take me seriously, I’m leaving.”

“Wait.” He kept his voice low and level.

“What?”

“Why do you want me to know about this, but take it seriously?”

“Because it’s real. I saw it.”

“Any other reason?”

“Uh-huh.” She looked down again. “I want to go back.”

“You want to go back, go through the door?”

“Yeah. I need you to take me. I’m going back.”

* * *

“Dave, it’s Michael – Michael Turner.” He held the cell phone to his head, threw himself back on the ratty couch.

“Jesus Christ, Mike. How are you?”

“Great. I’m great, Dave. Never better.”

“Um…sorry I asked. Have you been out… long?”

“Out of jail, Dave? Yeah, I’ve been out a while. But I had a make a trip back to rehab a couple months ago. Turns out I’ve been able to kick the drugs, but I’m still a drunk.”

“Um…Mike. I don’t know what to say.”

“How about asking me what I need?”

“What do you need, Mike?”

“Thanks for asking.” He leaned forward on the couch, rested his feet on the cinderblock-and-lumber “coffee table.” “Are we still keeping records on missing homeless?”

“We?”

“Yeah, Dave. By “we” I mean, those San Diego County social workers who haven’t done time and are still employed.”

“Yeah, we do.”

“Can you look up a name for me?”

“Why?”

Michael was quiet a moment, glanced down at his camera case, resting on the table. It was the only thing of any value in the room, the only real evidence of his life before the shit happened. It was a gift from Holly, the last one she gave him. Originally for nothing more than his hobby, the digital Minolta remained that one thing he couldn’t let go.

“Mike?”

“Sorry, Dave. I’m working as a photographer now. A couple of homeless folks I met told me about some missing people.”

“Do you have their names?”

He glanced down at the memo pad open next to the case. “One of them is named John Parson. Another was called Little Dwayne. There was also Mama Taylor and some guy they just called Reggie.”

“Well, I can tell you this: I knew Mama Taylor. Her name was Rose. She vanished a year ago or more. No one’s seen her.”

“You knew her?”

“Yeah. I worked her case. Sweet woman, everyone’s mama. You know the kind.”

“Yeah.”

“Someone said she headed up north, but they didn’t know where she had gone.”

Michael sat back against the couch. “Really?”

“That’s all I got. I can look up Parson and the others. Might not get anything, then again I might. Can I call you at this number?”

“Sure. Can you do it today?”

“Ha!”

“I’ve got an appointment tomorrow, middle of the day. I’d like to know before that.”

“If I can get it, you’ll get it,” Dave said. “Hey, this is on the level, right?”

“Of course. I can’t see that you’re doing anything very wrong.”

“Except sharing information with a former social worker.”

“And alcoholic ex-jailbird. Let’s not forget that.” Michael raised his middle finger into the air.

“Sure. I heard you were bouncing over at one of the bars. Didn’t you used to do that a long time ago?”

“Long time ago, I did. Not now, man. I’m almost forty. I’m too old to bounce.” He glanced up at the exposed bar in the corner that acted as his closet. A black shirt, marked “Security” on the front and with a biohazard symbol on the back, hung over the metal tube.

“Okay. I just wanted to make sure that this was as on-the-up-and-up as we can get. I don’t need you trying to hunt down anyone or something.”

“Not going to happen, Dave. I don’t need addresses. I just want to know if they’ve disappeared.”

“Okay. I’ll let you know as soon as I can. So, where are you living now?”

“I got a good place downtown.”

“Glad to hear it. Hope everything works out for you.”

“Me, too. Thanks.” He flipped the phone closed. He set the phone on the table and set his feet on the threadbare carpet beneath him.

* * *

“If you want to go back so bad, why are you afraid I’ll go?” Michael asked the young woman, who was leaning against the door in his passenger seat. She held a backpack in her lap, protectively. She was wearing the same clothes, including the same thin tennis shoes.

“I’m afraid you’ll go first and I’ll get scared and not go.”

“Fair enough. You go first. You’re going to let me get some pictures, right?”

“Uh-huh. You want to take my picture because I’m pretty?”

Aside from the missing tooth low in her smile, and the dirt in her hair and on her face, and the smear of acne along her jaw, she was pretty. He started to answer with a glib “yep!”, but saw her tense.

“No. I just want to record this the best way I can. He motioned to the back seat, where his camera case sat beside the duffel bag she’d insisted he bring. “I want a record if this turns out to be true.”

“It is true. And I go first, remember.”

“I remember.”

“My turn,” she said, squirming in her seat. “Have you ever hurt anyone – I mean really hurt them?”

His vision blurred as memories invaded. Holly lay in his lap, bleeding, broken. She muttered to him, words he couldn’t hear. Words that he assumed were “why, why?” For a moment he smelled her blood, thick and cloying, in the car.

“Yeah,” he said when his vision cleared. “Yeah, I have.”

* * *

They were about halfway there when his phone rang for the first time. He checked the screen: Sandra. He flipped it open and said hello.

“Michael, it’s Sandra. How are you?”

“I’m doing okay, sis. How are you guys?”

“Good. Steven’s going to be graduating next Saturday. Any chance you can get up here to see it? He’s actually asked if you were coming.”

Warmth washed across him. He turned and saw the girl pointedly not listening. He smiled at her; she smiled back.

“I’d love that,” he said. “Tell me when and where. I’ve even got a suit that still fits.”

* * *

“It’s Dave. I’ve got a little bit of information for you.”

Michael cradled the phone under his chin. The girl was watching the road carefully now, watching for one particular underpass.

“Go ahead.”

“John Parson we’ve got on file as missing. No one has seen him for a couple years now. But he was a mental case, Jack. He could have gone off the grid, gone somewhere else, or been locked up – probably under a different name.”

“Okay.”

“I got nothing on Little Dwayne. We’ve had a few Dwaynes in the system, but none that I see are missing.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“I know. Probably just a nickname. Now I’ve got something on Reggie. We’ve had one recent Reggie. Reggie Blakely. He was a history teacher, got laid off, bank took his house. Wife left him and took the kids. He was pretty stable, though. It was his ex who reported him missing.”

“How long ago?”

“About a month. What have you found?”

“I don’t know,” Michael said, watching the girl from the corner of his eye. “It’s probably nothing. People talking.”

“Well, this guy was taking advantage of some programs, trying to get his life together. He was getting some vocational help; one of the good ones.”

“Interesting.”

“Yeah. One thing: he seemed to be involved with a woman a few years younger than he.”
“Really?” He glanced at her again.

“That’s what they say. Blond girl. No one has a name for her, but he was heard calling her “J” a couple of times, and “Belle” another time.

“I see.”

“The police are looking for her. They’d like to ask her a few questions.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“You okay? You sound funny.”

“I’m fine. I’m just on my way to the appointment. Anything else?”

“That’s it.”

“Thanks, Dave. I really appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome, man. Do me a favor and try to stay out of trouble, okay?”

“I’ll give it a game attempt, I promise.”

Dave laughed, said farewell, and hung up. Michael flipped the phone closed against his chin and set it in the console.

“You know,” he said to the girl. “I feel like an ass. I haven’t even asked you your name.”

“It’s Jenny,” she said, looking out the side window. “Jenny Bell.”

* * *

No exit ramp led to the road below. The narrow gravel shoulder looked inviting, but he had no interest in getting towed. Instead, he drove past the underpass that Jenny had pointed out, to the next ramp. He pulled into a service station parking lot and checked his highway guide. Finding the route, he drove another circuitous three miles through suburban neighborhoods, rural farmland, and a stretch of gravel. He approached the interstate underpass and pulled to a stop underneath it. She jumped out, pointing at the nearest support pillar.

“See!” she said, “there’s the sign.”

He got out and read the sign, in blue spray paint:

2 Anothr World
“You’ve got to be kidding.” He took his Minolta out of the bag and took a few shots of the graffiti for completion’s sake. When he had finished, he realized that Jenny had moved about fifty yards away, where the sun was shining on a bit of gray retaining wall. He went to her.

A door sat flush in the stone wall, painted the exact gray shade as the stone. It was flush with the wall, and without the light shining on it, it would have been nearly impossible to find. The door handle was small, like a cabinet pull. Hinges weren’t visible, which meant they’d have to push it open. Below the handle, a padlock and hasp – also gray – seemed to secure it. He knelt in front of the door and looked over the lock. A moment later he realized the hasp was just pressed against the doorjamb, not attached. He pulled the hasp away; the padlock swung aside. He reached for the handle.

“Wait!” Jenny grabbed his hand. “I have to go first.”

“I’m just opening the door,” he said, turning the handle. The door creaked briefly, resisting, before swinging open. Inside was a short tunnel, ending in a wall – all of it constructed from the same gray stone as the retaining wall. He stood.

“Are you nervous?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Why?”

“Because I know what will happen. I’ll vanish.”

“Are you nervous about the other side?”

“No.”

“Why? How do you know it’ll be a better place?”

She cocked her head and frowned.

“Anyplace has got to be better than this.” Still holding her backpack in both hands, she started to walk forward.

“Wait!” She stopped.

“Let’s do this right. I want to get a couple of pictures, and there’s something I want you to do.”

She seemed to shrink in on herself.

“What?”

“I’ve got some rope in the car. I’d like to tie it to you, so I can pull you back if I need to.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t like being tied up.”

“I can attach it to your belt loop, or your backpack.”

“No.” She brought the backpack up in front of her again.

“All right.” He held up both hands. “Then can you promise me – and I mean promise me that you’ll step inside then come back out so I can see you?”

“Um…okay. For another picture?”

“Yeah.”

“I can do that.”

“Good.” He snapped a few shots of her in front of the open door.

“I’m ready,” she finally said.

“Wait just one second,” he said, adjusting the camera to take a burst of shots. He looked up at her pale, somewhat-pretty face. “Did you know the police are looking for you?”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding. She turned to face the door then turned back.

“What did you do? How did you really hurt someone?”

“I killed my wife, Holly,” he said after a moment.

She stared at him. “Are you planning to kill me?”

“No.”

“Good. Here I go.” She turned back again and stepped through the doorway.

He raised the camera, pressed the button, and watched as her foot touched the stone floor inside, and she vanished.

"Melbourn's Storm" [the re-edited version]

2010-08-02T15:36:00.000-07:00

Hey y’all, I’m asking for your help. This is the first serious re-edit of “Melbourn’s Storm,” which I wrote late last summer and early fall. During this re-edit, I’ve considerably shortened the lead-in, changed quite a bit of dialogue, reordered a few little bits, and tried streamlining the whole dang thing. I’ve cut a few pages – about 1000 words.

I was attempting to get it below 4000 words, so I could submit it to an annual San Diego-based publication. After spending a considerable amount of time and brain space in getting down to size, I discovered that the actual limit for submission was 3500 words.

I’ve heard from many of you that you really liked this piece. I received the same types of comments from my chums in my writers’ group – the North County Writers of Speculative Fiction. The most common complaints were an abundance of description and that the lead-in was too long. I think I’ve addressed those complaints, and I would very, very much appreciate some feedback now.

Furthermore, my question to you is twofold and is this: Shall I bother to submit this for publication anywhere? And what suggestions do you have for getting the blasted thing below 3500?

Or should I bother, and submit it elsewhere at 4000?

Okay, 3 questions; 3 questions is what I had for you.

Please let me know. This is actually one of my favorite pieces, and I’d like to do well by it. I thank y’all for any and all feedback and suggestions you have.

-------------------------------------

Melbourn’s Storm

Dirt crunched underfoot as the mal sidhe made his way toward the sprawling house overlooking the sea. Early spring winds blew off the water; his long bronze-colored hair had blown and snapped in the constant breeze and become snarled. Brittle surf washed the rocks only a few feet away. Whitecaps dotted the dark gray water to the horizon. Overhead, the lighter gray of the sky roiled with tumultuous clouds, and seagulls sculled the air from land to sea to land again. The weather came from the west, where the sea was, where the house faced.

Dirt and surf, wind and gulls, and his own breathing; these were the only noises. He was miles from any settlement, more than fifty miles north of Harbordown, his home. No road came closer than a dozen miles to it, and only an aged trail led to it.

He’d walked the entire way. It was a pilgrimage of sorts.

Slipping his arm out of his cloak and into the chill air, he ran his hand along the top of the garden wall at the front of the house, feeling the rough stone-dust, rubbing it into his fingers and thumb. He shoved open the rotten wooden gate. He climbed the stoop and stopped, turning to look at the sea.

Ten years he’d made this trip, almost always in the spring. He’d felt an urge to travel early this year, coming while patches of snow and ice still clung to the soil. He’d only missed the spring appointment once, coming his fourth year in late summer. It had proven…difficult. He gazed out at the stormfront, sniffing the ozone in the air, feeling the wind upon pointed ears. This one, too, might prove difficult.

He drew a key from his belt pouch and held it up in the faint light: three separate barrels of three different materials, each ending in a different gem fragment, and each studded with complex layers of teeth. Gold, silver, and steel; diamond, ruby, and onyx – the key had cost him almost a year’s take. Though the fence swore that this was the only one he had created, Melbourn knew better than to take the crooked keymaker at his word. Others had made the journey. The fence himself had come – one time, he said, only the once.

He slid the key into the lock and turned it only a fraction of an inch. The barrels found tumblers of their own, each rotating in different directions. The tumblers clicked and the bolt shot back. Clouds of dust rose as he stepped into the entrance hall. Mildew and rot – it always smelled of mildew and rot, but never of animal scat or piss. It was almost the smell of an abandoned house, but not quite.

He knew of two stories above ground, and had no idea how many were below. Three wings had struck out in their own directions along the rocky shore; nine gables rose above the isolated point. Less than half the windows were glassed, a handful was shuttered, and some were simply empty holes. He yearned to touch those voids, as a tongue longed to prod the cavity of a missing tooth. He’d touched none of the windows, opened no shutters, broken no glass. In ten years of coming, he’d left the house unadulterated; it was likely that any other visitors had done the same. There was little doubt that windows that were glassed now were glassed for decades previously, and would likely still be so in years to come.

He tossed his cloak to the floor in the center of the entry hall. He sat cross-legged and opened his belt pouch again. With something approaching reverence, he unwrapped a small bundle and laid out the instruments inside.

He lit a pair of candles, one black and one white, and set them to either side of him. He splashed wine into a gold bowl and placed it near him. He unwrapped a bag of wheat and scattered it around him. A bowl of bone he set before him. As daylight began to vanish from the hall, he rolled up his sleeves, unwrapping wrist sheaths from his arms. Parallel lines of scars ran across his tightly-corded forearms. Drawing his fighting daggers from the sheaths, he made short, quick slashes along his arms. Gritting his teeth, he set down the blades and let the blood flow down his wrists and into the bowl. After a minute, he pushed his arms together to staunch the bleeding. A breeze crept in, blowing the light dusty grain up and around the room. The candles flickered; the white one blew and was gone.

“My blood,” he said to the empty, nearly dark room. “Wine and wheat, light black and white, the colors of Embarrath, Lord of the Dead and God of Shades. In his name I ask: which among you will be my guide tonight?”

The black candle flickered and vanished.

* * *

Rain began to spatter on the house, blowing through some of the empty windows, dampening his clothes and hair. He didn’t move. He would bring the offerings, but they determined the pace of events. There was no sense in rushing; a decade of this had taught him that.

As things began to shuffle into the room, sweeping up the grain, sipping from the cups, he still didn’t move. Eventually they shuffled away, and the room was quiet again. He remained still until he felt someone behind him. That someone began to breathe again. He allowed a few breaths before speaking:

“Artur Ravennock, are you to be my guide again?”

“No,” came the voice, behind and above him. “Someone else will fill that role this year.”

“Why are you here then?”

“To ask why you return.”

“The same reason I always return.”

“Then look around you.”

He cast his gaze about the room. His eyes had adjusted to the dark, and he saw dozens of figures, pale, flickering, and ethereal, standing and watching him. Some he knew on sight; others weren’t so familiar. None approached.

“Who will be my guide?”

“I will.” The voice was female, and he knew it. She drifted away from the others and knelt in front of him. Though pale and limned in the tiniest flickers of light, he knew her right away.

“You loved me, Melbourn. Tell me that,” she leaned forward, gazing into his face.

“Yes, I did love you, Beverley.”

“I knew so.” She leaned in closer. “Why then did you kill me?”

It was the first thing they all wanted to know. He’d answered it every year since he’d first come. He knew the answers, could glibly recite it if need be, but he paused to give it some weight.

“For the same reason that I killed everyone here: because I wanted you to be dead.”

“Why?”

“Guide me, Beverley, and I assure you you’ll find out.”

“Come with me.” She started to back away.

“No. Take my hand.” He raised blood-covered fingers. She gazed at him a moment before grasping his hand.

A bubble of memories rose to the surface of his mind. Beverley Samavas, known as Beverley the Viper, a thief like he. They’d met the past summer. He tingled, his body remembering the feel of hers under him, her dark hair between his fingers, the slightly sweet smell of her breath. Her harnessed, slender body in motion, muscles playing under soft skin as she scaled the walls of House Vannedine. Her voice – slightly raw and smoky, like good whiskey; her laugh – bold and full-bodied, like fine wine; her kiss – sweet and powerful, like aged rum; he felt, tasted, and remembered her in his eyes, mouth, and ears. Six months of powerful lovemaking, explosive arguments, and two jobs shared between them. Six months when he’d thought she might be…

Then the look – the look of delight on her face, that twinkle in her eye, that broad smile that opened into an “O” of horror as he grabbed her, not for a kiss, and threw her from the top of House Vannedine and into the street below. The whiskey voice that cracked as she screamed, and broke when she did; that last look at her subtly muscular form lying on the cobblestones – these things he remembered.

She gasped. He looked into her eyes, finding delight, not pain, not anger. A hint of color had returned to her face. No longer could he see the others through her.

“I can feel you!”

“It’s my blood,” he said.

“I can feel it.” She touched her face. “I can feel me.”

He reached up and brushed his other hand against her cheek. He smiled as she pushed back against his fingers. Her eyes closed for a moment; real lashes closed against each other, and he pulled his hand away.

“Did you do that for me?”

He was quiet a moment. “No.”

He raised his hands. The shades began to shuffle toward him. This had frightened him the first year, and unsettled him for a few years after that. He now accepted it for what it was: a sacrifice.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get on with it.”

Artur Ravennock was the first to grip a bloody hand. He was a gambler, possibly a little better than Melbourn himself. He felt Artur’s handshake again, the slightly sweaty gambler’s grip, the smoky side room of the gambling hall in New Town. The weeks of card-playing, their shared love of cheap whiskey and good tobacco, and their mutual attraction to a certain zaftig waitress; he smelled the tobacco, tasted the whiskey, felt the exhaustion of fourteen hours’ gameplay, heard Caren’s laugh, and remembered warming to the thought of making a new friend.

Then there was that last night. A few gold coins in stakes were on the table, and they were the only real contenders. He took a shot of whiskey and glanced at Artur just quickly enough to see him palm a card. He smashed the bottle on the table, grabbed his friend’s hand, and outed him as a cheat. Artur had leapt at him, razor in hand. He’d defended himself quickly – and hard. He’d left his new friend dead on the floor, Caren screaming. He never returned to that hall in New Town.

Lord Chonas grabbed his other hand. He was no real lord, just a jumped-up merchant-turned-tyrant who’d carved out a bit of power on the Wild Coast. He remembered the stink of burning flesh, the sight of Chonas’ own murdered subjects. His eyes had gleamed with delight as the flames and screams rose together. He remembered blood on his hands as he rammed a knife into one of the lord’s gleaming eyes, felt him twitching underneath him. Though he might despise him, greedy Chonas was always among the first to accept the blood tithe.

He pulled his hands from Artur and Lord Chonas, letting others take their places. Merchants and mercenaries, sailors and cultists, assassins, thieves, soldiers, and priests all grabbed at him, stealing his blood for this one night, all to become slightly more than just ghosts. He remembered rendezvous at night, battles in winter, assassination attempts under the high sun, and murder at midsummer. Many of them cried, croaked, or said his name as they died; others did not. Some knew him by an alias, some nothing of him at all. Nothing in common they shared, save for the fact that all had died at his hand. Blades flashed, bowstrings twanged, women screamed, men shrieked, armor clanged, dogs howled, blood flowed, and he collapsed.

Beverley knelt over him, touching his face with cold, solid hands.

“You’re paler than I,” she said.

“Not…surprised,” he said.

“You’ve been out half an hour, possibly. You opened your arms three times for them – for us.”

He nodded, still lying on his side. His arms no longer hurt; he’d reached that place beyond pain where dying began.

“Why did you come, Melbourn?”

“Something…I have to do.”

She leaned close enough to brush their noses together. He couldn’t smell her breath.

“I know what you want,” she said, “but you must say it.”

“Forgiveness.”

She shook her head. “For the love I felt for you, I’ll be kind. As gratitude for letting me feel again…” She brushed her cold lips against his. “I wish you no harm. But you took me in your arms and threw me to the ground. I won’t forgive you.”

“I didn’t expect you to.”

He sat up, feeling the floor to find his balance. His eyes were completely adjusted now; what were pockets of darkness earlier revealed themselves to be open doors and hallways. Most of the shades had left the room, but a few remained. All were whole, colored in places, pale in others. Some watched him and Beverley; some simply reached out to touch their own skin, or the skin of others. He wondered how long they’d remain this way, but he’d never stayed long enough to find out.

Overhead, a barrel of thunder rolled across the sky. Through the voided open windows, rain flew, catching the inside breeze and wetting everything inside. He stood and raised his arms, to the let the drizzle alight on his wounds. No blood-tracks remained. The shades had taken every drop they could. Slashes had reddened and risen, new parallel lines that would soon be new scars, fortifications on a battlefield.

Artur Ravennock watched him. “I’ll not forgive you either.”

“I understand, Artur.” He took a deep breath. “But so you know, I’m sorry.”

Artur simply nodded.

“I’m not forgiving you,” said a woman once paid to kill him. He’d taken her head nearly off her shoulders in the ensuing fight. Thankfully, not she or any of the others appeared the way they had after he had killed them, but before they had died.

“I won’t forgive you,” a soldier from Tassen told him. He nodded.

“If no one forgives you, what will you do?” Beverley asked.

“Continue,” he said, tucking one of his knives into his belt.

“Follow me.” She led him from the entryway and into another hall; he’d thought of it as a trophy hall. Rusted, beaten armor and weapons displayed themselves to each other. Dust rose as they passed through, but there were no spider webs. There were no spiders. A few more told him he would remain unforgiven. At the end of the trophy hall, Beverley led him up a flight of stairs to the second floor. A priest at the top said he wouldn’t forgive him for drowning him in his own font.

“To be fair,” he said, “you were sacrificing an entire family at the time.”

“As my God commanded!”

“Yes, yes, I understand. I stopped you as my goddess commanded.”

The priest stepped away, grasping the rotted rail, and let them pass. As he left, he turned. The priest was running his fingers along the moldering wood grain.

They found a young man in the smallest child’s bedroom, surrounded by dust, mold, mildew, and dozens of wooden toys that had sun-faded and rotted. One glass window, still intact and closed, rattled and shook from the rain. Unlike the others, this shade remained pale.

“Jacob.”

“I will never forgive you,” the shade responded.

“I know.”

“The things you did to me—”

“Were entirely deserved. I’m still glad that I killed you.”

The shade faded away a bit more.

“Jacob,” he said, holding out his hand. “Take it.” He drew the knife from his belt and slashed his left arm.

“Why do this?” Jacob asked, wanting to approach.

“You’re dead, and I bear you no ill will anymore.” He continued to hold out his hand. Jacob was still a moment then grabbed him.

The smell of Harbordown was the first thing he remembered, more than twenty years ago, when he first arrived – the smell of sweat and salt and city. That autumn it was also the smell of tshiram – a pungent poison that had killed thirty-eight people. One of the last was sweet-natured trollop of his acquaintance. The anger when he’d found her, the smell of tshiram in the room, the snarling satisfaction when he realized he knew who made it; these things he remembered. The shocked look on Jacob’s face as he looked up, saw him leaping down on him; this was a good memory. The echoes of Jacob’s screams as he killed him, slowly, were not good. Neither was the fact that he remembered again realizing that the poisoner’s death simply couldn’t balance the scales.

“Thank you,” Jacob said, through solid lips. “Now leave.”

He turned, staggered once, and grabbed the worm-eaten doorjamb to hold himself up.

“You’re dying,” Beverley said, as he pushed away from the door and back to the stairs. “You have only so much blood to give.”

“I know.”

“Why don’t you stop?”

“I’m not done.”

She led him back to the ground floor. His knees buckled twice, but he held onto the soft, rotted rail and kept his balance each time. They passed through the parlor, the study, and another hall, and into the kitchen. Just inside, Lord Chonas stood before a door.

“Come into the cellar, Melbourn.”

“I won’t.”

“Just a few steps and it will all be over,” the dead tyrant said. “No more begging for forgiveness, no more draining yourself, no more pain. Come.”

“No.”

“I’ll ask again next time.”

“I’ll refuse again.”

“As you wish.” The lord stepped aside and they went into the kitchen. Several pale shades awaited him, huddled together near the cold, broken hearth. Cold men, in archaic armor and uniforms, stood watching him. Some carried weapons. Old men stood next to young men, and all had the look of guards, or soldiers.

“Who are they?” Beverley asked.

“I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I mean to say I don’t remember,” he said. “It’s my memory. We sidhe start to lose our memories as we age. I’m over two hundred years old. There are many things I’ve forgotten.” He glanced up at the shades in armor. “That includes those I’ve killed.”

“You’re seeking forgiveness from people you don’t remember?”

“They’re the ones that matter. If I remember my actions, I can justify them or not. If I can’t recall what they are, then I can’t assume anything.” He thought back to his earliest viable memory, tried to search beyond, into the haze. “This is an ugly world, and death has its place in it. I believe in the consequences of my actions. I believe that most of the decisions I have made to kill another has made the world a bit less ugly. I also believe I once never considered the consequences.” He closed his eyes to think.

“Nestor? Is one of you Nestor?”

“Nextor.” One of the older shades stepped forward.

“I thought you didn’t remember him,” Beverley said.

“I don’t. I learn their names each year, to try to recall them when I return. What did I do to you, Nextor?”

“I drove a jail cart in Saemos. When you were caught, we failed to find your iron dagger. You could have pried the door off to escape. Instead, you plunged it through the back of the seat and into me. I died so the other driver would have to stop.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“Erin…Erichtha…Eri—”

“Erithanus,” a younger shade answered. “I was in the employ of Lady Shelessa of Yaer. When I caught you robbing the manor, you fought and beat me. You could have left me that way, but you cut my throat. I didn’t need to die that way.”

“No you didn’t,” he said. “I’m sorry – I’m so sorry. I know this won’t help at all, but I no longer do that. I won’t kill a man just doing his job.”

Beverley glanced at him.

“You did it to me, too,” said another. “My name is Loridanus.” He spoke, and Melbourn listened. He listened as all of them told their stories. When the last one finished, he looked at the room full of shades, pale and flickering. He drew the dagger from his belt and took a deep breath.

“If I could return life to any of you I would. If my blood nourishes you for a while, it’s what I can give. If I die in the doing, so be it.” He slashed his right arm to let the blood flow. Dizziness flowed over him and the blade clanged on the dusty stone floor. Reality blurred at the corners and as the shades reached for him, he collapsed again.

* * *

“There are…no memories…”

“What?” Beverley asked him, touching his face again.

“When those…men…touch me…I can’t remember…anything. They’re just…gone.” Lying on his side, he lifted his arm to look at the damage done to it. Some blood remained, dried and sticky. He lowered his arm and twisted himself to look around. Behind him, Nextor stood – still pale, still limned in flickering light.

“Why didn’t you…?”

“You have come here for eleven years,” the aged jail-wagon driver said. “You’ve come to find us. Each time you’ve listened, apologized, and begged forgiveness. I’m ready to give you that.”

Melbourn blinked and tried to sit straight. Beverley watched at a distance.

“You killed me, wrongly so. But your pain is obvious and you resent what you’ve done. You’ve chosen to take a burden you don’t have to carry. You seek forgiveness, and I forgive you.”

He was silent for a moment. “Thank you.”

“Go now. I won’t see you again next year.”

“I’m afraid I won’t remember you.”

The old man smiled. “Though you don’t remember our names, you do remember us.” He nodded toward Beverley. “Don’t you?”

Beverley glared. “This is why you killed me – because of the guard?”

“Yes,” he answered. “Besides the one I found you standing over, I found two others that night. And I know I didn’t kill them.” He stopped to get his breath. “There was another one killed on our first job, but I had hoped it wasn’t you.” He caught his breath again. “I couldn’t let it go on, knowing that you’d do it again, and again, and again.”

“But I loved you!”

“And I loved you – at least I did until I realized you’d killed three men for the price of a painting and one for a pair of vases.”

“How many have you killed? How many of us are here?”

“I’ve never counted; I don’t want to know. The ones I kill now deserve to die.”

“I think you did.”

“I will never forgive you!”

“I know that,” he said. He staggered to his feet and left the kitchen. He passed Lord Chonas, a bounty hunter, and a pair of cultists on his way back to the entry hall. He gathered up the bowls and candles, the flask and cloak. Jacob watched him from a corner. Artur stood near the front door. Rain had begun to blow though him. Lightning flashed through glassed-in windows. Trapezoids of light appeared on the floor. He shoved everything into his belt pouch and threw the cloak over his shoulders.

“Melbourn.”

He turned to face Beverley again.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I killed those men. I’m sorry we’re not together anymore.”

“I am, too.” He leaned forward, pressing his forehead to hers. As they stood there, she began to fade and her touch fell away. “And I forgive you.”

He turned and strode to the door.

“Thank you, Nextor,” he said, turning to face them. “I’ll see the rest of you next year.” He pulled open the door and stepped into the lashing rain. As he pulled it closed behind him, they began to fade.

The door slammed and the bolt locked itself. He bundled himself up against the storm and began the long walk home.

"The Wyrd Magnet/Meet Martin Black" Chapter 3 - Regret (Urban Fantasy)

2010-07-26T12:19:00.000-07:00

This is the next bit in our still-as-yet-unnamed saga. If you want more information than that, you'll need to check out the first two chapters. I am still interested in anyone else's idea for a better title. All suggestions are welcome!

Let me know what you think; I genuinely do enjoy hearing from you readers!

Chapter Three – Regret

I left the cab, pulled up my collar to keep the rain off my neck. If serendipity provided, Mari might already be here. The city’s semi-famous shopping district, with its bookstores and cafes, coffee shops and boutiques, was one of her favorite haunts. She read every word she could get her hands on and loved to sit and watch the passersby on the sidewalks. Her passion for watching and reading was matched only by her love of coffee; it was as if she lived on it. Fact is she might actually be living on it. I could never be sure. In so many ways we were exactly alike, except for that one thing.

I passed the fountain in the center of the square, pockmarked with precipitation. I thought about dropping a coin while making a wish, but I didn’t know what to wish for. Besides, those things rarely came true.

Hidden speakers played jazz near Banagon’s side door, something from the Blue Note catalog, perhaps. I slipped inside; Dean was behind the counter. He apologized, explaining that Charlie had been called away. I asked where he was.

“Off to see a manuscript, he said! I’m sorry!”

He didn’t seem to be lying and I didn’t press him.

“I’m going over to Brew Mountain. Can I get you anything?” I asked. It also paid to be polite to bookstore employees. You never knew what they knew.

“Why thank you! But no, sir, I picked up a chai latte earlier!”

“Okay. When Charlie comes back, tell him Martin Black stopped by.”

“Happy to, Mr. Black! Is there a message?”

“That should do it.”

When I reached Brew Mountain, I wished I’d wished for an empty table. The umbrellas were open on the patio and all the chairs were taken. A line had formed under the overhang. I didn’t know the owner, so pushing my way to the front here was no option.

I claimed my place in line. The speakers here played something European, maybe some of that German haunted-hausmusik I’d never warmed to. Digging my iPod out of my coat, I plugged the buds into my ears. Thirty seconds or so into my New Order playlist, the volume dropped by half.

I hadn’t touched the controls.

“You are so predictable.” The voice in my ears didn’t belong to Bernard Sumner of New Order, or any other vocalist in my collection, but I knew it well. Mari was nearby. I didn’t bother to answer, and I didn’t bother to look for her.

“What do you have there? Lots of New Order, the Church, Sisters of Mercy, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Echo and the Bunnymen…oh! Is that for me?”

“Yes.” I spoke to empty air. If she was close enough to read the data, she might be close enough to hear me.

“The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus…Martin, if I didn’t know better I’d say you’d almost been bitten by the Nü-Gothic bug, too.”

“It’s gloom pop,” I said. “A little bit of Goth – real, old Goth, and a bit of techno.”

“Hmm. All that music, black jeans and that t-shirt; you must be feeling moody.”

“I’m feeling nostalgic.”

“You’re a human nostalgia attack.” Her voice again came through the buds. She stepped out of the rain, all damp hair and dimples. She swiped an unruly lock out of her face and smiled at me. Like the rest of her, her teeth were perfect. I had seen every inch of her, from the top of her head to the soles of her feet, and I could swear she was perfect. Unlike most men, I didn’t have to exaggerate about the woman I loved.

She grabbed the earbud cord, not hard enough to yank them from my ears, and pulled me out of line, back into the drizzle.

“Dance with me.” She smiled and I heard her voice over the music again.

“I don’t want to dance in the rain.”

“Dance with me, Martin.” The music volume returned, her voice vanished. She took my hand and began to move. She swayed, she turned, she coiled and uncoiled herself. Turning away from me, she threw back her head so I could see the rain running down her face, alighting on her smile.

I smiled back, but I did not dance. Releasing my hand, both arms in motion, her sinuous form moved, her back and shoulders in a wave; for a moment she was dance itself. I watched, never wondering who else saw.

She stopped, turned, and yanked the buds from my ears.

“You’re no fun sometimes.”

“I don’t want to lose our place in line.”

“I already have a table.” She grabbed my hand again and led me to the patio. She did have a table, with her mocha latte and my cappuccino waiting. I glanced around. I was certain I would have noticed her sitting there.

She bounded into her own chair as I took my seat on the damp wrought-iron. The coffee had just begun to cool. I sipped. She hadn’t been waiting long.

“It’s good to see you, and yes, I got your call,” she said.

“I can never tell, you know.”

“I know. Sorry about Charlie. That was me, too.”

“You called him?”

“No. I overheard a phone conversation; some lady in Hampton acquired an original Hammett manuscript and wanted someone to take a look at it.”

“Ah.”

“I know how Charlie loves those old crime novelists, so I just made the connection for them.”

I sipped my coffee and gazed at Mari. She had no other name that we knew of, though she adopted one from time to time. She looked the same now as when I first met her and she would always look the same. She appeared to be in her mid-twenties and of some Oriental/Caucasian mix – dark hair, petite features, and the smallest epicanthic folds at her eyes. We’d met ten years ago, when I was 30 and she was 3 years old.

“Do you really need my help, or are you just thinking about our time together, the Echo concert, things like that?”

I thought a minute.

“Yes to all of it.”

She laughed.

“I also overheard you trying to reach Billy. I know you only call on him when you need muscle. When you called the bookstore, I knew you’d be coming this way.” She reached across the table and took my hand in both of hers. “But I like that you still called me directly.”

Mari and I had been a couple for about two years. I still desire her, there’s no question about that. I loved her wholly – something I couldn’t say about anyone else. But even acknowledging those feelings allowed disappointment and regret to slip in. She liked me, liked being with me; I was certain of that. But she didn’t love me, and she couldn’t – or wouldn’t – try to hide it. I looked up from her hand to her face and swept the unruly lock away, tucking it behind her ear. When I brushed the back of my fingers against her cheek, she closed her eyes and pushed back against them. The shudder of my spine was an old friend and an unwelcome intruder. I pretended I needed to warm my hand on the coffee cup. She opened her eyes, but kept her head in the same slightly canted position.

“I went to school with a man named Ray Fletcher,” I told her, leaning close. “He owns Club Houngan. A vampire is using it as a feeding ground. Three models have been killed there in the past few months.”

Mari’s eyes widened and she gazed up into space. She’d affected this pose as long as I knew her. She had hijacked Brew Mountain’s bandwidth and was searching for information. In less time than it takes to explain, she finished and focused her gaze on me.

“There’s nothing about that out there at all.”

“He’s been paying bribes to keep it quiet. He’s hired me to track down the vampire and put it down.”

“To save himself the bad publicity or to avoid paying the bribes?”

“Both. Probably also to keep the young women from being killed, but frankly that’s not the highest on his list of priorities.”

“A vampire is going to very difficult. I see why you’re looking for help.”

I nodded.

“Tell me what you need,” she said. Before I could react, she grabbed my hand and kissed a badly-scarred knuckle. I stifled a gasp and did my best not to look around. It’s not that I minded looking like we were together, but the increasing age difference made it appear that I was getting the better part of the deal by far.

“I need to find the vampire’s Judas goat.” I gave her a moment to search for the term; there was no reason to explain. When she nodded, I continued. “Charlie’s got the best Real Occult section in town. I thought I’d start with him.”

“That makes sense. I also see why you called Billy first. But what about me?”

“This might be a modern vampire, or a modern Judas. Either one could be using the net, social media, or some other mass communication to track down these girls. He’s picky. He’s taken only models, but they’ve all been little known – some runway work, a few lad-mag pictorials, that kind of thing.”

“You need me for that?”

“Can you think of anyone better? Can anyone else eavesdrop on phone calls and skim bandwidth while enjoying a latte?”

“Oh, I hope not. This is a terrible cross I carry.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. I can do all that. I can look for search patterns focusing on models, Club Houngan, blood, the occult, any of that. But you could use Typhoon Search to do it too, if you’d pay that overdue bill. I could still do that for you.”

“No. Do it once, and I don’t think I’d be able to stop. I love you and your abilities, Mari, but please don’t offer me free money.”

“I still owe you.”

“No you don’t. You’ve repaid me many times over.”

“No, I haven’t.” She leaned forward. “I can do this, but it’ll take a few hours to do a really deep scan of past search patterns – and I want something in return.”

“What’s that?”

“One concert – my choice, whenever and wherever I want, and you will dance.”

“You know I can’t dance.”

Mari frowned.

“You can, but you won't.”

“We’ll see about that part, but as to the rest – yes.”

“Good. Charlie just called the store. He’s coming back now. The manuscript was fake. A very excited young man named Dean just gave him your name. Do you want to hear what Charlie said?” She didn’t give me time to answer. “He said, ‘Oh God, what now?’”

I chuckled; I admit it. Before I could say anything, she continued:

“I’m going to go take care of this, and while I’m gone I want you to think about something.”

“What’s that?”

She leaned even closer, until our faces were just inches apart.

“I can’t love you, Martin. But I like being with you and I like the things we do together. I appreciate the years we had. Let me assure you that I very much enjoyed being in bed with you.”

“I liked all of that, too.”

“I’m not done. That was the human way of expressing how I feel about you. Now let me give you the way I could say it: it was never programmed into me to be able to love – not you, not anyone. Being with you, doing things with you stimulates me to my core processors. I have vast amounts of memory set aside for our time together, and fairly often I access those memories and relive them. When you touch me, my sensory receptors flare up from the stimuli. Sometimes I have to turn them down, and sometimes – like when you touched my cheek earlier – I turn them up.”

“Why do you say it like that?”

“Because that’s how you see me – as an artificial life form, and not as a person. If you continue to think of me that way, that’s how I can act.”

“That’s not what I think.”

“Yes, it is. I can give you the words of love, but you and I both know that they’d be false. So I show you love, and you can’t accept it. For a human, you have a very narrow definition of love. You need to broaden it, learn to accept it when it’s offered.”

“What do you mean?”

She sighed, leaned forward, and placed a kiss on my lower lip.

“Sometimes, you idiot, love is a dance in the rain.” With that, she stood and bounded away.

I didn’t follow her; I finished my coffee instead. I left, dropping the crumpled cup in the basket. A minute later, I dug into my pocket and stopped in the middle of Deville Square. I opened my hand and let the coins splash into the rain-speckled fountain.

Urban Fantasy - "The Wyrd Magnet/Meet Martin Black" - Chapters 1 and 2

2010-07-06T19:58:00.000-07:00

About a year or so ago, I posted a much earlier version of this. I wasn't happy with it, and even a couple of (very tolerant) friends of mine critiqued the bejeezus out of it. I decided to overhaul much of it, and try it out again.

This is not part of the Heroes... universe; it stands in an urban fantasy world of its own. I'm interested in your thoughts on the first two chapters - both of which are posted here.

Furthermore, this will fall somewhere between novella and short novel length. I've bounced a few names around, but haven't decided on one. So far, I've gone with "The Wyrd Magnet" and "Meet Martin Black." Like one? Have a better one? I'm interested in your thoughts, your criticism, and quite possibly your title idea.

Feel free to post your comments below. If you want, I'm also happy to take your thoughts via Twitter, Facebook, or email.

Beware... there are some adult ideas below, and a smattering of naughty words. It's also got a bit of a post-'80s vibe, and that may be even more frightening...

--------------------

Chapter 1 – Sub-Culture

Rain spattered the windshield as my cab driver pulled up into the garish light of Club Houngan, the city’s momentary it-spot. A Wednesday-night crowd snaked around the corner; the vanguard shuffled impatiently under the canopy protecting the velvet rope. Friday or Saturday lines would reach another block or two. The cab eased alongside a row of limousines, and the driver slammed the shifter into park.

“Thirty-one forty,” he said, turning down the pounding tech-metal music. “Make it thirty-one. I don’t need your forty cents.”

“Keep it.” A pair of twenties – a decent tip, not enough to be extravagant, but enough to ensure the next time I needed him, I’d get him.

He thanked me and thumbed the button to unlock the doors. I glanced through rain-dappled glass at the red and white light reflected on the pavement. Atop the three-story building shone the gaudy neon image of a smiling voodoo priest. Charmless, it looked as threatening as a fast food sign. I pushed open the door, jogged past the limos and their lurking drivers and went straight to the canopy. The damp patrons not yet close enough to the front, those sheltered under umbrellas, coats, or fashion magazines, glared as I pushed forward. Two bouncers, eyes like gun turrets atop the walls of their bodies, turned to watch me approach. I squeezed between the velvet rope and a scrum of young females.

I’d buffed and shined myself the best I could; I’d shaved, shampooed, styled, and suited up in my finest. Even with that, I was a decade beyond the club’s freshness date.

“Back of the line, chief,” the nearest wall rumbled.

“I’m Martin Black.”

He didn’t quite blink; he also didn’t bother to check his clipboard.

“Yes, sir, I’ve been told to send you in.”

“Thank you.’

“If you don’t mind, sir,” said the second bouncer, a virtual twin of the first. “We prefer if no man comes in alone.”

I glanced at the nearby cluster of young women. Three blondes gleamed, but I opted for a smashing little brunette. She grabbed the offered hand and moved to my side.

“How’s this?”

“Excellent selection, sir,” the bouncer answered, unlatching the rope.

We passed through. The bouncer waved to his twin, who swung open the front door.

The brunette still gripping my hand, we went straight to the hostess. I gave her my name and paid the cover for my dark-haired companion.

“Unnecessary, sir,” the redheaded hostess said. “You’re a guest of Ray
Fletcher.”

“I insist.”

The hostess smiled; a small cheek tattoo jumped. “Mr. Fletcher says you should meet him at the main bar – through those doors.”

I let the brunette sprint ahead of me, into the club and out of my life. I took my time, standing just inside the door to let my eyes adjust. From a design standpoint it was interesting, if not very original, done up in the Nü-Gothic style, all plaster gargoyles and twisted iron. The bar was black wood and burnished copper, the furniture in black, gray, and dark red. Colored lights flashing with the beat of the music lit the dance floor from below. Lasers and strobes illuminated everything above. The dancers were legion; the men in European gray and American charcoal. The pale women wore black, the darker ones wore white. Accents the color of cash, claret and gold were splashed around the room – a tie here, a scarf there. The DJ spun from inside a booth built into the shape of a cathedral. Twin spires rose to the ceiling. Gargoyles coughed out dry ice vapor as the DJ melded one song into another behind a plate of stained glass.

I grinned and shook my head. He spun up a dance remix of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “The Power of Love.” Nü-Gothic borrowed heavily from ‘80s styles, and the recent outing of lead singer Holly Johnson as a revenant made these guys a favorite of the moment.

I skirted the floor and pushed my way to the bar. I dug a gold cigarette case and my favorite etched Zippo out of my pocket. I’d only taken a few drags when I realized someone was standing at my side.

“There’s two thousand people in my club, and only you’re smoking.”

I turned. Raymond Fletcher was dressed only in slacks and a black turtleneck, but it was his place and he could do what he wanted. His red hair was cropped short, almost shaved, but his goatee stood out in force.

“You look good,” he said. “Better than the last time I saw you.”

“Thanks. You, too.”

“I half expected to see you wearing that ratty old Joy Division t-shirt.”

“I’m wearing it under this one,” I said, tapping my chest.

He laughed, and we shared a handshake that became a manly embrace. It had been ten years since I’d seen Ray, and though we weren’t good friends, I don’t think either of us hated the other. That put him in a distinct minority.

“Come on. I’ve got someplace for us to talk and for you to smoke.”

“Outstanding.”

He led me upstairs to the lounge. We passed a pair of bouncers, poured from the same mold as the others. A tuxedo-clad majordomo oversaw a trio of waitresses in French maids’ uniforms. I could still hear “The Power of Love,” but at a much lower volume. Another bouncer stood in front of another door.

“Are these clones?”

“No, clones are expensive. I just hire guys that look alike.” The bouncer opened the last door for us, and we entered the exclusive lounge. I recognized one of the men inside from his campaign posters, and another from his TV show. The actor had a girl on his lap; I didn’t know her, but I took her to be either a wannabe or a nobody working her way up to wannabe. I nodded to an older woman sitting alone with a tumbler of Scotch.

“Reverend,” I said. She nodded back.

I joined Raymond at the small bar. The bartender moved away as we took the two high seats in front of it.

“Any idea why I called you?” he asked.

I nodded.

“I asked around to some of the other people you’ve worked for. They say you’re legit.”

“I am.”

“Is this…is this why you were the way you were in high school?”

“Yeah.”

“Look, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to ask: what the fuck happened to you?”

Eyes narrowed, remembering fingers scratching on rippled sky.

“Twelve minutes, Ray.”

“What?”

“When I was a boy I was dead for twelve minutes. Most of me came back.” I realized I was still holding my cigarette with half an inch of ash on the end. Ray reached behind the bar and set a small silver tray in front of me.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t really know,” I said, tapping out on the tray. “But I think I came back missing part of my soul.”

Ray just stared.

“That’s why I attract aspects of the supernatural. I’m a house that needs to be haunted.”

“I heard you say on TV that you were a weirdness magnet.”

“I said I was a wyrd magnet. Spirits, phantoms, the wyrd…they’re attracted to me, and they slip into that empty spot. It’s not permanent, but it can…change me, for a time.”

“Is it like—”

“It’s not like anything, Ray. It’s not like being possessed, or having multiple personalities.”

“Julia Christ,” he said. “But, what–”

“Ray, do I ask you how you eat, or crap, or have sex? I don’t want to know; it’s none of my business. I just do what I do. Talking about it doesn’t help.”

“All right. I think I might need that.”

“Why?”

“There’s someone here stalking my customers.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I need you for.”

“Who are they stalking?”

“Models.” Ray went behind the bar again and picked up two crystal glasses. “Scotch?”

I nodded.

“The stalker goes only after models,” he said, pouring. “I’ve got a shitload of those in here every night. Anne V is downstairs right now. I’ve got one of my guys shadowing her tonight, but she’s just the biggest name. She’ll be up here later. You want to meet her?”

“Yeah, sure, if we have time. How many models has the stalker taken?”

Ray nodded to the exclusive clientele across the room and motioned for me to lower my voice. I nodded again and sipped the excellent Scotch.

“We could do this in your office.”

“This is my office, Martin. That little closet I do payroll in is too small for me to talk to myself.” He emptied the glass and set it back down. He splashed another couple fingers into the crystal and picked it up.

“The stalker has taken three,” he said, his voice just audible from three feet away. “All were found later, dead. It’s been one a month since I opened and it’s about time for another one to vanish.”

“What happens?

“I don’t know. It happens on a Friday or Saturday night, when the crowd is biggest. That’s also when most of the models and celebrities. The first was three months ago. Some girl who’d done Maxim, Victoria’s Secret – you know the kind; cute, skinny little blonde. She was here with five or six others, and she vanished about three in the morning. No one really missed her until dawn. They found her a couple days later over in the Port. The coroner said she’d OD’d.”

“Had she?”

“Fuck, no. She was just dead. One of my regulars works at City Hall, and I had to get him to have the coroner say it was an overdose. That cost me ten grand. The next month it was a little redhead. She was fifteen, and in here with two friends.”

“You let fifteen-year-olds in here?”

“Of course I do. Most of these models aren’t old enough to hump, let alone drink. But that’s what people want to see. The Maxim blonde was only nineteen and some considered her too old to model. Can I go on?”

“Please do.”

“They found the redhead in a hotel room in Hampton. The coroner said she was an OD, too.”

“Ten grand?”

“Fifteen. The last one was the worst. Ana Beatriz was here that Friday. Do you know what would’ve happened if the stalker had got her? She’s a supermodel, for fuck’s sake! The other girls were…just models.” Ray was getting worked up. His hands were flying, but he had managed to keep his voice low.

“Some guy tried to get her to follow him. She almost went, but someone else fell against her and spilled wine down the front of her blouse. The furor died and the stalker was gone. She told her date what happened. She seemed drugged, but I know drugs, and I’d swear she wasn’t on anything I’ve ever seen before.”

“How’d you find out?”

“Her date told one of the bouncers, and he alerted me. By the time I talked to her, she couldn’t even remember what he looked like. I sent my guys out, but we never found him. Before we closed, I heard that another model had gone missing. This one was a girl from that TV show. You know – the reality show?”

“I know it. Don’t watch it.”

“She was the first runner-up, but still snagged a contract from Elite. She hadn’t done anything yet, but she was hot and had a future in the business. They found her in her car out on the highway to Bannocktown, like she had fallen asleep on the road and crashed. Coroner said she died in an accident.”

“Did that one cost you?”

“Yeah, another fifteen grand, though I think he might have let that one go. I didn’t want to take the chance.”

“I get it,” I told him. “You expect trouble this weekend, right?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Find the stalker and get rid of it. Or find the stalker and I’ll get the bouncers to handle it. They’ll float the bastard in the river if I need it.”

“That’s what I thought.” I drained the glass and lit another cigarette. “Before we discuss terms, plural, we need to agree on a new term, singular.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t have a stalker, Ray. You have a vampire. We both know it. You want me to track down and stop a vampire.”

Ray glared at me a few moments, his fingers tapping on the bar. “Yeah.”

“I can do it,” I said, “for twenty grand.”

“Twenty? What the fuck?”

“The coroner is going to hit you for more a fourth time. And all it’s going to take is one of these girl’s friends to call in the paparazzi, and you’ll be out of business. I won’t do that to you, Ray, and I’m not going to gouge you, but twenty grand is fair to stop a vampire. For thirty grand, I’ll destroy it myself.”
He drained his second glass and set it down.

“All right. Julia Christ, would you have charged me this much if we hadn’t gone to school together?”

“I’d have charged you sixty if you and I hadn’t worn the black and gold together. Go Tigers.”

“Go Tigers. Do you get paid now or later?”

“Ten now, the rest later. The taxi and my plus-one at the door are on me.”

“Write you a check?”

“Sure, you’re good for it. I hope you didn’t pay the coroner that way.”

He snorted. “He got bags full of cash.”

“One day I’d like to get one of those.”

“Get rid of this thing and I’ll pay you however you want.”

I nodded, stubbing out the cigarette.

“How are you planning to find the vampire?”

“I’m going to start by looking for his Judas goat.”

Chapter 2 - Let's Go

February in Vermont, the pond was frozen, and I wore number 9. Ice should have been thick enough. A crack, and frigid water became warm. Blue and white jersey fluttering in front of me. Pads and a stick keeping me under. Fingers scratching on rippled sky.

I sat up in damp sheets, gripping the mattress. I took only ragged breaths until fear faded to remembrance. When remembrance fell away to distant memory, I collapsed back and listened to the ticking of the house until sleep returned.

* * *

I woke with a hangover. I’d had a few Scotches with Ray before leaving. He introduced me to his hostess, the one with the cheek tattoo and red hair, and I had a few more. I didn’t meet Anne V, but that was okay. The hostess’s name was Tasmia. I got up and went to the bathroom, popped a trio of Excedrin and splashed my face with icy water.

Wiping the frigid water from my eyes, I shuddered. I’d almost forgotten the nightmare, the memory. The dream was like that; it came and went with treachery, stealing in and sneaking away. Sometimes I’d only remember that I’d forgotten I’d dreamed of dying again.

I ran wet fingers through my hair. Over time, I learned I could count on the dream for one thing: to act as a distant early warning. There was something out there; the vampire was real. I was a bloodhound and the dream my scent.

Hands on the sink, I stared into the mirror. To open myself up, I had to do the impossible. I twitched the mythic muscle inside me, the same one that heroes of fiction used to become invisible, or to read another’s mind, or to fly. I had to find the nonexistent trigger at my core, and fling wide the doors of my subconscious.

I was a passive magnet, and I could be an active one.

I felt the familiar booming echo as I alerted the wyrd and unnatural that I was again open for business. If the vampire was there, he might now be aware of me. If he was smart, he’d know I was hunting him.

The game was afoot.

* * *

I dressed – black jeans, sport coat, Joy Division t-shirt, and stepped into the street. The rain continued to spatter the city as I flagged down a cab. The warmly glowing sign atop the Yellow announced that Fiero Grill in Deville Square was the place to go for fine seafood. I yanked open the door and climbed inside. I shook a bit of rain from my coat.

“Where to?”

“Sundown Park.”

“Seriously?” The driver turned to face me.

“Yeah.”

“Mind if I get a little up front?”

I handed him a twenty that he stuffed into a shirt pocket. He took his foot off the brake and we started rolling. Mellow country-and-western played on the stereo. Good. I couldn’t have handled the tech metal from the night before, not with the hangover dregs and the scratchy paranoid tugs I felt at the corner of my subconscious.

To find a vampire, one must first find his Judas goat – his agent. Based on everything I’d ever heard or read, vampires were traditionalists. They lived only at night and needed someone to watch over them during the day. Most didn’t look human, so some also needed the goat to help them find prey. The goat was a bit bodyguard, a bit procurer. In return, he’d receive a little of the vampire’s power. Even without their master, they were extremely dangerous.

All vampires drained life, but through different means, invasive and intimate. They were creatures of sex and violence. Some would only do it during the sex act, and some could steal life away through just a prolonged touch. Intimacy was their stock in trade. In some ways, they were little different than frat rats with pockets full of roofies or slick-Mickeys. The difference – generally speaking – was that vampires usually drained the victims entirely, leaving only the empty corpse behind. It was a different form of rape, followed by the standard form of murder.

I’d never run across a real vampire, or even knew of someone who had, but they showed up from time to time. CNN would run a story about a vampire being found in San Francisco, Paris, or Capetown a couple of times a year. By and large, they were inhumanly strong, fast, and willing to do anything to remain hidden. But they died like anything else. All the bits about wooden stakes, garlic, and beheadings only referred to the ancient ones – vampyrs. One of my ex-friends, Astrid Sorensen, used to refer to them as vampyrus classicus. The last known vampyr was killed eighty-some years ago in New Orleans, though there were rumors that one had been hunted and killed in Kiev about fifteen years ago. Unless our local Grissoms were fools, they couldn’t fail to notice the complete lack of blood in the models’ bodies, and even more likely, the shredded flesh where their necks had been ripped open.

All of which meant that this vampire was almost certainly one of the life energy-draining sorts. They were subtle, but no less deadly than the throat-ripping kinds.

I was going to need help.

I’d already called and failed to reach Billy Sticks, my usual muscle. I’d left him a message, but half an hour had passed and he hadn’t returned it. That meant he was either working or on a spiritual jaunt of some sort. Billy dabbled in religion; he tried them on like others tried on clothing. He was flush right now, so he was probably on a kibbutz or in a sweat lodge somewhere.

It was his mother who lived in Sundown Park. She refused to keep a phone, but always knew where he was. If I heard from him before I got to his mother’s, I could always change my destination. The cabbie would appreciate it. I leaned back in the seat and tried to will the headache away.

The ride from Kings’ Point to the Park took fifteen minutes and another five dollar bill. The driver took me in, but wouldn’t wait. I didn’t blame him; Sundown Park was one of the city’s nastiest tenement projects. Billy’s mother had lived there for thirty years, and though he’d offered to move her several times, she refused to go. I’d even made the offer once, when I’d had a bit of good fortune. She told me that there were good people and bad people everywhere, and she couldn’t see the point of moving to an area where she didn’t know which was which.

No one bothered me as I made my way toward the heart of the Park; I was semi-well known in the area, and as far as I knew, no one here wanted me dead. I climbed up to the second story and rapped on her door. Her hearing was as sharp as any teenager’s, so I didn’t have to yell to announce myself.

“Come in, Martin,” she said, flinging the door open.

“Thank you. How are you, Mama Stickley?” All her callers refer to her like that. She was an elegant old lady, one of the type I wish there was more of. Plus, for all the crap that I’d put Billy through, she never hated me. I often wondered how much he didn’t tell her.

“Doing good,” she said, closing the door. “Tea?”

“Yes, ma’am, I’d love some.” You didn’t refuse Mama, and you called her “ma’am.”

Her apartment was small; the kitchen, dining room, and living room all merged into each other. She entertained her guests at an antique table at the center of it all. The TV wasn’t on; it never was when I came by. A radio in the kitchen played an old gospel number. I sat at the table and waited. I didn’t offer to help. She’d refuse, and we’d spend several minutes arguing over how a hostess should treat her guests. I also knew better than to talk business until tea was served. She asked how I was doing. I responded with pleasant vagaries, and she replied with gentle commiseration.

“You looking for Billy, I assume,” she said, only after setting down the tray and pouring me a cup. I waited for her to sit and pour herself one. We both drank it hot and unadulterated.

“Yes, ma’am, I called him and haven’t heard back. Any idea where he is?”

“I have every idea. He’s at the church.”

“Which church?”

“Our church – Eternal Grace. Billy’s there.”

“Billy’s come to Jesus?”

“Don’t be smart, Martin. I won’t have it.” Her voice went sharp, but mellowed quickly. “He’s always been with Jesus. It’s just that he and the Lord haven’t been too close lately. He decided it was time to get right.”

“Did something happen?”

“He heard the word, Martin. That’s all a person needs.” She didn’t answer the question I asked, and I knew she wouldn’t. If something had happened to cause his crisis-that-led-to-faith, she wasn’t going to share it. I could respect that.

“At your heart, Martin, you’re a decent man. That doesn’t mean I have to like what Billy does for you, or what he does for some other folks. I like it when you come around here, but you only come around when you’re looking for him. And you only look for him when you need him. What is it this time?”

“I’m not sure,” I lied. “But it looks like it might be rough.” I didn’t need to say any more. Mama knew how good her son was in a fight. Eight years in the marines had honed what a childhood in the Park had created.

“I’ll tell you truthfully: if you were to ask him for help now, he’d probably give it. But I hope you won’t. Billy could use more time with the Lord of Light, and less time with all those little dukes of hell that seem to plague you. I won’t ask you to leave him be, though. I’ll just tell you that if you need him, you just have to go to the church.”

“Eternal Grace?”

“That’s it. And between you and me, a little of that would do you a world of good, too.”

* * *

It took ten minutes to walk from Mama’s apartment over to Lexington. I was fairly well drenched before I was able to flag down a cab. Like the other, this one thought highly of Fiero Grill. I smiled as I climbed in.

“Where to?” The cabbie asked with a thick Creole accent.

“Deville Square,” I said, shaking the rain off onto his vinyl seat.

“Fiero Grill?”

“No, I can’t eat seafood,” I cheerfully lied. “I break out in hives, get gas; it sends me to the hospital. Take me to the north side – Banagon’s Books.”

“Fair enough.” He punched a button on the meter and pulled into traffic. Tires hissed on the pavement as he shot the old Regal up to speed and aimed for the far left lane.

I flipped open my phone and dialed the eighth number in memory.

“Banagon’s Books! We Take Life One Page at a Time! My name’s Dean! How may I help you?”

“Is Charlie Townshend working today?”

“He sure is!”

“Can I speak to him?”

“Sorry, but he’s meeting with a customer!”

“Do you know when he’ll be free?”

“Sorry, couldn’t say!”

“That’s okay. I’m on my way there. I should be there in fifteen minutes or so.”

“Great! He should be free when you arrive!”

“Thanks, Dean!” His exclamation points were contagious.

I hung up, tapped the phone against my chin. There were only nine people I thought highly enough of to keep in my phone’s memory. Actually, there were only eight people. The ninth number didn’t ring anywhere in this dimension, and I’d tried it only the one time.

And there was her. She would have been the tenth, but she didn’t have any particular number.

If Mama was right and Billy had his Damascus Road epiphany and wasn’t in business right now, I’d need someone else. Hunting the goat wasn’t something I could do alone. Charlie was the best at what he did, but he wasn’t a hunter. Astrid didn’t talk to me any longer, not since that mess in Birmingham. I could reach out to the Gilman brothers, but I actually hated both of them most of the time and occasionally wished them dead. Not a smart thing to do when dealing with the wyrd.

And there was her, but she hadn’t taken any of my calls the last few weeks, and there was no way to know when she would again. I tried lying to myself that I didn’t know she’d likely be near Deville Square.

I glanced up; we’d turned up Peterborough and were racing through greens and yellows toward Lake. As the raven flew, we weren’t more than a few blocks from Banagon’s, but I didn’t want to get any wetter. The cabbie glanced back at me in the mirror.

“You see the game?”

I’d never been into playing or watching “the game.”

“Yeah, that was something, wasn’t it?” I said. It never paid to be rude to a cab driver. Word got around.

“Damn right it was.”

“Man, I’d love to chat about it,” I said, “but I’ve got to make another call. Okay?”

“No problem.” The cabbie glanced back again and then focused on the road.

It was time to see if she was listening. I raised the phone and held it a few seconds. Without touching a single button, I spoke:

“Mari, it’s Martin. I’m going to see Charlie this afternoon. I thought I’d stop by Brew Mountain after that. You want to join me for coffee? I might need your expertise.” I never knew what else to say to her this way. “I hope you get this.” I flipped the phone closed and shoved it back into my pocket. I slouched into the seat, uncomfortable – mostly from the rain.

“She not there?” The cabbie was looking at me again.

“Wish to hell I knew,” I told him.

Sometimes a Story Needs No Point

2010-03-28T01:14:00.000-07:00

--This has been cross-posted to the Writer's Washroom.

I collect stories. Not short stories; those I don't collect. Not books either, though I have about 30 moving boxes packed full of books that came with me to California – and that was after I sold about two-thirds of the ones I owned.

Not books, not the written word. I collect stories – the spoken and remembered tales that happened to me or someone else.

Many of those stories, it must be said, don't have a point. I've noticed a certain tendency among both readers and writers to desire a writer – or a storyteller – to get to the point now! This has always smacked of someone needing their hand held to understand what the writer is trying to say.

Sometimes the writer is just telling a story. Like this one. Until last night, when I told my girl about this, there were maybe three or four people on the planet that knew it. I can't say why this came to mind last night, but it did. Enough time has passed, I guess, that I feel like sharing this story.

This is a true story.

I drove a Yellow Cab in Jackson, Mississippi for a time. One afternoon I took a call from the dispatcher asking me to pick up a fare in western Jackson. I was closest; I took the call. When I arrived, there was a man who said he needed to get to the farthest southeastern part of our metro area as soon as possible.

“My wife is sick,” he said. “I need to get her to a doctor.” He asked what it would cost, and I gave him a ballpark figure. He then said what cab drivers hear once or twice a day:

“I don't have any money on me.” He said when we got there, he could run inside and get his money to pay me. Cab drivers don't do this. I usually didn't do it. I'd been ripped off many times after someone had tugged my heartstrings a bit too hard.

But there was something about him. I can't say what it is, because to this day I don't know what it was, but I told him to get in.

There are two ways to get there, I told him. Geographically, the shortest way was cheaper, but would take a little longer. The longer way would save him some time, but would cost him quite a bit more. When he asked how much faster the longer route would get him home, I said it would save him two or three minutes, tops.

He chose the geographically short route. We had a pleasant conversation as the meter ran. He said he'd gotten a call from his wife to come pick her up. She was sick and needed to get to the doctor. The problem was that she had their car, and she felt unable to drive. He said he'd get home and take her to the doctor and all would be good. He seemed concerned, but not overly worried.

It was afternoon in Jackson and traffic was a little problematic, but not much. I got him to his house and he jumped out, saying he'd be right back. A few minutes later, he ran outside and paid me.

“I had to check on her first,” he said. “She is sick.” He thanked me, and I wished his lady well: “Hope she gets better!” or something like that. I drove away.

Two or three weeks later, I got a call on my cell phone from the dispatcher; a customer had called him and wanted to talk to me personally. Would I take the number and call the customer?

Sure.

A man answered and introduced himself. I didn't know his name, didn't know who he was until he said that I had picked him up a few weeks back and ran him home to pick up his wife.

Oh, yeah! I remember, I told him. How's your wife doing?

“She died. She died that afternoon.”

I slammed on the brakes and nearly wrecked getting to the curb. Stammering my words, I asked him what happened.

“She was alive when I came outside to pay you. When I got back inside, she had just died.”

In my life, I've felt bad many times, and I've felt horrible, sick, a few times. But never in my life have I felt as sick and horrified as I did then. I could barely breathe, my heart pounded. My mouth dried up, and of course I told him how very, very sorry I was.

He told me that it was okay, but he had needed to call me.

I could think of reasons why – he blamed me, he hated me, he wished that he and I had died in a flaming wreck on the way, if only so he didn't have to see her pass. He could wish that he'd never come back outside. I wished that. I wished that so, so much.

Why? Why did you need to call me?

“I needed to thank you.”

I actually burst into tears; I won't lie. There's an old trope of writing that says you can actually feel your heart break. Mine did then, for him and his wife. I wasn't clear; I know that. But I managed to ask – maybe it was a demand to know why he would thank me for that.

I could've raced him home! I should've taken the longer, faster route! I've broken hundreds of speeding laws in the past, ran more red lights and stop signs than I've had hot meals. Why on Earth would he thank me?

“Because you picked me up.”

I went silent. He told me that there was no one else that could have gotten him home any faster. When he got home and went inside, she was still conscious, but not really lucid. But she knew he was there. He spoke to her then came back outside to pay me. By the time he got back inside, she had passed. He told me that he was grateful that he had been outside when it happened; he didn't think he could've handled being with her when it happened. He said that two or three minutes more could not have helped, and he didn't think he would have lived if he had watched her die.

He thanked me for getting him there in time to see her, to speak with her one last time.

I was in knots, felt crushed. Tears ran down my face as he told me that his wife had never taken her health as seriously as she should have. He pointed out that she should have called 911 instead of him. He said that I was not to blame for this any more than he was. And he didn't blame her, either. It was just one of those terrible things that happened to people who didn't deserve it.

Should have. Could have. Would have.

I've never spoken to him again; I don't want to. I hope he never thinks of me. I hope he remembers more of her than just that afternoon.

Until last night, I'd forgotten this story. I had done my best to forget it.

What's the point of this story? One Should Take Better Care of Their Health? Bad Things Happen to People Who Don't Deserve It? When a Man Says His Wife is Sick, Break the Speed Limit to Get Him Home? Sometimes It Pays to Trust Someone?

No story I've collected has ever affected me the way this one has. To me, I still tighten up when I think about it; I still feel sick. I write this outside, on the porch, and I can still feel the claustrophobic crushing sensation I felt then, when he told me.

What does this mean to me? So much. What does it mean to him? It meant the world. What does it mean to you? Who knows.

What's the point of this story? There is none. Sometimes, often, the point of a story is the story itself.

--Edited for a few typos.

Heroes... Chapter Eight - "The Shining Way"

2010-02-20T21:23:00.001-08:00

Okay, welcome to Chapter 8 of Heroes..., my project that has been in progress for some time. After a delay of several months - brought on by a crippling bout of writers' block, a lack of time, and the Vista crash that cost me the last version of this, I'm finally ready to put this chapter up.

This is my second attempt to post this. I just spent hours doing the last one, and Our Lovely Host, Blogger, just failed to post it - and lost the entire dang thing. So I'm doing it again, but it's not so pretty as it was last time.

For those of you who can't remember what happened before - and for those new readers (Hi!), I've set up a couple of options for you. You can either catch up on the entire thing, or you can just read a summary of what has come before.

Read the Prologue - "Darkness"
Read Chapter 1 - "Malcolm"
Read Chapter 2 - "Dunbar"
Read Chapter 3 - "Sloan"
Read Chapter 4 - "Melbourn"
Read Chapter 5 - "Harbordown by Day"
Read Chapter 6 - "Tzal"
Read Chapter 7 - "Harbordown by Night"

If you're interested, you can also read "Melbourn's Storm" - a short story unrelated to the book, but set some time before and featuring one of Our Heroes.

To make it easy, there is a link at the end of each chapter so you can simply read on to the next one. As "Melbourn's Storm" is not part of the book, it isn't linked to the rest.

To Summarize:

Harbordown is a large maritime trading city in the fantasy nation of Nenderen. It is rough and mean at times, but those times are getting worse. Someone is murdering the young boys who light the city lamps.

Elias Merriwether Sloan, a sorcerer and information broker, is just starting to investigate the murders. But at the moment, he is about to meet an old friend who's just back in town...

Malcolm McMarsen is an officer-for-hire for merchant vessels trading out of Harbordown. After an eventful passage that included him capturing Red Wind, a pirate vessel, he is returning to town for new clothes, a bath with Raeline - his favorite bathing attendant, and some drinks with his good friends...

Dunbar Stormglow is a bene sidhe (great elf) bounty hunter. Tall, handsome, and strong, he is little like his fellow elf...

Melbourn is a mal sidhe (lesser elf) thief. He is currently "courting" a member of a foreign ambassador's retinue. In his spare time he breaks into noble manors as a favor to Sloan...

None of them know Tzal Rynn, a young priest from Geshuan who has been sent to Harbordown as a replacement. Not naive, but idealistic, he has already used his holy magic to help many members of the city's poor - to the level that he has expended every bit of magic he has, and in doing so, temporarily severed his link to his goddess, Semessa. He is already a bit disillusioned with what he has found in town. Exhausted and sore, he has made his way to the Shining Way, a tavern/inn where he has been told has rooms to rent.

Of course, the Shining Way is where the others are getting together.

**This must be noted. Heroes... is not for children - or for anyone of a really gentle nature. There is a bit of profanity, some adult situations, more than a bit of drinking, and quite a lot of violence and horror. Be warned. I don't like to shock people who were expecting some nice happy-unicorn kind of fantasy.
Further note: this chapter is the first time that all five are together, and it's primarily about how each perceives the other. Call it a transitional chapter, if you must, but it's vital to the story. If you need sea battles, check Chapter 1, fights and chase scenes - Chapter 2, conspiracies - Chapter 3, some thieving and a musical number - Chapter 4. Chapters 6 is all about the "new guy."

Feedback is always appreciated. That's why I post these. Leave comments here if you will. If you prefer not to make your comments public, you can email me, send me a DM or @ message on Twitter (@nickolaswriter), or let me know via Facebook. I'm easy to reach. Thank you all in advance.

----------------------------------------

Chapter Eight
The Shining Way

Still feeling the strain in his muscles, Tzal took the two steps up and through the doorway. A spectrum of noises, smells, and sights assaulted him. The most overpowering was the music. In the corner to his left, a fiddler leaned against a stool on a tiny stage. He was tall and lanky, with a head full of blond curls darkened by sweat. He played something like a reel, but faster. Notes were halved in length, doubled in number. He both tapped his toe and bobbed his head as he played. Sweat ran down his shining, smiling face. A dozen people danced in front of the stage, trying to match the tempo and mostly succeeding. Around the room, patrons stomped the floor or tapped their hands on the tables.

The fiddle player began a series of quick notes, carrying the music higher and faster still. He raised his bow and brought it down on the strings in a powerful swipe. As one, the crowd shouted, “Hai!” He raised the bow and struck again on the down stroke. Again the crowd shouted. Twice more he struck. The dancers stomped the floor in time to the shouts and about half the people in the rooms banged their tankards on the table, throwing ale into the air. The musician changed time from 4/4 to 2/4, playing a simple scale ending on an upstroke. With bow in the air, he finished by shouting his own, “Hey!”

He paused, holding the bow at arm’s length, only long enough for the applause to erupt. As it began, he started again, slowing to play a jig at normal speed. Dancing begun anew and applause became rhythmic clapping. Tzal smiled. It had been a long time since he’d seen such an energetic musician. He turned to examine the room.

Smoke rose from innumerable pipes, filling the taproom with a blue haze and an earthy tobacco smell. Candles burned on a few of the tables and oil lamps glowed above the bar. At the back of the room, a pair of tall, white candles burned on the fireplace hearth. The room was lit, but not light, filled with shadows, but not shadowy. It felt darkly safe, reminding Tzal of being in bed with the blankets over his head.

A dozen or so tables filled the room, each with six or seven chairs around it. Almost every chair was filled; only one table had any free seats. Tzal glanced at the bar, a virtual bulwark standing against a press of rickety high stools and sitting, standing, and leaning patrons. Odd semicircles covered the rough wood bar. Tzal cocked his head, unable to guess what they were. When a frowsy blonde in a shabby dress rested her elbows on the bar, his eyes widened. How long had it taken for the patrons’ arms to polish those half-circles into the wood?

Behind the bar, an older man and younger woman worked in concert. They passed by each other, doing nothing more than brushing against the other. He was big, with the build of an old stevedore or blacksmith. She was short, young, and buxom. She grinned at most of the customers, whereas he simply nodded. A tall, redheaded barmaid hefted a full tray and started across the room. Her hips swayed and her body shifted, carrying her through the crush of bodies, barely slowing her down. The tray itself rolled like the deck of Waverider, but nothing tumbled.

Beyond the end of the bar were a couple of doors and a flight of stairs leading up. To his right, beside the bar, the fishy aromas of harbor city cooking crept out from under another door. A line of benches functioned as tables and seats, and a handful of children were sitting and pushing each other, acting their ages. All wore mufti, but they also wore identical blue neckerchiefs. A voice from across the room boomed, “Messenger!” The leftmost boy bolted from his seat, ran around one table, under another, and held out his hand. A heavyset man dropped a coin in his palm and recited the message. A few seconds later, the boy pushed past Tzal and ran into the street.

At the far end of the taproom loomed the large stone fireplace. Tzal nodded his approval. It was barely early autumn, but cold, damp air would be on them soon. Above the hearth, the mantle was bare of anything except the candles, a painting, and a broadsword. The sword looked old, but didn’t appear to be rusted. The painting appeared to be of a group of standing men.

Tzal waded into the crowd. A hole appeared in front of the bar. He pushed past a chatting couple and bumped into somebody’s back. Catching what sounded like an indrawn hiss, he saw a man’s eyes glaring at him from over a shoulder. Before he finished his apology, another patron had plugged the hole. Tzal grumbled to himself and aimed his sore, aching body at the only empty seats he could see.

The table was near the stairs, closer to the fireplace than the stage. Two of the chairs were empty, but a pair of young women sat on the laps on two men. If taproom culture was the same here as in Geshuan then they were free for anyone lucky enough to grab one. He cinched his bag up on his shoulder and reached for one of the chairs. He turned, ducked, and bumped the table as the redheaded barmaid passed.

“Stop moving,” she said. “I’d have gone around you.”

Tzal nodded, pulled the chair away from the table, and collapsed in it. Every face at the table turned to look at him.

“Why, the impertinence,” said a mal sidhe, sitting across the table. He made a blue-and-black dagger appear in his hand. “I don’t recall issuing you an invitation.” He flipped the blade up, catching it point-first on his fingertip. It wavered a moment, but remained hilt-up. The stunning woman with dark brown skin turned on the sidhe’s lap, glaring at Tzal.

He looked away, glancing around the table. A half-full platter of cheeses, a pot of spicy mustard, and a few cracked clay mugs lay scattered. He glanced to his right. A tall, handsome bene sidhe nursed a tankard of ale, but kept his eyes on him. It was as if he were being summed up, totaled. Between the two sidhe sat a man best described as dull, brown, and average. He sipped from his tankard and gazed at Tzal from over the rim.

Tzal’s eyes passed over him and back to the dark woman and mal sidhe. He had added a second dagger, balancing it on his middle finger. With his free hand, he took a deep drink from a half-empty bottle of whiskey and banged it back on the table.

A wiry man, dressed in new-looking finery, sat in the last chair. He smelled clean; actually, he smelled of lavender – as did the slim blond woman sitting in his lap. The aromatic man glanced over his shoulder and snorted, either at Tzal or the dagger trick.

Tzal saw movement across the table and jumped. The mal sidhe snapped his hand and both daggers flew up. One thunked point-first into the center of the table, the other slapped hilt-first into his hand.

“His eyes,” he growled. “I want his eyes!”

Tzal started to speak, but the brown man interrupted.

“Do shut up,” he said. “Errin,” he yelled, “can you bring a tankard for our friend Tzal?”

* * *

Dunbar was the last to arrive, as was his wont. He passed half a dozen people dancing to Derek’s reels and took one of the three remaining seats at the table. A tankard of ale waited for him. He hefted it and nodded to Malcolm. The waiting tankard was likely his way of saying “hello.” Malcolm hoisted his bottle of wine and saluted him. They leaned forward and thumped the vessels together. Dunbar had to reach a bit further; the tart on Malcolm’s lap got in the way. Her face was vaguely familiar, but then so were many of the women Malcolm saw. Only when he introduced her to him did Dunbar realize that they hadn’t ever met.

“I’m happy to meet you, Raeline.” In sidhe culture it was polite to inquire how they met, but the first few times he had done that with Malcolm – or with Melbourn, for that matter – it had proved to be somewhat embarrassing. Instead he just smiled at her and spared no more thoughts on where Malcolm had acquired her.

Malcolm himself looked healthy; the sea always seemed to well by him. He had bathed and perfumed himself, a luxury he reveled in every time he returned to Harbordown. He smiled; at least he had left that ugly hat in his rooms.

He turned and looked at his other friends. Melbourn sat with Sashama Altieri, whom he had been squiring around town for a few days. She was the daughter of one of the Astaran diplomats and would be returning home soon. Astar was the wealthiest nation in the Basin, and diplomats and their families all came from nobility. He also approved of her, visually; she was quite lovely. On the other hand, she found Melbourn attractive and had actually referred to him as “manly,” which only proved that the lovely Sashama was, in fact, quite out of her head.

Next to him, Elias Merriwether Sloan nodded. He was alone; his wife, Elenaya, rarely mingled with the others. He didn’t know why. She had carried on lengthy conversations with Dunbar, and he knew she actually liked the others. But she chose to separate her life from her husband’s in this area. Sloan was at ease, comfortable in his chair, but then he always was. In front of him were an empty tankard, a platter of cheeses, and a pot of mustard. Dunbar motioned to the platter. Sloan slid it to him.

“Would you slide the mustard, too?”

Sloan sighed dramatically and pushed it toward him. Dunbar dipped a thick wedge of sage cheese into the mustard and popped it into his mouth. He washed it down with a bit of ale, and looked back at Sloan. He found him watching the front door.

Dunbar turned just enough to see at what Sloan was looking. He’d learned a few years ago that if something interested Elias Sloan, it almost always interested the rest of them.

But the only thing happening at the door was the man standing just inside it.

* * *

Sloan was third to arrive. Derek had just started a reel and two couples were dancing. The room was nearly three-quarters full of people he knew. Those he didn’t recognize he glanced at, analyzed, and dismissed as unimportant. He spoke to Errin and Alyce, a zaftig blond barmaid, and ordered a couple of tankards.

Malcolm and Melbourn were waiting at their table, each with a companion. Malcolm’s girl was pretty, not beautiful. She seemed more like a real woman and less like an ornament, which sadly, was what he normally selected. Melbourn’s companion was not the daughter of the Astaran ambassador; she was one of his concubines, and her name was actually Chyla. Apparently the ambassador preferred to dabble with Downer ladies while in town; Chyla had spent most of her time away from the embassy. She would be leaving with him tomorrow, though. Of that he was certain.

He greeted Malcolm, who smelled fresh and clean, and let him introduce him to Raeline. He gave her a quick shake, passed behind Melbourn, and took his seat.

Onstage, O’Fallon was just starting “The Bull’s Lament,” a slip jig as profane as it was lively. At the next table, Gerhardt Padam, one of the Candle Street neighborhood’s most common sights, was discussing a get-rich-quicker scheme with Budrow Blue, the owner of Candle Street Messengers, the shop of those that wore the blue. In his usual gentle tones, Budrow pointed out the flaws in Gerhardt’s plans, but did so in a way that his dreams were not crushed. They’d been friends for eleven years, and had played these same roles the entire time.

O’Fallon slipped into a fast-moving bridge, playing only the fiddle. But for just a second, Sloan distinctly heard the rolling tones of a hurdy-gurdy. It was there for a moment, adding a bit of whimsy, and then it was gone. There was always more going on in O’Fallon’s music than most people heard.

“Get what you needed?” Melbourn asked, tapping into Sloan’s reverie.

“Yes.”

“Good. Will you be attending the wedding?”

“I believe I will.”

“Excellent.”

Errin arrived and set two full tankards of ale in front of him. Sloan pushed one to the empty seat next to him and left it. As he took his first drink of the evening, he idly examined the table. A pair of clay mugs lay broken on it; Malcolm must have tried juggling again. In front of Melbourn was a platter of cheeses, with only one wedge of Smoked Yaer left. He didn’t quite smile. That was the thief’s favorite, so he was likely feeling homesick again.

He tapped the table and pointed at the platter. Melbourn reached around Chyla and slid it to him. He popped a slice of Red Nender into his mouth.

“You know what would be good with that?” Melbourn asked.

Sloan’s eyes darted to him before he could stop himself. Sitting on the table was the very pot of mustard Melbourn had stolen from his house. Sloan picked it up and reclaimed it.

“Where’s my damn candle?”

“It is performing stellar service in my room, protecting it from the demon Ghoros.”

Sloan began to retort, but skipped it when Melbourn pointed with his chin and said, “Dunbar.” He turned to look at the tall sidhe was making his way across the room. Idly he dipped a piece of cheese into the mustard and ate it. Cursed sidhe – it was tastier this way. He pointedly ignored the thief, watching Dunbar instead. Only when he realized that Dunbar was frantically trying to recall Raeline’s name did he allow himself a smile.

Sloan shifted his attention back to the troubadour. He had just begun the “Two Brothers’ Reel,” and the dancers in front of the stage seemed even happier. He caught another musical anomaly – three quick notes in counterpoint to the melody, played on a flute. He glanced back from the dancers to the troubadour, confirming that he was playing nothing but the fiddle.

When he glanced back to his own table, Dunbar was just looking toward him. He gave him a welcoming nod, which was Dunbar’s preferred form of greeting. His second was requesting food. Sloan slid the cheeses to him, then the mustard. He sighed; there was very little chance he’d get the pot home tonight. Dunbar’s appetite was legendary.

Ignoring a chuckle from Melbourn, he looked around the room again and found a man standing in the doorway, clearly out of place. He carried a bag on his shoulder, was sweat-drenched, and looked as if he could barely stand. Even with all that, he seemed nearly to glow.

He leaned back and watched the man attempt to absorb the sensations of the Shining Way. Scratching his chin, he spoke two silent Words, ones always near the top of his mind. A thick magical aura surrounded the man; it was as if he had absorbed magic itself.

No. No, it wasn’t. The aura surrounded, but didn’t touch him. It was as if the air around him had absorbed magic. The man himself was devoid. Sloan spoke three more Words, reaching out to touch the newcomer with his magic. His mind vibrated with recognition; the man wielded holy divinos magic; he was a priest. But he was bereft of magic.

For the first time tonight, Sloan was fascinated.

* * *

Melbourn finished tucking the long tails of a bright red shirt into his trousers and threw open the door of his room. A dark female form glided in and wrapped her arms around him. He felt a sudden obligation to kiss her, and indulged himself. He pulled her inside and kicked the door closed. When he could no longer breathe, he pulled away and took a deep breath. He smiled.

“I’m glad that was you, Chyla.”

“Good. Do you kiss every woman that comes to the door?”

“Yes. Unless they are fleet of feet, or well-armed.”

“So am I Chyla again?”

He kissed her on the mouth, biting her lower lip. “You’re always Chyla to me. You’re Sashama to the plebes.”

“You didn’t have to rename me, you know.”

“It seemed obnoxious enough for an ambassador’s daughter.”

“It is. Her name is actually Beronita.”

“Is she anywhere near as pretty as the ambassador’s concubine?”

“She’s prettier than I am.”

“Oh, dear girl, you’re a liar.”

“You’re a strange old sidhe, Melbourn, but you’re sweet.”

“I am both those things. You look lovely tonight.”

“Thank you.” Chyla picked at his sleeve. “Red is not your color. Where’s your blue?”

“I wear blue all the time.”

“You look good in it.”

“I bet I look better out of it.”

“You do. If you’ll put it on, I’ll make it worth your while.” She kissed him and pressed the palm of her hand against his crotch. The response was immediate.

Melbourn groaned.

“Is that your way of saying you’ll change shirts?”

"Indeed. Any chance of having my while made worth right now?”

“Later. I don’t want to mess my hair up yet.”

“I could scuff your hands and knees if you prefer.”

“I think not.” She pushed him away.

Melbourn shimmied out of the red shirt and dropped it on a chest of drawers, making sure it didn’t land on the red candle burning atop it. He pulled a blue shirt from his wardrobe. Chyla joined him and buttoned the shirt, which felt wonderful. It felt even more wonderful when she tucked the back of his shirt into his trousers. When she tried to tuck the front of his shirt, he stopped her and took care of that on his own.

“Melbourn?”

“Yes, love?”

“Why do you have a pot of mustard up here?”

“There are times when a man feels the craving that only spicy mustard can fill. Let us take it with.” He picked up the pot and found his vest. Several things shifted inside it while he donned and secured it.

“Ready?”

“Yes. Where are you taking me tonight?”

“To the finest establishment in town; the place where we went on our first night. I have a friend I’d like you to meet.”

“Downstairs?”

They left his room and descended into the Shining Way. Near the door, Derek was playing a dirty little bar ditty on the fiddle and singing along. No one danced yet, but the bard did what he could to entice a couple to the floor. Melbourn and Chyla entered the taproom and found Malcolm sitting at the table with a pretty young woman next to him. The ugly floppy hat and feather was on his head. Melbourn grabbed the hat and threw it behind the bar.

“Hide that thing!” He yelled to Giorg.

Malcolm jumped up. They shook hands and introduced their companions to each other. Melbourn took Raeline’s hand in his and kissed the air just above it. Malcolm attempted to do the same to Chylapo, but it was sloppy and quite frankly below his usual standards.

“You’re drinking already,” he told the sailor.

“I have been a bit. I’ve had a bit of wine, I have.”

“I see. You’re have-drunk already.” Melbourn slid into the chair next to Raeline and let Chyla climb into this lap. He rolled his eyes as she shifted her weight on him several times.

“Giorg!” He yelled, hoping his voice didn’t crack, “Whiskey!”

“What happened while I was at sea?” Malcolm asked before picking up a bit of dwarf-goat cheese from a platter and chewing it.

“Very little. There was some drinking, a bit of thieving, some wenching…” He twitched as she shifted her weight again. “Then there was the cracking of Barrendon House, but I know nothing about that.”

“Really? That surprises me a bit.”

“It’s quite shocking how little I actually know of the subject. But enough about me: tell us of your adventures, my friend.”

“There’s little to tell, I’m afraid. I can tell you about Red Wind, but there’s not much to it.”
The redheaded wench appeared with a bottle of whiskey and a clay mug. Melbourn grinned; Giorg had gone to clay tonight for them. He ordered a glass of wine for Chyla; it was what she always wanted to drink.

He listened as Malcolm told the story. As he was describing his fight with Red Wind’s captain and his arms were flailing about, Gerhardt Padam – that genial, good-natured fool – yelled, “Juggle!”

Malcolm grinned and snatched up their clay mugs, placing them next to his. He tossed back the contents of each one and stood.

He’d admit that Malcolm was better than most, but it always ended the same way – with a crash and a crash and a crash. As one cracked mug limped across the table, he shook his head, feeling only the slightest bit guilty. He had once juggled seven mugs and Malcolm had been trying to keep up ever since.

He ordered more wine for Chyla, but neither he nor Malcolm bothered with new mugs; the bottles were enough. As Malcolm finished the story, Melbourn swiped the cheese platter and partook of a bit of Blue Crumble. Chyla nibbled at the Smoked Yaer.

When Sloan approached, Melbourn snatched the mustard pot from the table and hid it in Chyla’s lap. After she quit squirming, he looked up and saw Sloan shake Raeline’s hand. There were some things that the man simply couldn’t get right. As if he could read his mind, Sloan ignored him and took his seat. He leaned back and started to soak up the room.

This was something he did get right. Melbourn knew he could scout a room as fast and well as anyone, but only the quiet wizard next to him could feel a room’s atmosphere without even trying. He let the man have a few moments before asking how it went. Getting his answer, he went back to nuzzling Chyla and drinking. Only after he’d given Malcolm’s food to Sloan – which bothered him not one bit – did he produce the spicy mustard and watch Sloan redden. It was his way of slipping a needle into him. Recently, every time they’d seen each other, Sloan had eyed Chyla in that way he had. He wanted to know what the information broker knew, but he didn’t want to know enough to tell him what he knew.

After blowing off Sloan’s silly candle demand, he glanced up. Dunbar came through the front door. Before Sloan could find something else to whine about, he pointed at the door and gave him something else to look at. He prepared a greeting of his own, but Chyla chose that moment to slide her hand down the front of his pants.

He gasped and pulled her closer while trying to extricate her hand. She seemed to have no interest in letting go.

“When are we going upstairs?”

“You’re a brazen wench,” he said. “We go when I say we go.”

“Fine. When do we go?”

“Soon, soon, I promise. But first we should nod our greetings to yon surly one.” As he greeted Dunbar he was able to yank her hand from his trousers. As he whispered promises of ravishment to come, he realized that everyone else at the table was watching a man wading through the crowd and coming toward the table.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“Tzal Rynn,” Sloan answered.

“Who’s that?”

“Weren’t you listening?”

“No, I was busy and she had her hands full. He’s coming over here.”

“Yes, he is.”

“He looks nervous.”

“He’s not,” Sloan said with certainty.

“Hmm,” Melbourn said, “he should be.” He slipped a knife from his sleeve.

* * *

Malcolm was alone when he arrived at the Shining Way. Raeline said she would meet him later, but he knew from previous experiences that she might not. He took a moment to check his appearance: crisp new tan pants and a white Lamaster shirt, short leather boots shined to a finish, and his hat. He’d had it replumed; a deep green feather protruded jauntily from it. It had been cleaned, starched, buffed, and made to look sharp – like its owner. He leaned down to check the boots. For a moment, he wished Giorg would put a bench outside for occasions such as this.

As exhausted as he was, as relaxed as bathing with Raeline made him, he still needed to come here and unwind. It would mean a long night in the taproom – drinking, carousing, drinking, and eating – and it would encroach on any time he might get with her, or any other woman. But no matter how much he tried to relax, he never could the first night home. To avoid the Shining Way was simply beyond him. He surrendered to his passions and threw open the door.

The patrons, most of them regulars and familiar, welcomed him back. He shook hands and clapped shoulders and made his way to the table, calling out his order in his usual fashion. When it arrived, he glanced at the tall redheaded barmaid who had brought it. She was fairly pretty, and would be prettier if not for the out-of-place tooth in the left half of her smile.

“I don’t know you,” Malcolm said. “What’s your name?”

“Errin.”

“How long have you been working here?”

“Four months.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. Anyone who works here is a friend of mine.”

“That’s good,” she said, showing her slightly crooked smile. “Can I get you anything to eat?”

“Surprise me. Just make sure it won’t get in the way of the wine.”

She left. He uncorked the bottle and poured a large splash into the clay mug. He drained it, filled it, and drained it again. He leaned back and listened as Derek O’Fallon played and sang “Prince Peter,” the vulgar tune about a ruler and his huge “rod of command.” He sang along with the bard, watching as a beautiful dark-skinned woman slipped through the room and up the stairs. When the song ended, he yelled out for “The Merry Widow,” his favorite. Derek pointed at him with his bow and nodded deeply.

He was banging his mug in time with the tune when the door opened and Raeline walked in. He jumped up, nearly falling over his chair. Making sure his hat was in place, he went to meet her. When they got to the table, a platter of cheeses waited. He immediately ignored them, so he could focus on her.

It only got better after that. Raeline took his hand and smiled at him, with both eyes and mouth. Melbourn and his lovely arrived. The jealous bastard swiped his hat and admitted to cracking a noble house, but didn’t want to say anything more. Instead, Malcolm told them about Red Wind, pausing only long enough to juggle a trio of mugs. It was clear to himself that he was a bit drunk. He lost control of the mugs early and simply couldn’t keep up. After they crashed to the table and floor, he couldn’t remember where in the story he’d left off. He aimed for somewhere near the middle and hoped he hit close to the target.

Not long after, Raeline surprised him by climbing into his lap and trying to get comfortable. “Sashama makes this looks easy,” she muttered to him.

Sloan appeared, and he and Melbourn spoke. Raeline leaned her head against his and asked if he was okay.

“I’ll be fine. I’ve just had too much to drink too fast.”

“I hope you’re right.” She kissed him on the cheek. Delighted, he returned the kiss. Their lips brushed then met. When they parted, Raeline smiled.

“That’s all you get for now.”

“That could satisfy any man for a day.”

Apparently Raeline lied; she kissed him again. When they parted, Dunbar had arrived and was taking his seat. As the big sidhe raised his tankard, Malcolm saluted him with his bottle. He leaned forward and they tapped vessels. Her grip tightened on him as he shifted. When he sat back, she muttered, “Not easy at all.”

He chuckled.

“Who is that?” she asked.

He sighed and introduced them, cursing his manners as he did.

Raeline shifted and stretched.

“Are you sure you don’t want a chair?”

“No. I want your lap. I just want to be better at doing this.” She kissed him on the nose. He grinned and glanced around, to see if any of his friends had witnessed that. Instead he saw Dunbar and Sloan watching the door, and Melbourn and Sashama playing a bit of slap-and-tickle. Lovely girl, he thought. It’s always the high-class girls who are the biggest tarts. Looking away, he turned to see what the others were watching.

* * *

“That’s an odd man,” Sloan said.

Malcolm looked back at him, watched him crossing into the room.

“He just got in.”

“Really,” Sloan didn’t ask.

“He’s still got sea legs, he has a bindle, and he’s only looking for a place to stay now. He came in late. That puts him on Waverider. It came in after us.”

Sloan looked at Malcolm, who was already a bit drunk. At times he marveled at the wiry sailor’s ability to string logical ideas like pearls on a necklace.

“Waverider is out of Geshuan, is it not?” Dunbar asked.

“It is.”

They watched him look for a spot at the bar. Finding none, he kept looking over at their table. Sloan realized they probably had the only free seats. They watched as he turned to examine the room, looking at the fireplace behind them, at the benches, at the messengers, at the barmaids, at pretty much everything except where he was going. Twice he nearly ran into the backs of heads and once he just missed stepping on Ill-Tempered Orval’s tail.

“He’s lucky there,” Malcolm said. “Orval would’ve put him through a wall.”

“Geshuan, did you say?” Sloan asked.

“Aye,” both Dunbar and Malcolm answered.

“He’s not a big city fellow,” Sloan commented.

“He’s a rube,” Malcolm said. “Grennog’s Hold maybe. Nothing bigger than that.” Dunbar nodded agreement.

“That explains it,” Sloan said.

“What does?” Dunbar asked.

“He’s a priest.” Sloan said. Dunbar nodded.

“How do you know?” Raeline said, joining the conversation.

“I can tell,” Sloan said. “It’s in his aura.”

“He’s wearing scarves on his belt,” Dunbar added. “Those are the colors of Semessa. They’re much more common in Geshuan than here.”

“Besides, the church is expecting new priests,” Sloan said. “I know that one is coming from Geshuan – Grennog’s Hold, to be exact.” He saluted Malcolm, he grinned back.

“But how do you know that?” Raeline asked, watching him.

“I know all sorts of things,” he said, smiling at her. “His name is Tzal Rynn, I believe. It might be Derben Kilmer, though. I can’t remember which was from Geshuan and which was from Duncannon.”

“Rynn is a Geshuani name,” Dunbar said.

“And there you go,” Sloan said.

“What he won’t tell you is that he’s a member of Semessa’s church,” Malcolm told Raeline.

“It’s all still about the knowing,” Sloan responded.

Melbourn looked up suddenly and asked who they were looking at.

“Tzal Rynn,” Sloan answered. He continued to watch the priest’s aura as he arrived. A bit of purple flashed as Melbourn threatened him. Sloan could see Malcolm trying to suppress a smile at the newcomer’s discomfort and assumed that Dunbar was doing the same thing he was doing – watching for a reaction. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw even Chyla/Sashama join the game, glaring at him. He suppressed a smile of his own and shook the sorcerous vision free as Melbourn upped the odds.

Tzal Rynn didn’t look nervous; he looked a bit confused and a bit annoyed.

“Do shut up,” Sloan told Melbourn. “Errin,” he yelled to their barmaid, “can you bring a tankard for our friend Tzal?”

Melbourn's Storm (edit)

2009-12-14T18:12:00.000-08:00

Howdy, y'all. This is the first major edit of "Melbourn's Storm," and as always I am mas grateful to my friends in the North County Writers of Speculative Fiction, who provide needed support and feedback (of all kinds).

------------------------------

This second version of "Melbourn's Storm" has been removed. It has been replaced by this current version.

Melbourn's Storm

2009-10-21T19:57:00.000-07:00

This is the first short story I've ever written regarding the Heroes. The time setting doesn't matter, except that it is definitely before the work-in-progress novel.

It's about 4,800 words - about 17 pages on Word. As usual, let me know what you think of this. Be kind; it's only a first go-round.

Thanks!

-----------------------------------------------

This first version of "Melbourn's Storm" has been removed and replaced with this current version.

"A Chilling Wind" (edit)

2009-08-26T14:01:00.000-07:00

This is the first (and probably final) edit of "A Chilling Wind." I got some outstanding feedback from my writer's group - the North County Writers of Speculative Fiction - and wanted to put this up with some of their suggested changes.

** Actually, this is now the last edit. I have submitted this for competition and have made a few tiny tweaks here and there.

-----------------------------------------------------

A Chilling Wind

Fifty-four stories over the city, a blond man stepped out onto a small patio. Shirtless, he buttoned his jeans closed as he stepped to the railing. A chilling breeze tossed the curls around his ears and neck and puckered the sweaty skin of his chest. He started to rest against the wrought-iron railing, but his left hand slipped. He wiped it on his leg and grabbed the rail again. Leaning over as far as he could, he gazed down into the steel and concrete canyons below him. In the movies, one could always hear sirens and screams and watchdogs barking. In reality, from this height the air was mostly silent; the wind across his ears was the dominant sound.

He’d left the woman in the bedroom, lying spent on damp sheets. To be honest, which he preferred to be, he couldn’t remember her name, but he thought it started with an M – a Michelle, or Melissa, or Melinda perhaps. Her two sons were sleeping in their bedroom. He’d done his best to avoid waking them as he left their mother’s bedroom and came outside. There was no reason to scare these children. It would be pointless and cruel.

Fear was contagious, and there was no one for them to share their fear with. There’d be no comfort from their mother, no rescue from men in uniforms. Like most apartments in buildings this tall, the rooms were nearly soundproof, and even if he left the door to the patio open, any noise they made would simply be lost in the silence outside.

He turned and went back into the living room. Leaving the lights off, he made his way past darkened modern furniture and went into the kitchen. He found and flipped a switch. Overhead lights flickered a moment and came on. Glancing around, he found what he was looking for a few feet away. He began to reach for a knife block and stopped. He raised both his hands. His right palm was somewhat clear of blood, from when he wiped it on his jeans. The left was stained and beginning to dry. For a few seconds, he rubbed both his hands on his pants. He would wash them, but it might make the knife slip, and he wanted this over with as quickly as possible.

It was a distasteful thing, killing children.

He yanked the largest knife from the block and hurried from the kitchen. As he passed their mother’s bedroom, he pushed the door open again. “M” lay on her back on red sheets, her eyes open, her face disfigured from the beating he had given her before using a small razor to rip her throat open. He gave his handiwork only a moment’s more thought, then moved on to the boys’ room.

He was quick. In all the years he’d been doing this, he’d never enjoyed killing the children. He’d never call it a necessary evil, but it was that. Neither boy woke as he worked. He breathed a sigh of relief as he finished. It was much easier if the children never woke, never cried, or screamed or begged.

He tossed the knife to the floor and left it. Fingerprints weren’t something that worried him; no one had ever printed him. He left the bedroom and went back to the patio, flipping blood onto the glass door as he passed it. Again he grabbed the rail and let the wind caress him.

“Why do you persist in doing this?”

The blond man didn’t startle or jump at the voice from the living room. He didn’t even turn to see who it was or bother to answer.

“Not even we do this,” a dark man in the darkened room stated.

“Yes,” the blond man answered. “Yes, you do.”

“No,” the man said from inside. “My people have no hand in that. You forget what we do.”

The blond man turned around and leaned against the railing, letting the air cool his sweaty back. From here, he couldn’t quite see his opponent. A moment later, he saw a dull red glow at around head height.

“Are you smoking?” The blond man asked.

“I usually do. It’s how I handle fear.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“You. Your people. Your side.”

Reaching out to grip the railing, the blond man laughed. “You people always get things wrong. We offer hope. We offer security. We offer—”

“Safety? A world free from psycho killers, someone that will murder a single mother and her two boys – is that what your side offers?”

“Yes.”

“And you think we get it backwards. You traffic in terror, fear. It’s your side that has spent all these years trying to frighten the people – not us.”

The blond man pushed away from the railing and walked back into the apartment. His opponent sat on one of the modern chairs, a cigarette in his hand.

“It’s your side we’re keeping them from,” the blond man said. He’d had this conversation before, so many times. He had answered, using the same points he always did.

“Why?” the man asked him. “We’re not the party of the first choice. We’re the party of failed expectations. We’re those who aren’t perfect. Of course people will come to us. Your side asks for too much. You always have. You’ve seen that striving for a narrow definition of perfection doesn’t work, so you’re trying to frighten them to come to you.”

“One should always strive for perfection,” the blond man said, as he turned and walked out onto the porch again.

“One can strive and seek, but one should be allowed to fall short.”

“No,” the blond man said, as he rested against the rail. “But they do, time and again they do.”
“So instead of seeking perfection, the people seek sanctuary. That’s been your go-to move for a very long time. Offer them hope, offer them security, then offer them…”

“Salvation,” the blond man said.

“Keep doing that,” the dark man said, and stood. “Terrorize the people, frighten them. Give them enemies of the world, enemies of the country, enemies of God, enemies on their own block. Give them a world to be frightened of, and then…” He waved his hand toward the bedroom. “Show them that some things really are as terrible as they’ve been told.”

The dark man walked to the doorway and grinned at the blond man. “And you wonder why we’re going to win. We don’t have to do a thing.”

“You can’t,” the blond man said, glancing over his shoulder at his opponent. “We have all the power.”

“At this point,” the dark man said, “all you have is the power to frighten. What’s worse – the horrifying acts of a madman, or the terrifying hand of God?”

The blond man leapt up onto the rail. He wavered just a moment, then caught his balance. He raised his head and looked up into the sky. His wings unfurled, grasping at the breeze. He turned once more and looked at the dark man, waiting in the doorway for an answer. He gave him the best one he had:

“Does it matter?”

His feet left the railing and the chilling wind played across his face and body as he rose into the sky.

A Chilling Wind

2009-07-31T21:54:00.000-07:00

This version of "A Chilling Wind" is now gone. It has been replaced by this current version.

Heroes... Chapter Seven - "Harbordown by Night"

2009-06-25T01:01:00.001-07:00

Howdy! This is the newest chapter of "Heroes..." and features almost everyone you've met so far, and introduces two more - you'll know them when you see them.

Please remember, I am actively seeking feedback on this. Please let me know what you think. My plan is this: if it sees publication, those folks who have given me regular feedback - or plenty of it - will find their names listed in the dedication. I am not kidding about this. It's very important to me.

This is a long chapter - nearly 4000 words. I thank you for reading!

-----------------------------------------

Chapter Seven
Harbordown By Night

“Good evening, Dunbar.”

“Mr. Jerrold.”

“You’ve come for the bounty, I assume.”

“I have,” Dunbar said.

“Just a moment; it’s in the back. Watch the front, will you?” Titus Jerrold, Harbordown’s exchequer, left him alone in the front office. Dunbar drifted to the only wall that interested him. A dozen hand-copied posters hung there, the gallery of felons whom the city most wished to have in custody. A dozen hard faces drawn in ink glared down as Dunbar perused their crimes. Two-Dagger Hamish’s poster was gone, along with his list of crimes. The face of a church-thief was nailed in its place. Dunbar memorized the face, name, and list of crimes. Before Mr. Jerrold returned, he was waiting at the exchequer’s desk.

“I’ll need you to sign,” Mr. Jerrold said.

“Of course.” Dunbar signed his name in florid script on the receipt offered him and pushed it back across the desk.

“Ten silver sails,” Jerrold told him, placing a fist-sized sack in his hand. “I’ve broken it into shields and pennies, as you prefer.” As usual, Dunbar weighed it in his hand and slipped it inside his shirt.

“Is there still no word on Jaan Craymore or Den Tuller?” Dunbar pointed to the oldest posters.

“No,” the exchequer told him, folding the receipt neatly. “We’ve heard nothing from Tuller; he’s simply vanished. We believe Craymore took ship and left months ago. He has family in Northport, we’re told.”

“Another one gone to sea.”

“It’s the simplest way to avoid capture.”

“It’s cowardly,” Dunbar stated.

“Yes,” Mr. Jerrold said, “but not too many wish to remain here and be nabbed by the Watch or be caught up by the city’s finest bounty hunter.”

“I’m not yet the finest. Burrell the Bold still holds that honor.”

“He has retired, Dunbar.”

“Until I – or someone else – surpasses his number of retrievals, he’s the best.”

“Have it your way. Will you be attending the hanging?”

“The trial hasn’t been held yet.”

“What’s your point?”

* * *

“Are ye ready?” asked the man dressed in red and black.

The woman dressed as he was looked up and nodded. She pulled on her boots and stood up, flipping hair out of her eyes.

“I’m ready.” She spoke a language not often heard in Harbordown.

“Speak Talberan,” the man said. “Ye know I can’t understand ye.”

“Ready,” she said.

“Good. I’ve got our place picked out. It’ll do.” He turned and saw her blades lying on the bed, near where they had just been.

“Don’t faerget yer swaerds.”

“Knives,” she said in perfect Talberan, sliding the blades into their sheaths.

“Knives then,” Jaan Craymore said. “Let’s get moving. That lamplighter’s not going to kill himself.”

* * *

Malcolm sighed. He leaned back in the huge copper bath, arms behind his head, and closed his eyes. Steam clouded around him and embedded sea salt started to loosen from his skin. The only thing he missed about land while he was at sea was being able to get properly clean. The two pints of water he was allotted per day for ablutions simply didn’t cut it.

With his eyes still closed, he reached out toward a small table holding a tray, a glass, and a bottle. He fumbled a moment, found the glass, and slid it away. He wrapped his hand around the neck of the bottle and drank deeply. He sighed again and set the bottle back on the tray. Fine, he thought, two things. There were two things he missed when he was at sea.

He inhaled the aroma of the bath oils, the scents of jasmine and lavender. With the scalding water seeping into his muscles, he relaxed further. Content, he slipped into sleep. When he jerked awake, a sharp blade rested against his throat. He looked into the eyes of the woman holding it.

“Hello, Raeline.”

“Good evening, Mr. McMarsen,” she said.

Malcolm pulled away from the razor and turned to look at her. She was young, with blond hair and bright green eyes. He knew she’d never be called beautiful, but he suspected she’d often been called pretty. She was nude but for the comb in her hair and the razor in her hand.

Three things – three things he missed about land when he was at sea.

“How many times do I have to tell you to call me Malcolm?”

“As many times as I’ve had to tell you that we run a respectable place, Mr. McMarsen,” she said. “Now are you going to let me shave you?”

Malcolm made himself comfortable as Raeline lathered his face and used the bright blade to scrape it smooth. He sat still until she finished. When she grabbed soap and sponge and started washing his back and shoulders, he sighed in her direction.

“That’s my favorite part,” he said.

“Mmm?”

“Whenever you touch me…that’s my favorite part.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“No, no. You can encourage me all you want,” Malcolm said.

She laughed until a rap at the door spoiled the moment.

“Enter!” Malcolm roared.

A short, balding man entered the room. He was dressed conservatively, yet squarely within fashion.

“Mr. Trowbridge. It’s good to know your bathhouse’s service hasn’t suffered while I was at sea.”

The proprietor bowed. “Thank you, Mr. McMarsen. The man from Lamaster’s has arrived with some samples.”

“Excellent. Send him in, please.”

Trowbridge bowed again and left, shutting the door behind him.

“Want to help me pick out some new clothes, Raeline?”

“Don’t I always, Malcolm?”

“Yes, you do.” He paused. “Did you call me Malcolm?”

“Perhaps.”

“Do it again.”

“Not now. Maybe later tonight I will.”

Malcolm raised an eyebrow and smiled.

* * *

The sign over the shop read “Danerel’s Keys & Locks.” Melbourn threw open the door and let the hinges squeak, as he knew they would do. The man behind the high desk didn’t glance in his direction; he continued chatting with the customer in front of him. Melbourn crossed his arms and leaned against the doorjamb. It was useless to attempt to be stealthy here; one simply couldn’t sneak up on Danerel.

Danerel Snowmantle had been one of the city’s most successful thieves. He’d never been caught, never even been seriously considered a criminal. He retired at age thirty and went into business as a fence. Now he bought items from other thieves, rarely asking questions, but often taking notes. Melbourn knew that he remained retired, but only from thieving. He still dabbled occasionally in piracy, kidnapping, and smuggling. The man had rooms all over Harbordown and on Castigan Island. He had a home in Port Wehry that Melbourn knew of and owned a portion of Tattenrall Station, a cattle ranch on the north end of the big island. Melbourn was certain that Danerel had more even more homes, more businesses, and more secrets. Only a terrible fence would let anyone know all the dirt – even if they claimed to be friends.

Melbourn unfolded his arms and stepped away from the door – business at the desk was done. He nodded to the customer as she passed, and waited for her to leave. As the door closed, he crossed to the desk and dropped the scroll case on it.

“You’re late,” Danerel said.

“I’ve been busy – and so were you.”

“Bah. Selling Goodwife Horrocks a new set of keys isn’t busy. Would you like her house number and a spare key?”

“No. You’d probably send me to the home of a watch commander.”

“For anyone who’d steal from a goodwife? You’re right. I’d also send you there for making me work past dusk. There’s a lot of bad folk out there. What do you have?”

“This.” Melbourn uncapped the case and let the contents slide free.

“Artwork?”

“If this deiscape isn’t a Pevello, I’m a dwarf.”

Melbourn let Danerel pull the multi-colored canvas toward him. The fence removed the protective cloth and spread it out. He glanced over the painting and began to scan its borders. He turned the painting ninety degrees, then another ninety degrees.

Melbourn watched Danerel’s face as the fence looked over the painting. Danerel wasn’t a handsome man, not by any definition of the word. His skin was pale and pasty; his hair three different shades of orange. None of the sharp features appeared to be exactly where they were supposed to be. He often smiled broadly. When he wished it, it was a pleasant smile, but too often his smile shifted into a corpse-like rictus grin. For just a moment, the rictus grin appeared. He looked up at Melbourn; it shifted back to a smile.

“You’re right. He’s hidden his mark up here in the red.”

“What do you think?” Melbourn asked.

“It’s possible I have someone who might want to add this to their collection.”

“Possible? Might?”

“Possible, might, and maybe are the most powerful words.” Danerel favored Melbourn with his smile again. “What’s this?” he asked, pointing to the charcoal drawing.

“Just a little something I picked up.”

“Hm. Noble features. Is that the Barrendon chin I see?”

Melbourn shrugged. “Maybe.”

“I can’t move charcoal drawings.”

“Maybe not, but you could return it for a tidy reward.”

“I might at that. But I’d have to use a middleman. That cuts into the reward money, you know.”

“Your pain…it touches me,” Melbourn said. “How much for both?”

Numbers clicked, shifted, and aligned themselves behind Danerel’s eyes. Melbourn waited a few seconds for the fence to answer.

Danerel named a sum.

“What? I thought you were my friend!” Melbourn yelped. “But you treat me like a mark.” He named a second, much higher sum.

“You’d break me?” Danerel responded happily. “I have children to feed.”

“You have no children,” Melboun said, shaking his head.

“Not fair. It’s likely there are quite a few ugly little red-hair bastards in the city.” He named a third sum.

Melbourn grabbed at his heart, named a fourth sum, and the game went on.

* * *

“Good evening,” Sloan said, as he sat.

“Who are you?” Lord Cleitus Barrendon asked from across the table.

“Why ask? You know I won’t answer,” Sloan told him, waving to a waiter. “You’ll be paying for dinner, of course.”

They sat opposite each other in the center of the Blue Knight, Harbordown’s most exclusive restaurant. A single white candle flickered between them. Around them, members of the city’s Quality ate their dinners, unaware of the conversation that might possibly affect their futures. Sloan smiled. Rarely had he taken such a risk.

“Bring me the most expensive dinner on the menu,” Sloan told the attentive waiter. “Bring us two, unless it’s snails or worms or any of that. In which case, give us the most expensive dinner that ever grazed, flew, or swam. I’d also like a bottle of expensive wine. Select the color to go with dinner. Don’t forget the amenities: bread, butter, soup, salad, dessert, all that. Oh, and a nice vegetable – preferably something leafy. Lord Barrendon will be paying.”

“Of course.” The waiter turned to face the lord, who nodded and waved him away.

“I want the books. I want all the books,” Barrendon said. “I also want my pipe and the drawing of my great-great-grandmother.” He glared.

“I don’t know anything about the drawing, but you may have the pipe. As for the books…I’m going to keep three. You will get one returned.”

“I want all of them.”

“The priests say it’s a good thing for the soul to want.”

“I need those books to do my business.”

“Oh no, my lord, you need one to do business. You have chosen to use four. No one needs four ledgers. This is my proposal.”

“Proposal?”

“Don’t mistake the soft wording for the soft option. If you prefer, I’ll use the firm, and accurate wording. This is what will happen. I will return the one ledger, the one that gives a complete and accurate total of all Barrendon properties, assets, and holdings. I will keep the other three books.”

“For how long?”

“Forever.”

“You have no idea what you’re playing at,” Barrendon snarled.

“Don’t I? The city selects its Nine next month.”

Barrendon’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t.”

“I have. I seem to recall that you may be patriarch of one of the nine most powerful families, but you are far from the most powerful. The Barrendons fall seventh, I believe.”

“Keep your voice down,” Barrendon hissed. “And it’s sixth.”

“Ah, well. Congratulations. Of course, without the one true ledger, the total value of the family’s holdings will appear to be much, much less – enough to ensure that you will fall to fifteenth or sixteenth at best, and therefore you will no longer be in power. It seems to me that the Beltaynes or the Slandos are both in position to claim your spot. How long between selections?”

“Ten years,” Barrendon answered darkly.

“If you do what I ask, I will return that one ledger, and you get to continue to prove to the selection agents why you should remain one of the city’s rulers. It shouldn’t be too difficult; it looks like you’ve done very well this year. I will keep the other books. Judging by them, I’d guess that you’re not a major contributor to the city at tax time.”

He paused as the waiter set a basket of trifles in front of them. Sipping from his water glass, he watched Barrendon struggling to remain calm. Only when the waiter was away, did he continue.

“It seems you pay taxes on only about twenty percent of your holdings. The sun has risen over House Barrendon, and it’s time you paid your dues.”

“What do you want of me?”

“Besides multiplying your taxes by five, I have only one demand, and it’s a simple one. Your son, Donol, has gotten a common girl with child. He marries her. Your problem ends.”

“You jest,” Barrendon said after a moment.

“I do not,” Sloan responded, somewhat taken aback.

“That’s the fifth commoner he’s done this to. I’ve simply paid them off every other time.”

“That won’t be good enough,” Sloan said. “He marries her.”

“And then I get back my ledger?”

“You have it correct.”

“When do I get it?”

“After I’ve enjoyed your generosity at the wedding, which you will pay for.”

“I want proof that I’ll get it back.”

Sloan shook his head. “No. You may choose to believe me, or not. But if it’s convincing you need, let me say this: I dislike all of you. I could care less which families rule Harbordown. What I get from this is seeing that the right thing is done for a young woman.”

“What about the drawing?”

“I know nothing about it,” Sloan said, irked by the change of direction. “I wasn’t in your home.”

“Clearly you hired that man that was.”

“Clearly.”

Barrendon glared at him without speaking as the waiter opened a bottle of red wine and poured a glass. The lord lifted to his lips and drank the contents in one swallow.

“Pour a third glass,” Sloan told the waiter.

“Sir?”

“Pour a third glass. My wife will soon be joining us.”

“Yes, sir,” the waiter said. “Shall I change the menu?”

“No. Lord Barrendon will soon be leaving.”

The waiter filled Sloan’s glass, refilled Barrendon’s, and hurried off to fetch a third.

“You’ll not survive this, you know.”

“Oh, I will,” Sloan said. “By the time you get your one ledger back, I’ll have it so covered in spells and rituals that every time you even think of doing something vicious to me, a page will disintegrate. You have my word on that.”

“Ridiculous. You’ll not be able to find a sorcerer to do that.”

“You would be right, were I not the sorcerer. Her name is Ananda Aristei. Learn it, my lord. She is to be your daughter-in-law.”

Barrendon stood. “Ananda. Yes, I believe I remember that name. Donol called her Nanda. As in, ‘that whore, Nanda.’”

Sloan was quiet for a moment.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he said, “I’m keeping your pipe.”

“Piss on the pipe. I have others.”

“Pay the bill, my lord. I’ll not have you upset my meal further.”

“This is not over.”

“I don’t expect it is – not until the wedding.”

When Barrendon had left the room, Sloan reached into his pocket and drew out the stolen pipe. He held it in his hand as the waiter cleared away Barrendon’s glass and poured a new one. After he left, Sloan raised the pipe to admire the craftsmanship. Satisfied that it had been worth stealing, he turned it in his fingers and held it by the stem.

It shattered when he slammed it into the edge of the table.

* * *

Dunbar tossed the bag Mr. Jerrold had given him onto his desk and unbuckled his sword belt. Only when his belt and blade were hung on the correct pegs on the wall and his boots drying on their rack did he take the seat behind the desk. He pulled an inkwell toward him. Dabbing a quill pen into it, he wrote directly on the bag: “Two-Dagger Hamish,” then “10S.” He replaced the pen and walked over to a small chest. Unlocking it, he lifted the lid out of the way and placed the bag inside, on top of a pile that nearly filled the chest. He smiled and closed the lid.

* * *

Tzal staggered and stumbled, falling down the last two stairs. He smashed his knees on the hard-packed dirt and fell forward. Unable to get his hands up in time, his chest and face slammed into the ground. Desperate to get his breath back, his heart throbbing, Tzal lay unmoving for several minutes. His joints burned, his fingers had cramped, and bands of pain had wrapped around his head. He breathed raggedly, doing his best to ignore the pain, trying to focus on something far more troubling.

For the first time since he had become a full priest, he was empty; he had drained his soul of every iota of magic; nothing connected him to Semessa’s divine presence. Other priests used to say that they felt naked without their ability to channel Her power, but he felt more violated than anything else. It was as if he had been raped by his own desire to help others. He had gone too far and lost touch with Her.

He tried to move, but his muscles hurt so much he made no progress. He stayed where he was, lying flat on the ground, his feet elevated only by their accidental placement on the bottom stair. Only because it had fallen next to his face did he know that the people of Torval’s Alley had left his bag alone. The people had been more frightened of him than he was of them. He had come into their homes and healed man after woman after child. One couple was sick for reasons other than bad water, and one young man with a knife wound in his side wasn’t bothered by anything as piddling as a fever. Tzal chuckled to himself, and then went into spasms of pain. He smiled, accepted the pain, and laughed out loud.

* * *

Craymore stood in a pool of shadow, watching her come back to him. Only the silhouette of her lean warrior form was visible in the light behind her. She’d kept this one a bit more subtle – only extinguishing half a dozen lamps along Black Cat Cut. The boy would be here soon enough to relight them.

She sauntered to him, hands on her knife hilts.

"Finished.”

He didn’t ask her to translate; he was fairly certain he knew what she had said. He moved into a doorway, to conceal himself further. She joined him, pressing herself against him.

“It won’t be long,” he said.

He felt, rather than saw her nod.

“Same as last time,” Craymore said. “I’ll grab the boy. You do the work.” He glanced over into her pale, scarred face. “Unless yer going to need the help.”

She parted her lips and smiled, shaking her head.

He glanced at her teeth a moment – teeth that had been filed to sharp points – and smiled back.

* * *

Tzal staggered out of Torval’s Alley and back onto Anchorage Street. For about the tenth time in ten minutes, he wished Gitto or Ruben were still around. Gitto left not long after Tzal had begun helping the others; Ruben vanished a few hours later. With no one to assist him, the exhausted priest stopped on the street and looked quite literally up and down Anchorage.

To his left, the street gently declined; to his right, it climbed a steep hill. He glanced back to the left, preferring the idea of not climbing, but he didn’t like the narrow street or the shadows that permeated it, lit only as it was by the flickering oil lamps. To the right, the way seemed a bit safer, a bit brighter. Up near the top of the hill he glimpsed a warm pool of light.

“It’s uphill all the way,” he told himself.

Ten minutes climbing brought him to a roadway plateau. A block or so away, a bright line shone higher and brighter than anything else on the street. He cinched up his bag and followed the cobblestone street toward the light. As he approached, he cocked his head. He appeared to be walking toward a lighthouse. A moment later, his sense of scale twisted when he realized the lighthouse was merely the stone façade of a wooden building sitting at an intersection. He smiled.

The lighthouse façade was white, painted with three red diagonal stripes, rising left to right. Atop the façade was the light – a glass lamp the size of a chest. Warm beams of reflected lamplight lit Anchorage and the intersecting road, Candle Street. He found the door in the base of the lighthouse, painted to match the rest of the façade. A signboard hung out over the door, but from this angle, he couldn’t read it.

A trio of old men sat on a long bench next to the door, sharing a long pipe and a bottle. As Tzal approached, the one holding the rippled glass bottle raised it toward him.

“Ye look like ye need a bit o’ this!” The man spoke and chortled.

“I could use a drink,” Tzal admitted.

“Ye come to the right place, ye did,” the one with the pipe said.

“Do they have rooms for rent?”

“Aye,” said the third, who was angling for either pipe or bottle. “Plenty of ‘em. Fact is, they’s always one or two for let. Ask him for the back room.”

Tzal nodded, thanked the men, and looked up at the signboard. He smiled his approval and entered the Shining Way.

Coming Soon - Chapter Eight - "The Shining Way"

Heroes... Chapter Six - "Tzal"

2009-06-11T14:20:00.000-07:00

Greetings! This is the introductory chapter of the last of our five main characters, even though you got a glimpse of him last time. Tzal is a short chapter, barely 7 printed pages - less than 2000 words.

For those who need to know, Tzal is pronounced like the second half of "pizza" with an "L" on the end.

Remember, I am actually rewriting an already-written novel. Since I am seeking publication for this, feedback is the most important thing I need. If you can do it, please let me know what you think. It can be as short or as long, as gentle or as harsh as you'd like. To me, receiving it is the point.

You can leave your comments here, or contact me via email, Twitter, or Facebook. I thank you!

---------------------------------------------

Chapter Six - "Tzal"

The bald man led Tzal to a building fronting an alley off Anchorage Street. It was old, and a decade ago it had badly needed paint. It hadn’t gotten it. Tzal tried to remember which turns he had taken while keeping up his end of a mostly one-sided conversation. The bald man, he had learned, was Ruben Verner. Ruben used to be a member of the Seaman’s Brotherhood with this other man, Gitto. Gitto’s wife, Zenna, had taken sick a few days ago and had not left the bed. Tzal glanced around the shabby neighborhood, not wondering what could have caused it, but now many different illnesses she may have picked up.

They stopped at the door of the building and Ruben beat on it. After a moment, a short man with the build of a dumpling and a face like an old foot answered the door.

“Gitto,” Ruben said.

“Wait here,” the short man said, slamming the door on them.

“Doorman?” Tzal asked.

“They pay extra for that,” Ruben answered.

A few minutes later, a different man opened the door. He was short, thin, and hunched over. A patina of grime lived in the pores of his skin and Tzal doubted that anything as simple as a bath would remove it. Gitto had an aroma of his own, not a pleasant one. When he grinned, a missing tooth high in his smile broke it. Tzal felt a pang of shame. Had this wretched little man, and not Ruben asked for help, he would likely have dismissed him as a beggar.

The little man shoved his hand toward Ruben, who shook it. Ruben introduced Tzal to Gitto and said that he was a priest.

“O happy day!” the little man said, shoving his hand at Tzal. He grasped it and vowed not to wipe his hand on his tunic until both their backs were turned.

Muttering ‘thank you’s’ the entire way, Gitto led them up a dusty ramshackle staircase. The stairs sank and groaned with every step. Tzal hugged the wall as he ascended to the third floor. He was not surprised to see Ruben do the same; friend or not, the bald man had common sense on his side. They reached a door – one of four on the third floor – and Gitto opened it for them.

“These be my lodgings, and this be my wife.”

The room was small and cramped: a small table and chairs, a rope bed, a trunk, and a hearth barely large enough to cook in. Tzal walked to the bed and set down his bag. Next to the bed, he noticed a tiny side table, decorated with a cracked pitcher and washbowl. In the bed, a softly moaning woman was covered high with blankets. Tzal leaned down. The sickness had aged her; Ruben had told him that she was in her thirties – ten years younger than her husband, but she looked twenty years older now. She shivered and sweated both. Tzal confirmed fever by touching her forehead.

“What happened to her?”

“I don’t know, m’lord, she was sick a few mornin’s ago.”

“I’m not a lord, Gitto. What did she eat the night before?”

“I don’t remember…a bit of meat, I think, and a potato. Aye, definitely meat.”

Tzal didn’t ask what kind of meat. He continued to look her over.

“Will you heal her?” Ruben asked. “Are you a healer?”

“I am. But my old teacher used to say that healing only solves the immediate problem. I want to make sure she won’t get sick again.” He looked at the pitcher then sniffed it. Dipping his finger into the water, he tasted it and spat. He glanced at Gitto. Under the grime on his face, he could plainly see bottle blossoms on his cheeks and nose.

“You don’t drink much water, do you?”

“No, sir. Don’t like the taste too much.”

“It shouldn’t taste like that. Your wife?”

“Aye. She can’t stand the ale and milk’s too hard to come by.”

Tzal nodded. “Does she drink a lot of it?”

“Aye. Particularly lately – she’s been like a fish.”

“Is it the water?” Ruben asked.

“I think so. I’ll know in a minute. Gitto, do you and your wife worship Mannanan Mac Lir perhaps?”

“No, sir. I’ve dropped a coin in the waves time and again, but all sailors do that.”

“Is there any god you worship regularly?”

“No, sir.”

“Since I won’t offend the household god, I can do this.”

“Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but I don’t have much in the way of coin to pay.”

Tzal turned and faced the little man: “Pardon?”

“Forgive me, sir, but I can’t pay you much.”

“This doesn’t cost you anything, Gitto. My gifts are mine to share, not to sell. They’re given to me, for me to pass on to those who need it.” Tzal turned and began to chant. It took only a moment. He rested his hand on her belly. His fingers cooled until they felt icy then warmed suddenly, as if submerged in hot water. Purple sparks danced across the tips of his fingers and the back of his hand. Finally, golden light rose like a mist and drifted across the woman’s body. After a moment, he removed his hand and took a deep breath.

“She’ll be fine. Let her sleep. She’ll wake up exhausted in the morning, but she’ll wake up healthy.” He handed the pitcher to Gitto. “Dump that out and show me where you get your water.”

“Thank you, sir! Did you mean what you said?”

“About what?”

“About not makin’ us pay for this?”

“Of course. Religion is not a business.”

“It is in Harbordown.”

“I didn’t know that,” Tzal said, looking away.

“Everything’s a business here. Everything’s for sale.”

Tzal looked back at Gitto and shook his head.

“I’m not.”

* * *

Gitto led Tzal and Ruben out of the building and to an alley with a small well, little more than a hole in the ground. Tzal glanced around before examining the well. The alley was almost wide enough to be a street, but its atmosphere declared it as a place to be wary. Discarded wood scraps, masonry, and garbage littered the ground. Splashes of rotten grease, dried blood, and other fluids were scattered around. A squad of rats feasted on the putrefying body of a tailless cat. In one corner, two people were asleep under feather-thin blankets.

Tzal knelt by the well and picked up the bucket. It was heavy, waterlogged from years of use. It exuded a slight foul odor.

“It’s here,” he said.

“What are you going to do?” Ruben asked.

“I’m going to purify the well.”

“You can do that?” Gitto asked.

Tzal nodded and began to chant. As he did, the stone on his ring began to glow. The men listened, as the simple words of the chant became Words, the verbal facets of magic. Around him, the air grew denser, cooler. Keen eyes might even have noticed mists of condensation rising from the ring. Anyone focusing on the chant would have heard nonsensical words becoming non-words, increasingly harder and harder to hear. By the time he was ready to unleash the purification spell, the Words had evolved beyond the point where they were merely heard and had moved to a place where they affected all six senses; they carried an undertone of white noise, but they could now be felt, smelt, seen, tasted, and captured in a thought. Ruben, Gitto, the sleeping beggars, and a few approaching people all suddenly felt a light pleasant tickling between the shoulder blades; the tiniest hints of apples blossoms crossed their noses and tongues; their vision came to a slightly crisper focus; and, for only a second, each of them thought of their mothers.

Pure white light danced along Tzal’s fingers. He smiled, understanding what had caused the corruption. White light sprang from his fingers and entered the well as he released the incantation. He stood, feeling clean, and told Gitto that the body of a diseased cat had gotten in the well and was poisoning the water. He told him how far down it was. It would need to be recovered soon, to keep the rot from returning.

A worried-looking bystander, a man whose sense of style and cleanliness split the difference between Ruben and Gitto, asked what he was doing.

“He’s cleaned the well, bless him, he did!” Gitto said.

“Cleaned the well?”

“It was poison. He cleaned it up and saved my wife, too!” Gitto crowed, pointing to Tzal. “He’s a priest, this genne’man is!”

Tzal smiled and began to say it was his pleasure to help, but before he could, the bystander rushed at him, grabbing his sleeve and begging for assistance. Tzal asked what he needed. His son was sick, and his son drank from the well. Tzal started to speak, but someone else grabbed him. He spun. A young woman had a sick baby – would he help? He nodded and heard Gitto’s voice rise above the rest:

“He said he wasn’t for sale!”

Tzal stood straight and looked over the young woman’s head at Gitto, who was speaking to a group of shocked Harbordowners. The man with the sick son grabbed his left hand; the woman with the sick baby clutched his right. Both needed him then. He told them both he’d help them. As he spoke, he heard a shrill whistle and looked up. Two stories above, a woman said her husband was sick. Next to that window, a little boy yelled out that his mamma wasn’t moving. The man pulled at his left arm and the young mother entreated him to come with her. A crowd gathered, some needing him, some just watching. Ruben stood aside, watching and smiling.

“Did you plan this?” Tzal yelled to the bald man.

“On my word, I did not.”

From above came another cry of help. Tzal looked up and smiled. As a priest, he’d always done his best to serve. Yet he’d never once been asked to serve so many. He’d only arrived, but he had found something good to do.

He glanced at the young mother. “Follow me,” he said.

He turned and faced the first man who had asked him to help. Tzal nodded to him.

“Take me to your son,” he said. “I’ll help him. I’ll help everyone I can.”

Continue with Chapter Seven - "Harbordown by Night"

Welcome to the New Writer's Washroom Annex!

2009-06-08T00:05:00.000-07:00

After several weeks of frustration with the site where I was archiving my work - and linking to Works-in-Progress, I decided the time had come to change the archives.

In other words, it was time to move the Annex. After trying a few different sites, and considering trying to "host my own URL" and such - which is so far beyond my technical ken that it makes my head hurt, I finally decided on this.

Yes, it's a blog. But, heck, I've pretty much always called the Washroom my 'blogsite.' It's all just terminology to me.

I've made this as user-friendly as I can. In the left-hand side are "starting points" for works-in-progress and for the various types of non-fiction I've written and published. A link to The Pop-Up Prophecy script, and the short film made from it are there as well.

I made the decision not to repost Wasteland, the appalling short story I wrote and had published back in the day, because I'm going to rewrite the damn thing as practice. When it's complete - which shouldn't be long - I'll post it here.

I've also posted an unpublished script, Afterword, which was written by myself and Thomas Beck - one of my good friends and long-time blog members.

For Heroes..., The Wyrd Magnet, and Conduit, each chapter in each work is linked to the next. At the bottom of the Heroes... Prologue is the link to Chapter One. This will be standard operating procedure.

Please look around and check things out. Some of this is fun to read, and some is just informative. I've reposted a couple of items from works here to the main blog, so you can see where this comes from.

It's taken about two days to put this together, link it all, and de-clutter the main blog. I'm fairly well delighted with the results, so I won't be offended if you just want to do some reading here. (Oh, yes, I borrowed a clue from a reader and decided to go with printer-friendly black text-on-white background. You are very welcome.)

Feel free to leave comments here, there, or anywhere you wish. I'm happy to have the readers. At the moment, I'd suggest that if anyone wants to become a "Friend & Member" on the blog, to consider joining at the main one. That will still be the site where most of my work is done. This is primarily to give readers an easy way (finally!) to dig through my stuff.

Welcome to the Annex! Please enjoy!

Heroes... starting point - Prologue - "Darkness"

The Wyrd Magnet starting point - Chapter One - "Sub-culture"

Conduit starting point - Prologue - "Obelisks"

Non-fiction starting point

The Pop-Up Prophecy (script and short film)

Afterword (script only)

Afterword (written with Thomas Beck)

2009-06-07T23:24:00.000-07:00

This was the first script I ever (co-)wrote. Tom and I worked well together, and there is no way to tell who did what. We both came up with ideas, cut lines, trashed each other's lines, trashed our own lines, and - at times - came up with the exact same bits of dialogue. This can't even be broke down as to who did what draft. We did first draft, second draft, and we did the rewrites. It's completely shared, feels like me, and feels like him, too. It's one of my favorite pieces. I hope someone, someday takes a shot on this. It's long - about 25 printed pages, but due to the dialogue, it reads very quickly.

Yes, I know it's not formatted to script specs, but I haven't yet been able to do that in a blog form. I've tried to make it so it is easy to read.

FADE IN:

INT. HALLWAY

A person walks into a hallway. It is typical for an largish office building, poorly lit by fluorescent lighting. This person walks slowly down the hallway, footsteps echoing slowly and somberly, giving the impression that this is a man. He continues walking, his eyes like a camera, until he comes to a small room.

INT. SMALL ROOM

He enters a room the size of a large closet with what appears to be a two-way mirror that looks into another room. There is an MAN and WOMAN in here who look at the newcomer as he comes in, greeting him with a nod. They are dressed in somber suits, and appear to be in their fifties. He joins the two, turning to the window to see:

INT. ROOM

This is a fairly large room, bereft of any type of decoration. The walls are all stark white and there is one door on the right hand wall. The only furniture in the room is a rectangular, wooden, medium-sized table with two chairs that face each other from opposite sides. The table is not in the center of the room, but more towards the right hand side, as if the table is used as an office desk.

Sitting at the left-hand chair at the desk is CATHY STEVENS. She is disoriented, looking around the room trying to understand where she is.

MR. MICHAELS comes in the door, closing it behind him. He is carrying a heavy, closed-front clipboard. He sits down in the empty chair, looking at Cathy. He flips open the front of the clipboard, consults it for a moment, then shuts it.

MICHAELS

----Hello, Mrs. Stevens. You are married, aren't you? It is Mrs., isn't it?

The door Mr. Michaels walked in from disappears unnoticed by Cathy.

CATHY

----What?

MICHAELS

----It is Mrs. Stevens, is it not? You are married?

CATHY

----Yes.

MICHAELS

----Good. What is your husband's name?

CATHY

----Martin.

MICHAELS

----Do you live together?

CATHY

----Yes. Where am...

MICHAELS

----Do you have children?

CATHY

----Yes.

MICHAELS

----Their names, please.

CATHY

----Jason and Melissa.

MICHAELS

----Good. Nice names.

CATHY

----Thank you.

MICHAELS

----Do you consider yourself a good person?

CATHY

----Pardon?

MICHAELS

----Do you consider yourself a good person?

CATHY

----I don't know.

MICHAELS

----I see. How old are your children?

CATHY

----Jason is nineteen months; Melissa is three.

MICHAELS

----And you are?

CATHY

----Are what?

MICHAELS

----Your age, Mrs. Stevens.

CATHY

----Thirty-eight.

MICHAELS

----And your husband, Martin, I believe you said?

CATHY

----Martin is also thirty-eight.

MICHAELS

----That's unusual, isn't it?

CATHY

----What?

MICHAELS

----Having children this late in life?

CATHY

----That's none of your business. And just who are...

MICHAELS

----I am Mr. Michaels. How long have you been married?

CATHY

----Eleven years.

MICHAELS

----Are you happy?

CATHY

----Yes. Martin's a wonderful husband.

MICHAELS

----Really.

He opens the clipboard, takes a pen from inside, and makes a note. She cannot see what he writes.

CATHY

----And a good father.

MICHAELS

----I'm glad to hear that. Do you own any guns?

CATHY

----What?

MICHAELS

----Do you own any firearms?

CATHY

----Yes.

MICHAELS

----Are they yours, or Martin's?

CATHY

----Martin's. He keeps one for protection.

MICHAELS

----Where?

CATHY

----In the nightstand. Why are you asking?

Michaels makes another note in the clipboard, then seems to peruse it for a moment.

MICHAELS

----Do you know a Lester Mayhew?

CATHY

----Who?

MICHAELS

----Lester Charles Mayhew.

CATHY

----No.

Michaels makes another note on the clipboard, then closes it.

MICHAELS

----Are you happy?

CATHY

----What do you mean?

MICHAELS

----You. Are you happy?

CATHY

----I suppose so.

MICHAELS

----Do you consider yourself a good person?

CATHY

----I
(beat)
----I don't know.

MICHAELS

----Your husband. What does he do for work?

CATHY

----He's a vice-president for a telecommunications company.

MICHAELS

----He's a good father?

CATHY

----Yes. I've already told you so!

MICHAELS

----Are you a good mother?

CATHY

----I believe so.

MICHAELS

----So, you're good parents.

CATHY

----Yes.

MICHAELS

----But you keep a gun in the nightstand.

Cathy does not answer. She seems a bit confused, and a bit guilty.

MICHAELS (CONT'D)

----Don't you, Mrs. Stevens?

CATHY

----Yes.

MICHAELS

----Is it locked?

CATHY

----No.

MICHAELS

----No gun lock? No lock on the drawer?

CATHY

----No.

MICHAELS

----And it's loaded, isn't it?

CATHY

----Yes.

MICHAELS

----For protection.

CATHY

----Yes. Martin often works late. He got it for us, to be safe.

MICHAELS

----I see.

He stands, and sits on a corner of the table.

MICHAELS (CONT'D)

----Mrs. Stevens, do you consider yourself a good person?

CATHY
(excitably)

----Why do keep asking me this?

MICHAELS

----Do you work, Mrs. Stevens?

Cathy pauses a moment to process the change of direction.

CATHY

----Not at the moment. I stopped working when Melissa was born.

MICHAELS

----What did you do before then?

CATHY

----I was in public relations, for a hospital.

MICHAELS

----Did you find that satisfying?

CATHY

----Well, honestly...no.

MICHAELS

----Why?

He stands, and goes back to his seat, sits.

CATHY

----There were too many lies, and too many half-truths.

MICHAELS

----It bothered you to lie?

CATHY

----Of course. Doesn't it bother everybody?

Michaels stares at her, encouraging her to elaborate.

CATHY (CONT'D)

----We told people that our hospital was the best. We advertised that we were, when we weren't. We swept lawsuits under the rug and used the budget to hire lawyer and run ads. We should have hired better people, bought better equipment. The lies just got to be too much.

MICHAELS

----You said you were not working at the moment. Are you planning to change fields?

CATHY

----I don't know, but I know I don't want to do that anymore.

MICHAELS

----You quit your job when you had your daughter?

CATHY

----No, I had quit working about a year before I got pregnant.

MICHAELS

----Planned?

CATHY

----Yes. Martin and I decided we wanted a family.

MICHAELS

----Did that make you happy?

CATHY

----Yes.

MICHAELS

----You like being a mother?

CATHY

----Yes.

MICHAELS

----Are you a good mother?

CATHY

----I'd like to think so.

MICHAELS

----Were you happy when Jason was born?

CATHY

----Yes.

MICHAELS

----Have you been planning on having another child?

CATHY

----No.

MICHAELS

----Why not?

CATHY

----I...we decided two was right.

MICHAELS

----And that makes you happy?

Cathy pauses a moment before answering.

CATHY

----As you said, most women my age aren't having children.

MICHAELS

----Actually, I asked you if it was unusual to be having children this late in life. I asked. I did not state.

CATHY

----You're right.

MICHAELS

----Does your family attend church?

CATHY

----Yes.

MICHAELS

----How often?

CATHY

----Once a week. Sunday mornings.

MICHAELS

----Regularly?

CATHY

----My husband says religiously.

She has a slight smile on her face as she looks at Michaels. He just looks at her.

CATHY (CONT'D)

----I suppose it's not very funny.

MICHAELS

----Not really. Are you raising your children in the church?

CATHY

----I think so. They come with us, but they're not really old enough to understand it yet.

MICHAELS

----What would you do if your children grew up and decided to leave the church?

CATHY

----I suppose I'd want them to make their own choice.

MICHAELS

----Would that make you happy?

CATHY

----As long as my children are happy, I'm happy.

MICHAELS

----You base your happiness on the emotions of others?

CATHY

----I don't know what you mean. Could I have some water?

Michaels stands up and starts to pace.

MICHAELS

----You allow the emotions of those around you to determine your level of happiness?

CATHY

----I don't really understand. Don't all parents do that?

MICHAELS

----If your child is hurt, does it make you unhappy?

CATHY

----Of course!

MICHAELS

----Does your unhappiness then affect your child? Do your emotions change the way they feel?

CATHY

----Yes.

MICHAELS

----So you make them feel worse when they are already unhappy?

CATHY

----No!

MICHAELS

----How do you avoid it?

CATHY

----I don't let them know I'm unhappy.

MICHAELS

----You repress your emotions to keep others happy?

CATHY

----Not all the time.

Michaels sits again on the edge of the desk.

MICHAELS

----With your children?

CATHY

----Only now. They're young. They don't understand yet that mama cries, too.

MICHAELS

----Why do you cry?

CATHY

----When they are hurt.

MICHAELS

----That's when. I asked why.

CATHY

----Why?

MICHAELS

----Why do you cry?

CATHY

----I...It's an emotional release. Look, I don't like these questions. I don't understand...

MICHAELS

----Do you repress your emotions for your husband?

CATHY

----Not all...no!

MICHAELS

----Honestly please, Mrs. Stevens. You repress yourself to keep others happy, do you not?

CATHY

----Everyone does that to one extent or another.

MICHAELS

----They do?

Michaels sits back down in his chair.

CATHY

----Certainly. Not everyone can wear their heart on their sleeve at all times. You have to edit yourself. Suck it up, my father would say.

MICHAELS

----Isn't that dishonest?

CATHY

----No!

MICHAELS

----Repressing how you feel and fooling others about your emotional state isn't a lie, or a half-truth?

CATHY

----No, it's not. It's a sign of emotional maturity.

MICHAELS

----You're emotionally mature?

CATHY

----I am.

MICHAELS

----Does that make you a better parent?

CATHY

----Yes.

MICHAELS

----Does that make you a better person?

CATHY

----I don't know.

MICHAELS

----Are you a good person?

CATHY
(angrily)

----I don't know!

MICHAELS

----Why not?

Cathy pauses a moment, thinking about her answer.

CATHY

----It's not right to judge for yourself if you're good or bad.

MICHAELS

----Then who judges?

CATHY

----What do you mean?

MICHAELS

----Do you know why you're here?

CATHY

----No! Why?

MICHAELS

----You say you don't know Lester Charles Mayhew?

CATHY

----I've already told you!

MICHAELS

----So you have. Are you quick to anger, Mrs. Stevens?

CATHY

----No!

MICHAELS

----Prone to acts of violence?

CATHY

----Of course not!

MICHAELS

----Do you spank your children?

CATHY

----Yes.
(beat)
----But only if they deserve it.

MICHAELS

----Who decides if they deserve it?

CATHY

----I do. Or Martin. But I only...

MICHAELS

----Does Martin spank them?

CATHY

----Yes...

MICHAELS

----Yes, but, Mrs. Stevens?

CATHY

----He doesn't like to do it.

MICHAELS

----Do you enjoy it?

CATHY

----No!

MICHAELS

----So you decide what's right or wrong. You judge.

CATHY

----I have to. They're my children. They're not old enough. They don't know they've misbehaved.

MICHAELS

----You punish them when they don't understand what they've done.

CATHY

----Of course they don't understand. They're young.

MICHAELS

----You believe in discipline?

CATHY

----Yes. But it's not often. They're good kids. And it's never more than a swat on the rump.

She pauses as she processes this experience.

CATHY (CONT'D)

----Am I in trouble?

MICHAELS
(coolly)

----Mrs. Stevens, you took a life.

CATHY

----What?

MICHAELS

----You took a human life.

Cathy is speechless, but tries to stammer.

MICHAELS (CONT'D)

----What is the last thing you remember?

He opens his clipboard again.

Cathy tries to put her thoughts together.

CATHY

----Thunder.

MICHAELS

----Elaborate.

CATHY

----I remember thunder. Jason crying.

MICHAELS

----What else?

CATHY

----I can't remember. Do I need a lawyer?

MICHAELS

----No. Do you remember Lester Mayhew?

CATHY

----No. Can I have some water?

MICHAELS

----Focus, Mrs. Stevens. You haven't answered the question yet.

CATHY

----I didn't kill anyone.

MICHAELS

----Mrs. Stevens...

Cathy is beginning to get agitated.

CATHY

----It's that Lester. You think I killed that man.

MICHAELS

----Mrs. Stevens...

CATHY

----What's on the clipboard? What are you writing?

MICHAELS

----Are you happy?

CATHY
(angrily)

----I want to see the clipboard!

MICHAELS

----What else do you remember?

CATHY
(angrily)

----What are you writing?

MICHAELS

----Are you a good person?

CATHY

----Shut up!

She leaps up, grabbing the clipboard from across the table, and throws it across the room. She faces Michaels and screams at him with hatred,

CATHY (CONT'D)

----Stop asking me that!

Michaels regards her calmly, unaffected by her hysterics.

MICHAELS

----I see that you lied earlier.

CATHY
(angrily)

----What?

MICHAELS

----You said you were not prone to acts of violence.

Cathy stares at him, then begins to sag.

Michaels stands.

MICHAELS (CONT'D)

----Mrs. Stevens. Sit. Down.

Cathy sits back down.

Michaels sits back down.

MICHAELS (CONT'D)

----What do you remember besides thunder?

CATHY

----The crying.

MICHAELS

----Where were you?

CATHY

----At home. It was raining, I think.

MICHAELS

----Go on.

CATHY

----I was in the kitchen. It was raining. Not hard, but it was threatening to get worse. I was alone. I heard Jason crying.

MICHAELS

----Has he started the "terrible twos?"

CATHY
(confused)

----No. Not yet.

MICHAELS

----Did Melissa get through them?

CATHY

----Yes, she did. She discovered "no", then discovered stomping her foot.

She seems relieved at the change of conversation, and allows herself a slight smile.

CATHY (CONT'D)

----For months, everything we said, she would shout "no" and stomp. "Bath time, Melissa." "No!"

She stomps the floor, mimicking her daughter.

CATHY (CONT'D)

----"Time for dinner." "No!"

She stomps.

CATHY (CONT'D)

----Even "Want some ice cream?" "No!"

She stomps.

CATHY (CONT'D)

----After missing out on ice cream several times, she stopped saying no to everything.

MICHAELS

----You spanked her rarely?

CATHY

----Yes.

MICHAELS

----Martin didn't spank her?

CATHY

----He doesn't like to. He doesn't believe in it.

MICHAELS

----He does sound like a good father.

CATHY

----He is.

MICHAELS

----You said he often works late?

CATHY

----Two or three nights a week, usually, and sometimes he has to work on the weekend.

MICHAELS

----That's too bad.

CATHY

----It comes with his job. But, you know, he is an excellent provider, and he loves me and the
children.

MICHAELS

----You love him.

CATHY

----Completely.

MICHAELS

----He's a good husband.

CATHY

----Yes.

MICHAELS

----A fine father.

CATHY

----Yes.

MICHAELS

----A good person?

CATHY

----Yes.

Michaels watches her a moment.

MICHAELS

----You were alone.

CATHY

----Yes...no! Melissa was in the kitchen, playing on the floor. I remember she had a toy car, rolling it back and forth, going "brrrrm." She would do that for hours. It was night, wasn't it?

MICHAELS

----Yes.

CATHY

----Was it last night?

MICHAELS

----Where was your husband?

CATHY

----He was not home. He was working late. Jason was crying. He was in his crib, crying.

MICHAELS

----Where is his crib?

CATHY

----His room. Melissa and I were in the kitchen.

MICHAELS

----It was raining.

CATHY

----Yes. It was starting to get worse. It was thundering hard. Jason was crying.

MICHAELS

----Were you making dinner?

CATHY

----No, we'd already eaten. Tuna, in a casserole. Where am I? Where are my children?

MICHAELS

----They're safe.

CATHY

----They're at home?

MICHAELS

----Yes.

CATHY

----I broke a dish.
(beat)
Jason was crying. I remember glass breaking. I broke the casserole dish.

MICHAELS

----There was thunder.

CATHY

----Yes. There was a storm coming. Jason doesn't like thunder. I went to check on him.

MICHAELS

----In his room?

CATHY

----Yes.

MICHAELS

----What did you hear?

CATHY

----Thunder, Jason crying, glass breaking.

MICHAELS

----Glass?

CATHY

----Yes! I broke a dish!

MICHAELS

----Where was Melissa?

CATHY

----I told her to stay in the kitchen.

MICHAELS

----Why?

CATHY

----The glass.

MICHAELS

----Where was the glass broken?

CATHY

----In Jason's room.

MICHAELS

----Did you break the glass?

CATHY

----No. I broke the dish.

MICHAELS

----Who broke the glass?

CATHY

----I don't know.

MICHAELS

----Yes, you do.

Cathy stares at Michaels, finally understanding.

CATHY

----Lester Mayhew. Where am I?

MICHAELS

----Where do you think?

She pauses a moment, then continues.

CATHY

----The window was broken. Rain was blowing in. There was a man in the room.

MICHAELS

----Go on.

CATHY

----Jason was crying, scared. That was Lester Mayhew, right?

MICHAELS

----Yes.

CATHY

----Who is he?

MICHAELS

----You don't know him.

CATHY

----I screamed, he yelled. Somebody yelled. He pointed at me.
(beat)
I don't know what he wanted.

MICHAELS

----What did you do?

CATHY

----I hit him.

MICHAELS

----With?

CATHY

----The dish. The casserole dish.

MICHAELS

----You had been washing dishes?

CATHY

----Yes. I was drying it. It's heavy glass, you know.

MICHAELS

----I know.

CATHY

----It broke. Glass went everywhere. Blood went everywhere.

MICHAELS

----Where did you hit him?

CATHY

----The face.

MICHAELS

----What did he look like?

CATHY

----I don't know. Broken.

MICHAELS

----And then?

A clear glass pitcher of water and two glasses appears on the desk, off to the side. Cathy does not seem to notice.

CATHY

----There was thunder.

MICHAELS

----Was it thunder?

CATHY

----It sounded like thunder.
(beat)
But it wasn't.

MICHAELS

----No, Mrs. Stevens, it was not. Are you a good person?

CATHY

----Are my children safe?

MICHAELS

----They are with their father. Would you like some water?

Cathy looks over at the pitcher.

CATHY

----Yes.

Michaels pours both glasses full of water, then sets one glass in front of her.

She picks the glass up.

CATHY (CONT'D)

----You know,

She takes a sip of the water.

CATHY (CONT'D)

----I am a good person. I'm a good mother, a good wife. I'm honest. I love unconditionally. I'm not perfect, but there's nothing I've done in my life that I can't forgive myself for.

MICHAELS

----Nothing?

CATHY

----Nothing.

Two doors appear side by side, in the wall behind her.

MICHAELS
(gently)

----Mrs. Stevens -- Cathy -- it's time for you to leave.

He points to the wall behind her, and the doors.

She turns to look at them.

CATHY

----Which door?

MICHAELS

----Which feels correct to you?

CATHY

----This one.

She points to the door on the right.

MICHAELS

----Yes.

Cathy stands, starts toward the door. She turns back to face Michaels.

CATHY

----Martin, will he be all right?

MICHAELS

----He will be a very sad man for many years, but he will be happy again. And he will always be a very good father.

CATHY

----Thank you. The man -- Lester Mayhew -- he's been here?

MICHAELS

----I saw him before you.

CATHY

----Which door did he choose?

Michaels takes a sip of his water before answering.

MICHAELS

----You chose the right door. He took the door that was left.

Cathy nods, goes to the right door, and exits.

FADE OUT:

Press Releases

2009-06-07T20:20:00.000-07:00

These are a few of the press releases I wrote as a freelancer.

El Primero Hotel (B&B based in Chula Vista, California)

Julep Restaurant & Bar (fantastic Jackson-based restaurant)

'Last of the Mississippi Jukes' (blues documentary filmed in Mississippi, broadcast on Starz Networks)

Articles and Features for Other Periodicals

2009-06-07T20:19:00.000-07:00

This is some of the work I did for other magazines and periodicals, as a freelance writer.

Cowboy Mouth (New Orleans-based band)

Metal Finishing Service (Jackson-based business)

'Pronounced Cha-Ne' (lifestyle designer)

Planet Weekly Interviews

2009-06-07T20:18:00.000-07:00

These are some of my favorite interviews I conducted while writing for Planet Weekly.

David Banner (producer, rapper, actor)

David Cobb (2004 Green Party presidential candidate)

Darrah Johnson (Survivor contestant)

Harvey Johnson (mayor of Jackson, Mississippi)

Dr. Ronald Mason, Jr. (president of Jackson State University)

Rebekah Potter (multi-media artist)

Planet Weekly Columns

2009-06-07T20:17:00.000-07:00

These are various columns I wrote for Planet Weekly - under the names "From the Extremes" and "The Bipolar Extremist."

"2004 Post-Election Blahs"

"Adrift on the Sea of Consciousness"

"Bumper-Sticker Politics or the Band That Scared Your Mother Has Sold Out"

"Choose Your Own Election"

"Civil Unions"

"Conventional Migraine"

"Crossroads Film Festival Post-Game Report"

"Deserve vs. Desire"

"A Farewell to Johnny Ramone"

"Geek Flag Ideologies"

"Head vs. Heart"

"The Healing Power of Violence"

"People Are Afraid"

"The Politics of Death"

"The Predator Connection"

"A Random Bit of Twaddle, Geeks, and Frank Melton & the Maytals"

"Run, Rudolph, Run!"

"Santa Claus's Political Affiliations (with Footnotes)"

"Where the Hell Are Them Chemical Weapons?"

Planet Weekly Articles and Features

2009-06-07T20:15:00.000-07:00

These are a few of the newspaper articles and feature stories I did as a writer for Planet Weekly.

2004 JSU Juried Student Exhibition Competition (artistic)

The American Astronaut (independent movie)

Jay Fleming (artist)

Brian Fuente (musician)

International Museum of Muslim Cultures (the only museum of its kind in North America)

'Magic on the Court' (feature on wheelchair basketball players)

New Life for Women (rehabilitation center)

New Vibrations (business)

Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer (book review)

'Rugby Gets in Your Blood' (sports)

The Non-Fiction Starting Point

2009-06-07T18:11:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's true: I've got quite a bit of non-fiction on this site. I was a columnist, writer - and later the staff writer - for an alternative/community newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi called Planet Weekly. I have also written as a freelancer for other newspapers, magazines, and periodicals. (I've also done some copywriting, but as I don't own those works, I'm not posting any of it here.)

I've broken things into groups. If you want to see some of what I've done, just follow the links. Everything is now hosted on this site.

This isn't everything I've written. In fact it's around 15-20%, but I posted some that I feel proud of, and some that I think reflect the work that I - or the newspaper or periodical - were doing.

I have changed none of the content of the pieces, even if bits are poorly-written, badly-dated, or just cause me to shake my own head. (The one exception is the "New Life for Women" article, and my reasons for changes are listed there.) I have made a few formatting changes - such as italicizing when I forgot to, and removed phone numbers, email addresses, or website addresses that are either no longer in use, or might bring unwanted attention to people in the pieces.

By and large, what you read here is what saw publication. And when I say "publication," I mean print, thank you.

Planet Weekly features and articles.

Planet Weekly columns.

Planet Weekly interviews.

Articles and features from other periodicals.

Press releases.

"The Pop-Up Prophecy"

2009-06-07T16:44:00.000-07:00

This is the short film I wrote in 2003, for a Clemson University film festival - the Toaster Film Festival. I gave the script to an obscenely talented bunch of Jackson filmmakers. They're the ones that made it look as good as it did. Don't get me wrong, it's super low-budget, but I'm proud of it, and I'm pretty sure everyone else was, too.

It was the winning entry in the Toaster Film Festival, and it's been shown in a few festivals and film summits since. If you do watch it - and I hope you do - and you feel like, you could wander over to its IMDb page and vote on it. We'd like to know what everyone thinks.

I also want to add that it took 12 hours to film and it's been edited to about 4 different lengths - 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, and 9 minutes. This should demonstrate to budding screenwriters just what a film crew can and will do when they interpret your script. The YouTube version is the 7-minute (6:55) version. I think it's pretty much the best, but what do I know? I'm just a writer.

FADE IN:

INT. KITCHEN -- DAY

A man, average-looking, thirtyish, is moving around his kitchen, getting ready to begin his day. He is a bit rumpled from sleep. He reached into a cabinet to grab a coffee cup. When he moves past, we see an old TOASTER, big and rectangular, all chrome and right angles. It resembles something Mrs. Cleaver would have used. It sits near the sink.

The man, whom we'll call VICTIM, takes his cup and turns toward his coffee maker, putting his back to the toaster. He pours a cup of coffee.

He hears the SHUNK sound of the toaster lifting something up. He turns and looks. A Pop-tart is waiting to be lifted out. Victim looks confused. He reaches for the Pop-tart and pulls it out.
On the tasty toaster pastry a message is written. He reads it out loud.

VICTIM

----"You are going to die."

He looks more confused than scared. He puts the Pop-tart down and looks into the toaster. Seeing nothing, he turns around to pick up his coffee cup.

The toaster SHUNKs again.

He turns around, holding his cup. Another Pop-tart awaits. He is starting to look concerned. He didn't put one in and he didn't push the lever down. He pulls the tart from the slot and reads this frosted message.

VICTIM (CONT'D)

----"Soon."

He tosses this message down and looks into the toaster again. There is no hidden Pop-tart. He fiddles with the lever, unplugs it, and then plugs it in again. He turns, to see if anyone is watching him.

The toaster SHUNKs again.

This time he jumps, spinning around. He spills his coffee on himself. He sets the cup down, near a block of sharp knives. The block sits near the ene of the counter. He lunges for the toaster, yanking the Pop-tart out.

VICTIM (CONT'D)

----"It will hurt."

He spins around, looking to see if anyone is watching him. He looks out a window for hidden camera crews. He reaches for the cup of coffee and spies the knives. He pulls one slowly out of the block and looks through the kitchen door to the room beyond.

VICTIM (CONT'D)

----Hello? Am I on TV or something?

The toaster SHUNKs again.

He jumps, lunging at the toaster again. He slips and hits the sink. The knife flies out of his hand and drops into the sink.

He grabs the Pop-tart. It reads "NO" in large letters. He crushes it and throws it into the sink. He turns the faucet on and turns on the disposal. He grabs the other pastries, crushing them and throwing them into the sink as well. He looks down into the sink.

The Pop-tart bits are in the sink with the knife and the disposal is grinding loudly. He starts to reach for the knife and stops. He looks worried and steps back. He darts a look at the toaster, which waits silently.

Victim looks out the window again and then shuts off the disposal. He turns and moves toward the knives.

The toaster SHUNKs again.

He jumps and leaps simultaneously, grabbing at his knives. The block falls off the counter, scattering knives across the floor. He turns in circles and then rushes back to the toaster. He rips the Pop-Tart out.

VICTIM (CONT'D)

----"You are going to die."

He throws it down.

VICTIM (CONT'D)
(shouting)

----Stop talking to me!

The toaster SHUNKs again.

He grabs the Pop-Tart. It says "NO" in large letters.

VICTIM (CONT'D)
(calmer, but still loud)

----You're talking to me!

The toaster SHUNKs as he watches. This time, the tasty toaster pastry is launched into the air, arcing up toward the ceiling and back down into Victim's waiting hands.

He looks down and reads it. This time the frosting says "YES."

VICTIM (CONT'D)

----I'm going to die?

The toaster SHUNKs again.

He pulls the Pop-tart out, slower. The frosting again reads "YES."

VICTIM (CONT'D)

----How?

He watches the toaster. But this time, instead of SHUNKing, it makes a CLICK noise. He looks confused and grabs the toaster. He looks inside. A Pop-tart is wedged inside. He jams his hand into the toaster, trying frantically to grab the fateful pastry.

The toaster begins to smoke and electricity rips through Victim's body. He shakes and grimaces as he is electrocuted. He continues to stand until the electricity stops. He falls to the floor, surrounded by spilled coffee and dropped knives.

The toaster dangles against the counter, held in place by its power cord. It's slots face outward, toward Victim's body. There is a soft grinding noise and the toaster SHUNKs again.

The Pop-tart is launched out of the slot and hits the floor, sliding to a stop next to Victim's face.
The frosting is in the form of a happy face.

The camera pans back to the dangling toaster and then zooms in on the trademark. The trademark reads, "Oracle."

FADE OUT:

Watch "Pop-Up Prophecy" on YouTube.

Check out our IMDb Listing.

Yep, I'm on IMDb, too.

"Where the Hell Are Them Chemical Weapons?"

2009-06-07T16:40:00.000-07:00

This column was responsible for my first two death threats. Yep, when it was published, I received my first two within two days, each one coming via email, and each one telling me how I was going to die and for what reasons (the usual - anti-American, unpatriotic, liberal, and so on...) Upon reflection, I think they mistook the term "hate mail" at the bottom of my blurb for "death threats." At the time, people hated everything I wrote (not the columns - just my opinions), and were happy to send in four or five pieces of hate mail a week. I decided to mention hate mail that week. The results were death threats. I never again mentioned hate mail; it seemed a bit short-sighted to do so. But I never backed off my anti-war position and I never toned it down. I also didn't live in fear. I turned over the death threats to the sheriff's department. I received four or five more (I honestly can't remember how many it was) and didn't worry about it. None of these twerps ever killed me, so I got that going for me, which is nice.

The US people can feel proud. We’ve put one in the “Dubya” column, against a third-world enemy with antiquated weaponry and an army made largely of non-soldiers. Dozens of American and British soldiers have lost their lives in this illegal war, but hey! That’s okay, since it means cheaper gas for all of us, right? Now, all that’s left to do is to send our POWs home, install our own puppet government, and make sweeping trade agreements for millions of barrels of cheap oil.

Oh, yes. And find those pesky chemical weapons. These weapons are important to the White House, more important than some people realize. These weapons, which were labeled “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” are the reason for this war. These weapons, not yet found, are the justification that the Governor of the United States used to attack Iraq. And nobody’s found a single one yet.

Right now, most of the world’s population hates us, because of this insane war we’ve undertaken. But there are some who are waiting, giving us the benefit of the doubt, wondering where the chemical weapons are. If we don’t produce any, we will have been proven wrong; and we will find it harder to hold onto allies.

At this point, the White House is so desperate to uncover chemical weapons that any substance in Baghdad which cannot be readily recognized as sugar, salt, or Tabasco sauce is being sent off to be tested for chemical content. They have to. If we are unable to find any chemicals, then we have to admit that the reason we went to war is bullshit. This will not go over well with the Europeans, Arabs, Asians, or in fact with our allies – the few we have – who genuinely believed our intelligence.

I find it highly unlikely that there are any chemical weapons of any sort in Iraq. As many Iraqi POWs as we have taken, and as much information as we have gained, we have not uncovered a single shred of evidence, not a single vial of sarin gas. Just recently, our military managed to find a group of trailers buried in the sand, miles out from the nearest city, in which were found elements of a laboratory. Of course, the White House proudly announced that they had found the proof they were seeking. That is, until US military scientists admitted on CNN that there was no way that these were used to make chemical weapons of any kind. Munitions, yes. Chemicals, no.

Let’s look at it this way. If you were an Iraqi who knew about the chemicals, and you were captured, wouldn’t you offer up the location and contents of these chemical weapons stores for any better treatment you might get? So far, captured Iraqis have spilled the beans about quite a few things, including the buried laboratory equipment. Is it possible to believe that not a single captured Iraqi knows where these Weapons of Mass Destruction are? It is possible, but it is not likely.

Next time, class, we will be discussing Syria. Avoid the rush! Send your hate mail to: yahoo.com.

"Santa Claus's Political Affiliations (with Footnotes)"

2009-06-07T16:34:00.000-07:00

There is no reason for this, but this is one of my favorite columns of all time, bar none.

I always wondered what Santa Claus’ political beliefs are, and yes, I know that’s weird. I figured it to be easy to work out what he believes by what he does. It wasn’t. It wasn’t even easy figuring out where he originally came from, but I did a little research and I think I may be a little closer to the answers.

Some say Santa Claus began as St. Nicholas, a Turkish priest and saint, who gave toys and candy to the yard apes of Asia Minor 1700 years ago. He was canonized and became very popular, becoming the patron saint of children, sailors, and several countries. When the Reformation swept Europe, those pesky Protestants made any celebration involving St. Nick illegal. As usual, the Dutch did their own thing and kept Sint Nikolass part of their festivities. When they came to America and snagged the last remaining parking spots in New Amsterdam, they brought a devotion to Sinterklass, as they called him here. When the Dutch were evicted in the 17th Century, their English landlords turned Sinterklass to Santa Claus.

Let’s see: Santa is Catholic, at least partly Dutch, and he settled in New York. He believes in giving gifts to everyone and he works with (ahem) a small minority. By golly, he’s a Blue Stater!

But, honestly, it’s not that simple. Mr. S. Claus is also a shining example of conservatism. He is pro-business and –industry* and it’s a no-brainer that the elves are not unionized. His current look – red-and-white suit, black boots and belt, sack full of toys – was actually created by a Southern corporation (Coca-Cola hired artist Haddon Sundblom to create Santas for advertisements from 1931 to 1964 – it’s his design that children today know). And Santa Claus is in a long-term heterosexual relationship with Mrs. Claus. He is a family value.

He could be an autocrat, the mythical “benevolent dictator” that has so long been debated. We don’t hear about a parliament of elves or that reindeer get to vote. In the same vein, the North Pole could be a theocracy. He is a saint after all, and the Vatican only has a pope.

But this only works if his Catholic origins are correct, which they almost certainly aren’t. No single piece of evidence exists to back the claim of St. Nicholas as a living person. What most folklorists believe is that St. Nicholas was a pagan god ‘christianized’ by the church and given some of the aspects of other pagan gods, like the Greek Poseidon and the Teutonic Hold Nickar. The Church commonly took pagan beliefs and folded them into Christianity, a habit they swiped from the pre-Christian Romans**. He’s not a real saint, so theocracy must be out.

He also can’t be a communist. True communists don’t believe in individual ownership and Comrade Claus certainly does. He can’t be a fascist or imperialist, either. Both require a tough military and a drive to expand. Any military that can use faster-than-light sleighs would have at least invaded Canada by now. I also doubt he’s a monarchist. He’d have to be a king or an emperor, and those types don’t let pee-soaked youngsters squat on their lap.

The North Pole could actually be socialist. Assuming that Santa is the government, he would own the factories (toyshop), means of transportation (reindeer), and the produce (goodies). He would also handle negotiating prices (free to good tots). Further backing a socialist claim is the fact that he lives in an extreme environment**** and must take care of his elves’ needs himself, since no medical insurers have yet opened up North Pole branches. There is also at least a hint of the redistribution of wealth in his ways. But it’s only a hint.

No, Santa is a capitalist. No one affects a fiscal year like old Kris Kringle. He is great for the economy and he puts money in the pockets of retailers, wholesalers, and producers. With the amount of money that changes hands because of him, his belief system cannot be denied. And he is a benevolent capitalist, a strong supporter of charities, and a believer in taking care of those who need help. He is a representation of everything good, not just economically but spiritually. True, he misses the homes of some Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist homes, but not all. Santa Claus has allowed Christmas to come into non-Christian homes and he himself does not insist on a particular belief to be held, to believe in him.

He is appreciated by those of a religious or spiritual nature, and by those who aren’t. He is a benevolent capitalist, doing what he can for those who need it, and for those who simply want it. He has some conservative elements, and some liberal elements. He is complex, nuanced, and not easy to categorize.

Just like a Planet Weekly reader. Merry Christmas to Mr. Claus and to the rest of our complex, nuanced, and hard-to-categorize readers.

--------------------------------------------------

* Of course, he’s also outsourced some of his work to Mattel, Hasbro, and Nintendo, but I suppose that’s part of his bottom-line conservatism.

** Yes, the Church swiped pagan beliefs, but pagan Romans swiped their entire pantheon of gods from the Greeks and renamed them, adding some lame deities like Janus, the God of Doors and Beginnings***, and Flora, the Goddess of Flowers.

*** But Janus is where we get “January,” so he is by default the God of New Year’s Eve. Let’s hoist a glass to mighty Janus!

****. Living in the extreme north means he is no vegan, either. Santa Claus is a meat eater. He and the elves must have much protein to survive. He also uses an endangered species as beasts of burden. This will bother none but the vegeterrorists of PETA. Santa snickers at your Tofurkey.

Next time, the Bipolar Santa will offer up his annual list of who’s been naughty and nice. I’ll take nominations at http://www.writersownwords.com/fckeditor/editor/%22http://www.planetweekly.com/%22.

"Run, Rudolph, Run!"

2009-06-07T16:33:00.000-07:00

This was one of my 'angry' political columns that attracted me attention from a certain fringe group I'll call neo-conservatives. They're the ones that sent in letters, demanding I be 1) fired or 2) killed. They went online and bravely called me anti-American, communist, and all that noise. At this point, I'd had half a dozen death threats, and I was enjoying pissing them off every week. I will say, though, that when this story broke, it infuriated me like little else had since the war started.

“People around here, they take care of their own. You can't put a price on a man's head, and I don't know anybody who would have given him up, even for a million dollars.''*

This person is speaking of whom? Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, you might say? You would be wrong. This person, Sarah Greenfield of Marble, North Carolina, is referring to Eric Robert Rudolph, the alleged Olympic Park bomber. Rudolph is suspected in four bombings between July 1996 and January 1998. He also is reported to belong to the fringe religion, Christian Identity, which is outspokenly opposed to abortion and homosexuality and is vehemently anti-Semitic.

The Christian Identity religion stresses that northern Europeans are the “true” Israelites and that all other races are “mud people.” They also espouse the idea that the Holocaust never happened.

Rudolph has been in hiding since the end of January 1998 in the Appalachian Mountains, avoiding any and all attempts by federal agents to bring him in. In western North Carolina, he has become a mythic figure, featured famously on the “Run Rudolph Run” t-shirts and supported outwardly by some of the region’s fundamentalist conservatives.

When Rudolph was found and arrested by a rookie police officer in Murphy, North Carolina, he was dressed casually, in clean clothes, and was by all accounts presentable and neat. The overwhelming belief in the area is that he has been given support by some of the residents. Signs in front yards profess outward support for the man who has killed two and wounded nearly one hundred and fifty individuals.

Let us recap. Eric Rudolph is a terrorist, a man who detonated explosives and has killed people who did not agree with his personal beliefs. He belongs to a fringe fundamentalist religion that embraces hateful ideals. He has received support from the people who live near him and agree with his “crusade.” He has hidden in the mountains and avoided capture by U.S. government forces.

Does this sound familiar yet? It should.

The only real difference between Eric Robert Rudolph and Arab terrorists is the color of their God. Both sides think that they are justified in taking lives to further their own causes. Both sides’ beliefs are grounded in conservative religions; one Christianity, one Islam. Both sides have been given support by people who agree.

President Bush has pounded the podium and announced to the world that the United States would go after any country that harbored terrorism. By his broad standards, this means that the United States could go after any nation that had individuals who harbored terrorists. Which includes us. The signs in the front yards of Murphy, North Carolina are proof. The statement of the woman in Marble is further proof. The fact that Rudolph has survived five years in hiding – in nice clothing – is plenty. Is it possible that the man bought groceries, gear, and clothing in a region where his face is peppered across t-shirts, and no one noticed? It is possible, but it is not likely.

*Quoted from a Tim Whitmire AP story of 6/1/03.

----------------------------------------------------

Will the 101st Airborne drop into North Carolina? Will the feds find Weapons of Mass Destruction outside of Asheville? E-mail me at: yahoo.com to make your opinion known.

'Rugby Gets in Your Blood'

2009-06-07T15:04:00.000-07:00

This was undoubtably the hardest story I ever had to write - and I blame them. You see, the only way they would be interviewed is if I would come join them at a house party and drink with them. Now I am a drinker, so I said I would. But I brought my micro-cassette recorder and three tapes, and the last two tapes were useless. I couldn't tell what I was asking, let alone what any of them were answering. Though, in moments of some lucidity, I could tell we were discussing Iraq, the tax base, Canadian girls, and the NFL. But, as God as my witness, everything in the story had to come off the first tape (and most of that was off the first side of the first tape). These guys say they've never lost a party. They're not lying.

It has been said that soccer is a gentlemen’s game played by hooligans, but that rugby is a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen. It is a violent game, fast moving and dangerous, immortalized by the bumper sticker that reads, “Give Blood. Play Rugby.” In Jackson, those gentlemen who participate in the hooligan’s game are known as the Jackson Rugby Football Club.

Though the majority of local sports fans are not even aware that the club exists, the Jackson Rugby FC began in 1974 and has been active since. The club competes nationally with 365 different teams in their division. Currently the team plays their matches at Chastain School, at 4650 Manhattan Road.

Locally, the men of the club number between twenty-five and thirty, depending on who is asked. The fluid numbers are accounted for easily. These are not professional players. These are men that practice twice a week, play games every Saturday, and have to foot their own bills on road trips during the seasons. Some men are not able to make games or practices with any regularity, some are on leaves of absence, and some are limited to only being available at certain times. But most of them are die-hards, adjusting their work and home schedules to allow them to fully participate in rugby and all of its aspects.

Rugby is one of the oldest team sports in existence. Early variants of the game were played several hundred years ago, but its current form has been around since 1823, when William Webb Ellis, a monitor at the Rugby School in the midlands of England, overhauled some of the then-current rules of the game and made it his own. The rules have been changed and modified numerous times in the one hundred and eighty one years since, but the game is substantially the same.

Both American-style football and Australian Rules football sprang from rugby. Many of the terms are used in both sports: forward pass, fullback, halfback, punt, place kick, and offsides are all used. Rugby is played on a 100-meter-long field – the “pitch” – as opposed to a 100-yard long field. Goalposts stand at each end of the pitch and kicking the ball between the forks results in points on the board. Even the post-touchdown extra point in football comes from rugby’s conversion kick.

But unlike football, rugby is a game of constant motion and speed. During a match, players must play both offense and defense and only minimal substitutions are allowed. Players must be prepared to be on their feet, running and tackling, for most of the game.

The match consists of two forty-minute halves. The clock runs continually, stopping only for injuries. Players are penalized for unnecessarily delaying the game in any way.

This kind of hard play demands a certain level of fitness. These men have it, but these are not the typical athletes. Toughness is more important to a rugby player than physique. As such, potbellies abound, and a six-pack is more likely to refer to cold beer than to abs.

“The majority of guys who are really good athletes aren’t chiseled,” says Blair Lobrano, a prop. “I have a background in Olympic weightlifting. You can be fit and not have the physique of a Greek god. The athletes we see on TV are being marketed, sold to you. They need to look good.” He believes that rugby players need something more important than a chiseled physique.
“It’s a sort of mental and physical toughness. It’s that desire to keep going, because the guy standing next to you is also still going.”

Lock forward Ray Wiltshire, known as “Mouth of the South,” agrees. “Rugby is controlled violence. You can’t be a wallflower, as far as worrying about being hurt. You’re going to get stepped on. You’re going to get scraped, scratched, bruised, and beat up. You have to be tough and a little rough around the edges. I’ve learned to recruit anybody of any size. Look at little Jason over there. He’s tough as woodpecker lips.”

Wiltshire has been playing rugby since 1990, when he graduated from Millsaps College. A four-year football player there, he was brought to rugby by a friend. He says there are many different ways that guys stumble into the rugby scene.

“I happened to walk into the Dutch Bar wearing, unbeknownst to me at the time, a rugby jersey,” says Jason “Booger” Guillot, who plays outside center. “I proceeded to get ragged by the players who were there. They did it hard enough that I finally came out and practiced with them. I started playing in 1999 and never stopped.”

“I met the guys in the Dutch Bar,” says Bradley “Opie” Barnes, a wing forward. When I first met them, I thought, I don’t need to be playing rugby. These guys are entirely too big. But I kind of had a little crush on this girl who said that she knew a bunch of the guys who played. She said she was always there. So I said, ‘I’m going to start playing.’”

To a man, the players all agree that the camaraderie they share is one of the reasons they stay with the club.

“You’re looking at a lot of likeminded, loudmouthed, very opinionated, very strong personalities,” Wiltshire says, which brings laughter from most of his teammates.

“We don’t play because anybody pays us – or whether or not anybody watches us, for that matter,” says Guillot. “We play for the parties after the game, and for the camaraderie. We don’t play for glory. God knows there’s not too much of that. We’ve approached a lot of groups for sponsorships and been turned down. I’m telling you, girls’ soccer teams get more financial support than we do.”

Except from former players. Recently, a group of former (and a few current) players formed OBIG, the Old Boys’ Investment Group. They purchased a piece of land off Medgar Evers Boulevard and are turning it into a rugby playing field.

Club President Mitch Holland, and proud OBIG member, says:

“We’re going to have two rugby pitches there. We’ve leveled the fields and planted the grass. We hope to play on them in September or October this year. In the long term, we need to add a good road and parking. We have a dirt road, but if it rains, you can’t get in at all. In the very long term, we want the two fields to become practice and secondary fields. The premiere field will go in when we have the funds. We plan to have a clubhouse and a video tower, so we can tape our matches.”

OBIG, like the club, is made up primarily of white-collar workers. Several doctors, lawyers, and engineers have regular places on the team.

“Everyone has a degree,” Wiltshire says. “Most of these guys have post-graduate degrees. Well, Opie doesn’t have a degree, since he’s still in college. He’s the baby of the team.”
The social aspect of the club is important to the members. Carlo Bagliane came from Capetown, South Africa, to play baseball for Belhaven College. Bagliane, known as “Bags,” the team’s flyhalf, describes his need for the team.

“I got married. I met my wife. She wouldn’t go back, so I stayed here.” His teammates chant, “Green card! Green card!” while he tells the story.

“I needed some sport to play. There’s no other sport here that’s a club. There’s no soccer in Jackson that’s a club. There’s no baseball in Jackson that’s a club. But there was a rugby club.”
To many of the members, the social aspect is a chance for relaxing and having a few – or several – drinks with friends. The team practices on Tuesday and Thursday during the season and has regular Saturday games. Games invariably end with both teams going to a bar or club together to do a bit of bilateral celebrating. But the celebrating also tends to occur during the week, too.

“To keep in practice,” Bagliane says. Apparently it pays off.

“I can honestly say that we may have lost games, but we’ve never lost a party,” Wiltshire says. “There’s been many places where if we win, the other team gets pissy. They drink a few beers and leave. We’ll kill their keg and drink at their bar until the last guy is ready to leave.”

“Or get kicked out,” Guillot says.

“In Pensacola we did get thrown out,” Wiltshire admits. He says that their combination of hard playing and hard partying brings them an unusual mix of fans.

“We get some fans of extreme sports. We get the oddly curious, the people who just want to see a train wreck out there. But believe it or not, there are a lot of women that rugby appears to attract. I don’t want to toot our horns too much. We’re not the prettiest guys, but a lot of us have very nice looking girlfriends.”

They also have many close friendships.

“The best thing about rugby to me is that the most important person on the field is the man standing next to me,” says teammate John Suyes, who recently returned to the team. Several others nod and agree.

“I’ve been with the club since 1980,” Holland says. “But I got away from it a bit during the 90’s. I’m back now. The guys who are here now remind me of my old teammates. They have that team spirit. They get along well. They remind me of how the team was when I played many years ago.”

“We’re from a smaller municipality,” says James Charbonneau, who plays both lock and wing forward. “So we’re always recruiting new players. We take young, old, whatever. We want people to know we’re here. We’ve been here a long time.”

“We’re just around the corner,” Guillot agrees. “Chastain School is just off the interstate.”

Charbonneau invites those interested in playing to, “Come out and play with us. We’ll train anyone. You didn’t have to play in college or in high school.” But be warned, you might become devoted.

“As long as my body can take it, I’m going to play,” Bagliane states.

“I’m here for the haul,” Barnes says. “As long as I’m able to go, I’m going to play. When I’m not able to go, if I have any money, I’m going to put a little in to support.”

“Rugby gets in your blood,” says Wiltshire. “You will love it.”

"A Random Bit of Twaddle, Geeks, and Frank Melton & the Maytals"

2009-06-07T14:25:00.000-07:00

Every now and then, I'd run a column of just random thoughts and wanderings. This one was one of my favorites, because it wasn't really that at all. It was more an illustration of my frustration with the election and my inability to do anything about it. I also included it, because it had an in-column follow up to "Geek Flag Ideologies" that I liked.

When it occurred to me that this column was going to run in our ‘election’ issue – regardless of the fact that Frank Melton has already been anointed emperor by some of our local TV stations; thank God the print media still believes in waiting until after the election to do so – I thought I’d write about why I thought one candidate was better than the other.

Oddly enough, the editors insisted that they wouldn’t print half a page of white space.

Honestly, the problem is that I just don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever not known whom I would vote for this close to an election. This is a problem for me, since it’s in my nature to talk, and write about it.

A week ago, I didn’t know. Four days ago, I decided to switch sides and cast my lot with Rick Whitlow. Two days ago, I’d given up and decided to insist on a paper ballot at the polls, just so I could write in “Incumbent Mayor Harvey Johnson.” Now, I’m back to not knowing. (Really, it goes without saying that I shan’t cast a vote for Frank Melton.)

I don’t believe either Melton or Whitlow are qualified for this type of office. I don’t believe that either has the ability to lead a city of this size. I do believe that Rick Whitlow is forthright, honest, and genuinely believes in what he is doing. He has a base of supporters that believe he is truly the right man for the job and they may be right; I just don’t know.

As for Melton…well, my opinions about him are already on record. Suffice it to say, I can’t say anything about him that I said about Whitlow.

A conservative chum of mine commented that he believes four years from now, people will be screaming at each other, “what did you do? Why did you elect Frank Melton?” I think he’s right. I also think it’ll be conservatives shrieking at liberals and liberals howling right back. What is for certain is that the next four years will be interesting.

And to quote Forest Gump (and it seems somewhat appropriate to do so, hm?), “that’s all I have to say about that.”

I’ve had a few random bits rattling around in my cluttered attic of a brain for weeks – none of them worthy of a column, but I thought I’d share them here and clear my head, leaving room for more useless clutter to appear.

I’ve been playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for weeks now (insert your own silly Jackson crime comment here), and I’ve come to one definite conclusion: the Maytals’ “Pressure Drop” is one of the best songs ever recorded. I love the covers by the Clash and the Specials, but Toots’ original is one for the books.

Two weeks ago, my “Geek Flag Ideologies” column was posted online. Frankly, I didn’t expect any comments and I didn’t see them until the following Monday, when I discovered that many, many folks unleashed their inner geek and immediately began sharing anecdotes and terrible trivia questions (even ones by my Dr. Who homey, Trey Mangum). The reason this struck me as hard as it did is that these people, mostly bright folks and mostly regulars on our site, opened up so quickly to share their love of Red Dwarf, Lord of the Rings, the X-Men and X-Files. When I was a wee lad, being a geek was bad. Now it seems to have cachet – very cool.

Until a friend offered to take the Beast for a walk, I hadn’t actually realized how much I loved taking him out to wander the neighborhood. It has just been something we do. It suddenly hit me how much I actually look forward to going with him. This is remarkable; I’m a certified Idaho couch potato. I guess I have the woofbeastie to thank for my mighty thews and lowered blood pressure.

American Idol: proof that the R&B-loving blue staters and the country-lovin’ red staters can come together to celebrate tedium and mediocrity at its finest. God bless the U.S.A.

As of this morning (Tuesday), Deep Throat appears to be uncovered. W. Mark Felt, the former second-in-command of the FBI during the early ‘70s has claimed to be the long-anonymous source who leaked Nixon’s Watergate secretes to The Washington Post’s Woodward and Bernstein, and whose existence was announced in their book, All the President’s Men. Vanity Fair, which has the story, believes Felt. His family believes him. Woodward and Bernstein aren’t saying. I think it’s true and I feel more than a little disappointed that one of this country’s greatest political mysteries has now ended. Now all we need to know is who whacked Jimmy Hoffa.

And what the next four years in Jackson will look like.

--------------------------------------------------------

“I said a pressure drop, oh pressure, oh yeah, pressure’s gonna drop on you.” Favorite songs, geeks? Probably a lot of Rush. Comments, as always, are enjoyed at planetweekly.

Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer

2009-06-07T14:22:00.000-07:00

Mississippians love their books. They have to, what with being the state known for Faulkner, Welty, Tennessee Williams, John Grisham, and others. Planet readers were astonishingly literate and one of our constants was our book section. We did small book reviews and had lists of regular book signings, and every now and then I'd do a book review (we had an editor and several freelancers who loved to do them). This was just one of my favorites.

I’m sitting on the couch, watching Olympic event after Olympic event and nearly drooling at the opportunity to watch my Chiefs smack around the Rams on preseason Monday Night Football (by the time this sees print, I’ll find out if I was right). I’ve made no secret of my love of sports, or of the fact that Kansas City football and baseball are imprinted on my soul. I’m also a New England Patriots fan – many moons in Maine caused me to adopt them, but they are a distant second compared to my beloved Arrowhead Stadium roughnecks. I’m a half-assed Ole Miss fan, simply because I went to a cow college in a neighboring state, one in which the football team found mediocrity something to strive for. I once screamed so loud and so long – at a high school football game – that I broke my voice.

Put simply, I’m a sports fan.

So when I had a chance to review Warren St. John’s Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer I jumped at it. St. John, a New York Times writer and crimson-blooded Bama fan, has written one of the funniest and most insightful books on sports-based psychology ever written. Partly a guided tour of the SEC, partly a history of Alabama football and the legacy of “Bear” Bryant, partly a season-long memoir by a very skilled sports writer, and partly a handbook of RV etiquette, Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer is simply the most entertaining nonfiction book I’ve read in years.

Named after one of Alabama’s crowd chants, St. John’s first book begins with an honest description of his own fan obsessions, such as paying for three hours’ long distance while in college to listen to an Alabama-Auburn ball game over the phone. But it kicks into gear when St. John decides what his mission is:

“I wanted to understand how and why something so removed from our lives – something that doesn’t affect our jobs, our relationships, or our health (hangovers notwithstanding) – affects us so much emotionally,” St. John writes. To do that, he chooses to immerse himself in the RV subculture of sports fandom, following those mobile fans from game to game around the South. On the way, he meets numerous other football fans – most, but not all, Bama supporters. Most are portrayed with some great affection, like Chris and Paula Bice, a South Carolina couple who are the only people to invite him to travel in their RV, and John Ed (“John AY-ud”) Belvin, a ticket broker from Tuscaloosa (and Kenny Rogers look-alike) of whom St. John writes:

“I’m beginning to develop an appreciation for John Ed’s strange personal lexicon. If he doesn’t like someone, that person is likely a “mullet-head,” or else a “fruit loop.” (Sometimes when his cell phone doesn’t work, it too can qualify as a mullet-head.) Someone who is socially awkward is a “weird piece of cheese.” John Ed is also fond of citing himself as an authority on a wide range of topics. The setup is always the same: “I made the statement one time that…” followed by a prediction that has proven abundantly true in the interim.”

St. John’s ability to turn a phrase puts me in mind of an amiable Tom Wolfe. Unlike most journalists, he is totally free from the name-date-this happened-that happened style that passes for quality writing. In fact, he comes across as part pop psychologist, part Southern storyteller, and part stand-up comedian. He writes:

“At big games, motor homes are so tightly packed that a person could nearly circle the entire stadium by walking along their rooftops, although as I learned firsthand, you should never walk along the rooftop of a stranger’s motor home because there’s a decent chance he will shoot you.”
St. John is not only amusing, but insightful. He has done his research, quoting from sources as diverse as Gustave Le Bon’s 1895 treatise on the mentality of crowds, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, to historian Allen Guttman, who is cited for his history of the tailgate party. It’s not dull and dry, but it is research.

Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer is a remarkably evenhanded piece of work, one that is able to humanize a group of people often unfairly dismissed as uneducated, lazy louts. And yet, St. John does not shy away from describing the seamier sides of fandom in the South: the obsessive-compulsive behavior, the occasional racism, the threats of violence, and some of the smarmy acts of the Old Boy network.

Rare is the tome whose back cover praise matters. For this one, praise by Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, Tony Horwitz (author of Confederates in the Attic), and H.G. “Buzz” Bissinger (author of Friday Night Lights – arguably the best book ever written about high school sports) is well deserved and demonstrable of the skill St. John possesses.

This is a good book. For any sports fan, it should be required reading.

'Pronounced Cha-Ne' - Feature

2009-06-07T14:19:00.000-07:00

When I was living in Portland, Maine, I even saw some of his stickers there and wondered about them. I hope he'll break big someday. This was my first piece for Yall, when they said they wanted to write about interesting Southern people, without it looking like a Southern People magazine.

Across the South, the name Chane is becoming known. On the backs of car windows, in places of honor normally reserved for Oakley stickers, more often you will see an oval sticker emblazoned with the word, “Chane.”

Beside the ubiquitous oval logo, you might also see a black “Somå” or a sticker with “Swell Sk8” on it. These are all labels attached to Chane, a unique man from Jackson, Mississippi. Chane is sometimes incorrectly called a fashion designer. He prefers the term “lifestyle designer.”

“If I feel like I can be creative with it, I’m going to design it,” he says. So far, he has been creative with clothing, skateboards, furnishings, and furniture. He is a one-man industry in Jackson, with four different stores in the arts neighborhood of Fondren: Swell, Etheria, Somå, and Studio Chane. In September, he is planning to open a fifth store in the same neighborhood, Dwello @mosphere. This might be his most audacious idea yet. Dwello @mosphere will be a showroom in a loft, a place where customers can browse and see the furniture in use. Chane is making this possible by making the store his home.

“I could have the perfect scenario. You know, the most crisp, clean designed museum to live in, where I’d never get tired of my surroundings, because it’s constantly being sold.” To him, this is not just thinking outside the box. He refuses to get inside the box in the first place.

“It’s the most claustrophobic thing I can think of, from a creative standpoint.” From that place outside the box, Chane has created two lines of clothing, “Chane” and “Modsushi.” Both of them, he is proud to say, focus on women’s garb as much as men’s. He is also responsible for “Chane Sk8 Co.,” his line of skateboard decks, wheels, wax, and grind rails. His most recent design line is “Dwello Furnitura,” furniture crafted of industrial metals and glass.

Born Ronnie Chane 33 years ago in Jackson, Chane doesn’t fit the image of a businessman or an artist. He is whipcord-thin, with the raw type of face and features that implies a more rustic sort of upbringing. He is filled with the youthful energy of a man half his age, but he doesn’t seem to smile as much as simply let a look of satisfaction cross his face. Chane speaks quickly, in a sort of stream-of-consciousness delivery that makes it clear that his mouth cannot keep up with the turmoil of thoughts and ideas in his head. Asking him a question is much like blowing a hole in a dam.

“It started when I was eighteen, because I basically had $150 that inadvertently came from graduating high school,” he says. “I just wanted a summer project to keep me from getting bored, because I didn’t have a lot of motivation and ambition at that point.” Instead of frittering away his $150 during the summer, he decided to design a t-shirt. His first effort was, admittedly, a strange one.

“It was kind of marketing volleyball. I have no clue to this day how that ever happened. [The] volleyball was round, and it wasn’t that hard to draw.” Chane took his idea and searched for a place to turn it into reality. “I probably hit close to a dozen screen printers in town and no one’d really take my order, because I mean, I only had $150. That’s small potatoes.” Frustrated, Chane reached the point where only one place was left to try – and he wished they would turn him down, just so he could spend the money.

“I went to a local screen print shop, Ad-Graphics, and this lady was there and she kind of showed a little bit of interest, and that shocked me.”

Melinda Ledbetter says she was struck by Chane’s presence immediately. She took his order on the spot. “I admired his drive and ambition even then,” she says.

Chane says she added as a joke, “I might need a job some day.”

About a year ago, Chane posted a help wanted ad for a screen printer. Ledbetter took the position. She is now head of production and customer service for his screen-print division.
Chane sold his first t-shirts to his friends and family, “everyone who feels sorry for you,” he says. “They can’t turn you down.” With that success, he decided to design a second shirt. “I never really expected it to be a career.”

When Chane went to college, he started selling shirts out of his dorm room, turning his hobby into a business. He also began to sell his gear at BMX meets. A longtime BMX racer and skateboarder, Chane realized that people who shared the same interests might share the same sense of style. He was correct. His sales increased.

Before graduation, he made the decision to change his life by moving to New York City. He made the move soon after.

“I knew that going to New York was probably the most intimidating thing I could do. It was either going to scare me into the fact that I just need to live a normal life or it was going to push me to the edge and change me forever.” In New York, the spectrum of cultures changed the way he looked at things. “It made me want to be a designer in more than just one way.”
But he was unable to do so in New York. He worked three jobs at one time, leaving him no time to design. Instead he sold his inventory in the streets. “I’d slam the shirts down on a footlocker and sell them as fast as I could, before the cops got there.”

Chane also found himself meshing another time-honored, yet illegal, urban tradition with his own marketing skills. Sharing an apartment with religious cultists meant that he didn’t like to go home much. He preferred not to return until they had gone to sleep. Chane would stay out late, carrying a stencil of his first logo, the Chane oval, and cans of spray paint, tagging walls with stenciled graffiti.

Before long, he realized he was spending so much time simply trying to get by that he had let his designs slip. He left New York and returned to Jackson, after an eight-month stay in Pensacola Beach.

He began designing skateboards and other types of clothing. Still an avid BMX racer, even going professional for two years, he toured from city to city, making sure he was in the right place at the right times for the BMX meets. With this, his business exploded. He found himself calling home frequently and having his gear overnighted to whatever address he could.
The last stop of his tour was back home. During a visit to a skate shop, the owner told him that the restaurant next door had just closed. “It was the only time in my life that I had serious money,” Chane says. “I had $14,000 in my pocket. I went to the landlord and I dropped bills down on it and said, ‘you know what, I don’t care who you got looking at this. The time is right. I’m not ready for it, but I’m supposed to do this right now.’”

They reached an agreement and Chane opened his first store, which is now “Swell.” He had fears that he was not a businessman and he would fail. He set a goal.

“I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do the business for six months.” It did not go quite the way he thought it would. Working under the idea that the store was a little bit of New York dropped into Jackson, he began with no business plan and no idea of how to make it for those six months.

But he had faith in the youth of Mississippi. His initial lines were aimed at the younger crowds. He knew they would find him. From the adults around him, he received apathy. They told him, “’you know what? These young kids don’t have the money.’” Chane admits that is true. “But I know their parents do.”

The youth came through. Six months to the day after he opened his first store, he opened his second. He has not looked back, but he refuses to do anything the normal way. Even though he sells men’s and women’s clothing and furniture, he still considers the high school and college kids his main market. He lets word of mouth carry his name around the country instead of expensive ad campaigns. And he works on his own style of 3-D, guerrilla marketing.

At 2002’s MTV Video Music Awards, Chane went to New York with backpacks full of his stickers and catalogs. He recruited several young men and women to his cause. He strapped the backpacks onto their chests and had them crowd-surf Times Square. They did, throwing Chane’s stickers, his catalogs, and his name out into the crowd.

He received orders because of it. But to this day, New York remains his greatest challenge. He desires to be in stores there, but no one carries his products.

They can be found in stores from Philadelphia to Miami and from Washington D.C. to San Diego. Chain stores like Fast Forward and CHAOS CULTURE carry his gear. Two mail order companies, Dance Competition and Revolution, sell his things through catalogs. Due to the unusual ways he gets his name and his products out, occasionally he is surprised to see his own name.

“On an episode of V.I.P., they pop in and do a fast-forward shot into a freeze-frame of Pamela Anderson’s mailbox. And there sits our oval Chane sticker. How it got there I may never know,” Chane says. It’s not just the mystery person on the V.I.P. set who is a fan.
“Right now, we’ve got stuff that Steven Tyler [of Aerosmith] wears, that he buys from us. We don’t just give it to him.” Referring to the BMX Grand Nationals in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Chane says, “He has a son that races BMX. We end up seeing him on Thanksgiving, pretty much every year. He just happens to pop in every time.”

“We sold a t-shirt to Huey Lewis. He was there at that same race last year,” Chane says, proud that his name is being worn by these celebrities. “I’d love to get it on a million celebrities.”

He has a fairly strong idea for the future. He wants to go after the young men and women who only shop at The Gap and Abercrombie and Fitch. But that’s not the limit of his vision.

“We have got all the elements sitting here. The concrete foundation has been built. We’ve got the elements to make an empire.”

"The Predator Connection"

2009-06-07T14:17:00.000-07:00

For the record, this appeared in print, five days before Saturday Night Live went over much of the same ground (of course, they didn't have the Sonny Landham connection, so I've got them there). Unlike the blogger who ripped off my Iggy Pop reference, I'm not fussing at SNL. It takes a week to set up and rehearse their sketches. I'm saying I'm happy that we came up with these ideas about the same time. It's just that mine saw print before theirs saw air. Don't nobody go saying I ripped off the Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time-Players. Great (and sick) minds really do think alike.

With the bread-and-circuses election in California recently, the Left Coast proved once and for all that the liberals out there are not the state’s only wackadoos. The fruits-and-nuts Republicans lined up to throw away their dignity and common sense to cast votes for an aging action star best known for playing a robot. Insert your own Al Gore joke here.

The cable news channels decided that everyone in the country actually gave a damn about who ran that yahoo state, and forced hundreds of mind-numbing hours of coverage on us. It was during some of the hypnotic, droning coverage that I stumbled onto the Predator Connection.
Predator, the 1987 sci-fi actioner, concerned a group of soldiers who ran afoul of a creature whose armor camouflaged itself, allowing him to vanish into the background and attack primarily through ambush – a lot like Gray Davis, but with a less abrasive personality.

Believe it or not, with a credited cast of only ten, Predator has spat out three actors who have run for governor in their home states. Jesse Ventura was first in Minnesota four years ago and this year brought us the Arnold Era. Even Sonny Landham, who played the psycho Indian, Billy, ran for governor of Kentucky in 2002, first as a Republican then as an Independent. He dropped out after a few months, but he ran.*

This means that 30% of the cast of Predator has run in gubernatorial races and 20% has won. I found myself wondering about the other 70%.

Of the remaining seven, I threw out two immediately. Bill Duke, the bad ass sergeant, is also a film director. This makes him overqualified to be governor. Shane Black, who dies early, is actually a scriptwriter, which means he can’t afford to run for office. Since he specializes in spinning tales of bogus heroes, he’d make a great White House Press Secretary.

Kevin Peter Hall, who played the Predator, has been dead twelve years, which eliminates him from running in any state but Missouri. Elpidia Carrillo, the Mexican babe, has two strikes against her: she’s a Mexican babe. R.G. Armstrong, the dignified Alabama character actor, has retired, effectively eliminating him from running. And Richard Chaves, who almost survives until the end of the movie, is a nobody, which seems to suggest that he’d be better off running for President on the Democratic ticket instead.

This leaves Carl Weathers. He’s a Southerner, born in New Orleans. Besides being an actor, he possesses another one of the qualifications it takes to be a politico in this country: he was a professional athlete, a football player. And as Apollo Creed, the man responsible for smacking around Stallone in Rocky, he is a personal hero to most moviegoers.

Given those qualifications, I think it’s time that Weathers start his campaign soon. He should strike while the Predator iron is hot. Chances are good he’d get support from a governor or two.

Now, if only Morgan Freeman had been in the movie…

-------------------------------------------------

*Landham also performed in several 70’s porno movies, including one called, They’re All Sluts, which somewhat puts Arnie’s alleged nipple tweaking in perspective.

Recall whoever! Freeman for Gov! Send campaign checks to: ed@planetweekly.

Interview with Rebekah Potter (Artist)

2009-06-07T14:13:00.000-07:00

This was unquestionably my most informal interview - and it seemed perfect for the subject. We met in her kitchen while she made pizza dough, and I questioned her with off-hand comments. I considered it an interview version of her work - "not a rectangle." She liked it well enough that gifted me with a 5' x 4' piece of art that I had admired in her studio. It's vaguely rectangular, has no real corners, is folded in places, stitched, battered, taped (and all this the way she made it), and goes everywhere with me. Like all great art, wherever I hang it, it's perfect.

Rebekah Potter does not believe in rectangles. Instead, she prefers to let the borders of her art become part of the art itself. Using scrap wood – complete with gashes, tears, and protrusions – she creates pieces that purposefully reach beyond the boundaries our minds impose. Many of her paper and cardboard collage pieces have no shape, reaching out and folding back in on themselves, helping turn the medium into the message. She sews stitches into many of her pieces, adding texture and drawing your eyes to places they would not necessarily go. And yes, she does have some rectangular pieces, but only because it suits her to do so.

Potter has been called an intrepid wanderer, living alone around the world, yet always touching base in Jackson, where she lived for six years. Perhaps because of her infrequent visits home, she has remained near the edges of Jackson’s vibrant art scene, yet she has many devotees and numerous individuals collect her work. She often reaches inside herself to find her subject matter, which vividly reflects her state of mind at the time.

On Thursday, June 2nd, Potter will return to Fondren Traders, inside the Rainbow Whole Foods building, for a show of her newest work, called Vis.Queen.Wonder.Land. (See The Art Scene for details.) When I first spoke with her in early May about doing this piece, she was simply in Jackson for a visit. By the time of the interview, she had decided to return to Jackson permanently – or as permanently as she ever is.

As is her wont, our interview was extremely informal. PW sat in a kitchen while she prepared her own pizza crust for a dinner party; we discussed her travels, her work, and her belief in “art for no reason.”

Planet Weekly: How would you define your art?

Rebekah Potter: I’m a mixed media artist. I do 2-dimensional work with paint, but I also do collages with found material – everyday life objects; things you maybe should take out of context in order to better appreciate.

PW: What brought you to that style of work?

RP: When you first start out, you want to try to be a painter’s painter, to paint things classically. For me, it got to where that just wasn’t enough. Robert Rauschenberg was taking painting beyond just paint and I liked that.

PW: Your art reflects who you are?

RP: A lot of it has been really autobiographical; in a sense, I’d say selfish. Now I feel like I’m trying to bridge – the word bridge and the word bound; those two words I’ve been thinking about – with the viewer and maybe start addressing issues larger than myself. When I was in school, I thought it was cliché; I thought it was what you were supposed to do. Now, it’s a matter of following my curiosity, following my interests.

PW: You mention found objects. What do you use?

RP: Mainly for me it’s recycled paper, cardboard – things you take for granted. In San Francisco, when you walk around, you can see tons of valet stickers on the ground. I collect them because I was always walking around. I was really into them.

PW: How long did you live and work in San Francisco?

RP: For six years. I went to school at Arizona State, I went to San Francisco, went to Japan, then Los Angeles. Now I’m coming back here.

PW: Are you from Mississippi?

RP: I was born in Mobile, Alabama. My family moved around. I remember we lived in West Virginia. I remember some of South Carolina; we lived in Charleston. I remember Atlanta. We lived in Oklahoma City for a couple of years. By the time I reached the sixth grade, we were here. I graduated high school here.

PW: Why come back?

RP: It’s gotten big enough that I can handle it. Before, it was so small; I couldn’t. It wasn’t enough for me. You have to go out there and find yourself and discover who you are. I think you have to go out of your comfort zone and that’s what I did.

But here, the cost of living is so much cheaper. It’s more interesting than it used to be. Jackson has interesting characters.

PW: I suppose you don’t know that, population-wise, Jackson is actually a little smaller.

RP: I didn’t know that. How come it seems so much bigger?

PW: That’s what I’m asking you.

RP: I guess there is more here, as far as shopping, performance venues, and people from other places. There are a lot more people from other places. Jackson has become more cosmopolitan.

PW: I’m assuming you find that more appealing.

RP: Yeah. There are certain things; I can’t get over the fact that there isn’t a Trader Joe’s here. There are those little things that can make a city great. You can go to all these different little places and get all kinds of interesting food, wine, clothes. You can see independent films you can’t see here. There’s a lot more going on in L.A. than in Jackson.

PW: Then, was there something in particular that drew you back here?

RP: People. There are people who have been a consistent inspiration: my friend the glass blower, my friend the writer, and my friend the architect. There are good people here doing interesting things. Besides the glass blower, the others have left Jackson and experienced other things and places, and they’ve been brought back here for some reason. You wonder what’s wrong with you; why do you come back here? But there is something about Jackson. I don’t know what it is. I feel different here.

PW: Is that a positive different?

RP: Yeah. It’s interesting to me. In L.A., I wake up and drink Yerba Maté – Brazilian rainforest tea that tastes like bark – with rice milk. I have something soy; an overly L.A. kind of breakfast. Here I have coffee, maybe an egg with hormones. I really can’t quite imagine drinking Yerba Maté here. But in L.A., I’m not a drinker. Here, I like a drink at night. I like to watch the rain. The other night I told [the architect] I hadn’t seen a thunderstorm since I can’t remember. It’s been forever. I sat outside and watched it. We didn’t have the weather out there. There are no trees to make that noise when the leaves are blowing. I love that. The South is more sensual.

PW: How does that affect your work?

RP: It makes it more tactile. You’re not supposed to touch a painting, you know. But I’m avid about doing that. With the process I’m using, I like the way they feel. I like people touching them; it feels like skin. My work is more 3-dimensional here. I’ve incorporated the sewing; the sense of lighting is different. L.A. is very bright, but it lacks depth – it’s flat, shiny, hard.
I’m here for the life. There’s more soul here. I’m an oddball. I don’t look like Jackson, but I feel comfortable here, and I feel that no one would harass me about it.

PW: What kind of work will you be showing?

RP: A few different styles. They’re bridging together. Some of them I started before I got here; they’re autobiographical, reflecting what I was going through in L.A. That whole series brought me here. I finished a couple of pieces here, so they’re half-and-half, and there are pieces that I’ve started here – equines. For me, horses are passion.

PW: That’s a female thing.

RP: It is. That fine with me, because I like being a girl.

PW: She says while kneading dough.

RP: I know. That’s been a shift in me. I see a shift in my work, too. I can’t sew and suddenly I’m obsessed with sewing. I want to learn to sew. Now I’m sewing in my work. For me, I’ve been such a tomboy, but now I’m starting to feel more okay with womanly things, domestic traits. I don’t see it as being a bad thing; it’s something that adds strength and balance.

PW: How active were you artistically in these other locations?

RP: In San Francisco, I was the most active; I was part of a studio group, the Blue Studio. Now it’s on Mission Street, but it used to be near PacBell Park [home of the San Francisco Giants]. It was a work-only space and I lived there. My friend built me a Murphy bed and I joined the gym up the street [for bathing facilities]. There, we would go to the Art Walks, participate in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts shows. That’s when things started to click for me. I did a lot of auctions and benefits. It’s weird: I don’t know why, but for a year, I quit painting and took a corporate job selling furniture. Then I lost it and went to Japan.

PW: Lost your job?

RP: Lost my mind.

PW: What did you do in Japan?

RP: I taught English. It was exciting; Japan is beautiful in every way. I wouldn’t want to live there forever, but I liked it. It was visual splendor.

PW: How did this affect your work?

RP: I was unaware of how much I liked everything Japanese until I got there. I like the food; I had Japanese prints. I had started to collect wooden Japanese carpenter tools.
I’d say Western art is 3-dimensional; it wants to create space, volume. Japanese prints are very flat. I liked that. I started recognizing that in my own work. When I got back from Japan, I had my first show at Fondren Traders and it was all very Asian looking. It gave me a good experience at documenting a place and a feeling. That series I would like to own myself; it was natural and fluid. It came out of me. It had all the elements: it was personal, but it could match your couch. I had to tell myself to get off the Asian theme.

PW: There is still some Japanese influence in your current work. The layout hints at it. In one, there is an Oriental-looking fish…

RP: And a pagoda. It’s hard for me to shake. You’ll catch me on the Internet, looking at scenes from Japan.

PW: You took imagery and concepts from Japan. What did you take artistically from San Francisco?

RP: There, I was influenced by a good group of peers, some amazing painters. One guy had a very established style by the time he finished school – very Basquiat-influenced. I used to watch him paint a couple hours a day. He was very free with me and I learned a lot from that. Another friend was a hyperrealist painter. He thought about art very formally, about what school taught you to do. All those things influenced me. I pick, choose, borrow, and steal whatever I want. I was a sponge.

It’s more intuitive that way. I don’t like formula. It’s shallow and small-minded. You want to have an experience. Have the guts to make art for no reason – for no reason. I think who you are and what you appreciate translates less literally than people think.

PW: What did you take away from L.A.?

RP: Ruins. When I got there, I loved it for the first year and a half; the industrial look, the interesting colors. But then I felt like I’d never experienced the reality out there. If you’re not in the film industry, everyone seems crazy to you. They’re obsessed with these people, and these people are jerks, in this industry where everyone gets all this money and notoriety. I was just struggling to survive. I couch-surfed the first year I was out there, and there were a lot of nights in the car. I will say I met one friend who was a photographer there with a lot of heart and soul

I have to say, L.A. is known for the second-best art scene, next to New York. As far as painting, I didn’t see much that impressed me. I feel like L.A. set me up to move here. It stripped away the fluff and brought me down to the essentials.

Jackson is very real. I can live my life my way. I want to create my own world. I want my place, my paintings. I want to take them anywhere and everywhere. That’s what I want.

"The Politics of Death"

2009-06-07T14:11:00.000-07:00

There are no punchlines with this one.

Death is one of only two things that all persons are guaranteed to experience once in their life, along with birth. Sex isn’t a given, love isn’t a given; pride, hope, joy, happiness, sadness, faith or friendship offer no guarantees that one will ever experience them. Only birth and death are promises always met.

Birth is the overture of life, full of the promise of what has yet come. But death, which comes at the very end, signifies the finality of years or decades of living, turning a once-vital person into memories shared by those around her. Death is the final note of life’s symphony and is, by nature, the more dramatic of the two. And as the most dramatic guarantee life has to offer, it has become arguably the most contentious subject in politics; capital punishment, assisted suicide, abortion, and euthanasia are discussed at every political level and numerous other subjects – stem cell research, disease, drunk-driving laws, and drug addiction all have the idea of death as part of the vast discussions that accompany them.

On very few of those issues do conservatives and liberals agree. Certainly no one in their right mind thinks that drunk driving is a good idea and most everyone supports the government and private industry’s work to eradicate diseases as best they can. But the hot-button issues continue to divide the country and sadly, both sides seem to be rooted in inconsistent thinking.

At first glance, the conservative position is remarkably inconsistent: pro-life, pro-death penalty, and anti-assisted suicide. They claim that their moral values support human life, and they do – some of the time. According to pro-life thought, the moment that one little sperm wins the Great Race and one little cell divides inside a woman’s womb, that is a human life, by definition an “innocent.” Conservative thought says that that life must be protected, regardless of what the mother believes. Also apparently “innocent” are those sick and elderly who wish to die – usually because of inescapable pain, but those people, conservatives believe, must be allowed to live their lives fully – no matter how much pain they are in and how much they wish to die. The belief is that life is precious, regardless of how sick a person is.

However, if a person is convicted of a capital crime – regardless of actual innocence or guilt – that person is no longer given the same rights as others. Most conservatives, but not all, support capital punishment, even though study after study after study has demonstrated that not all those convicted of a capital crime are actually guilty. Capital punishment is final; there is no reprieve for those who are killed.

In essence, a pair of cells in a womb is an innocent, a great-grandmother writhing in constant pain is an innocent, but a black man falsely convicted is no longer an innocent, and deserves to die. It is a judgment call at best, given proper spin by the conservatives: sweet little Baby Johnny and dear old Aunt Petunia should live, but that nasty fellow in Cell Block E must die.
Unfortunately, the liberals are no better and are as inconsistent. Their position is generally pro-abortion (I refuse to call it pro-choice; those that tend to use that term are often the ones who prefer that others don’t get to make choices of their own), pro-assisted suicide, and anti-death penalty. In other words, killing a fetus is good. Killing a sad old woman is good. But killing a man who killed thirteen people at a dinner party is a bad idea. Even if the man was found with a bloody axe, a head in his hand, and confessed his crime in great detail, they still believe it’s bad to kill him. It’s all in the spin, and the liberals do not spin this as well as the conservatives do, and their position takes on a more negative light. They come across as savage, willing to kill innocents for selfish reasons, but also as “light on crime,” willing to house criminals for decades who probably do deserve to die.

There is no way to make these belief systems consistent in and of themselves and frankly, I’m not sure there should be. What these discrete systems of beliefs demonstrate is how vastly different in thinking we all are. Neither all conservatives nor all liberals believe everything that their groups seem to espouse, but many do. This to me says that perhaps death – and the subjects that touch heavily on death – should be given more respect by both sides. Instead of calling the pro-abortion types “baby killers” or calling the pro-capital punishment supporters “murderers,” maybe at some point our society will evolve to the point where our beliefs on death can be respected, not only by those who agree with us, but more importantly, by those we disagree with. I’d like to think that, as a people, this is one thing we are all capable of doing.

"People Are Afraid"

2009-06-07T14:10:00.000-07:00

Couple of things about this one: Kane Ditto was the mayor of Jackson during its gunfights-in-the-streets early '90s days; yes, it's stat-heavy; yes, my stats are correct; and yes, I supported Harvey Johnson. In fact, only Planet Weekly and the Jackson Free Press didn't support Frank Melton. The daily paper, the television stations, the radio stations, and the pundits all supported Frank Melton. Melton won in a landslide and is now considered one of the laughingstocks of the political world. Jacksonians got the mayor they deserved. Fear and stupidity are a powerful mix.

Four years after Melton was voted into office, he collapsed on the evening of the Democratic mayoral primary - where he ran against Harvey Johnson. He passed on sometime later. I managed to avoid most "God voted" jokes, but not all.

You hear it everywhere; a constant refrain from Frank Melton, from the Melton campaign, and from Melton’s followers – “people are afraid.” You hear it in conversations, you see it campaign material, you hear it on newscasts (particularly on WAPT, which long ago jettisoned any attempts to maintain non-biased reporting), and you hear it from the candidate himself – people are afraid. Do you know what you rarely hear?

“I’m afraid.”

It’s much, much harder to find someone who says this than it is to find someone who says, “people are afraid.” Certainly, there are those who are afraid to live in Jackson. WAPT manages to run useless segments on the topic frequently, even though they exist to do nothing except reinforce Melton’s assertion. I was a crime victim two years ago. I’m not afraid, and I think that most people are not afraid. What has happened, though, is that Melton supporters have taken up this chant, in an effort to fool people into thinking it’s true, even though it’s not. A repetitious spurious ideology does not become a fact; it is simply a spurious ideology shoved down the throats of voters. I suggest the next time someone says, “People are afraid,” we respond:

“No, they’re not.”

Another quote that has become a constant rallying point comes in the form of a question – “Do you feel safer now than you did 8 years ago?” Amazingly, the Melton folks think that most people will answer no. Even more amazingly, some of them believe it. Is crime a problem in Jackson? Yes. But crime is a problem in every city in the country, and Jackson is no longer a small town; it is a city, with all that entails – good and bad.

I’d like to answer the question, but I can’t. Eight years ago, I had relocated to New England, so I can’t answer that specifically. But I can tell you, ten years ago, in the mid-‘90s Kane Ditto heyday, I lived in Belhaven Heights – oddly enough, exactly one block from where I now live. My roommates and I would spend evenings on the back porch, listening to the frequent sound of gunfire in the neighborhood. That was unsafe. Jefferson Street had a fully staffed crack house, Christo’s (where Fenian’s was before Fenian’s, youngsters) front door was shot out, and it was not safe to walk the streets at night. Now, the same neighborhood is a place where people walk their dogs safely and happily, the crack house is no more, and I haven’t heard a gunshot in over a year. Do I feel safer now than I did 10 years ago? Absolutely.

Do you feel safer now than you did two years ago? You should. The statistics are there for all to see. From 2003 to 2004, every type of crime (except homicides) went down in number. In 2003, Jacksonians were victims of 17,203 different crimes. In 2004, there were only 13,600. That’s a drop of 21 percent; a remarkable number. In 1997, when Mayor Johnson took office, there were 20,176 crimes. 1998 saw the only growth in crime in Jackson under Johnson’s leadership – 20,674 crimes. So from 1997 to 2004, the number of crimes in Jackson fell by a total of 6,576. That is a drop of 32.6 percent.

Do you feel safer now than you did 8 years ago? Again, you should. Crime is down 32.6 percent since Harvey Johnson took over. In fact, 2004 had the lowest crime rate in 24 years. Whether you know it or not, and whether you feel safer or not, you actually are safer now.

But this, too, is an attempt by the Melton camp to obfuscate the facts with a repetitious rhetoric. They prefer that you don’t know these facts; they want to scare you with their lack of them. Melton knows these facts; he has the same statistics to which everyone else has access. With one hand, he dismisses them as “artificial” in his campaign platform; with the other, he uses the same ones to tout the fact that homicides are up. (In 2003, there were 45; in 2004, 52. That’s true. And 10 years ago, there were 97. You are safer.)

Personally, I’m concerned with what I see as an upcoming crime. I see it coming, and so should you. In Mississippi, you don’t have to register as a Republican or Democrat when you register to vote (or an Independent, which is my preference). As such, at primary election time, a person can vote for either. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. Democrats would vote for Democrats, and Republicans would vote for Republicans. With Rick Whitlow running unopposed in the primary, it is a certainty that many of the city’s Republicans will instead vote Democrat and cast their votes for Frank Melton, one of their own, in an attempt to oust the mayor before the election proper.

I see this as something more than a callow action on their part; it’s an attempt to steal the election. Add this to the constant, repetitious flow of misinformation and you have a candidate not worth voting for.

I urge you to get out and cast your vote in the primary election for the man who has brought crime to a 24-year low and made the city safer: Mayor Harvey Johnson.

And remember, just because they say people are afraid, it doesn’t mean they are.

New Vibrations - Feature

2009-06-07T14:08:00.000-07:00

This one's here because, for no reason whatsoever, this is one of my favorite short pieces - and Karen Parker is one of my favorite Jacksonians. If you're ever there, go see her.

New Vibrations owner Karen Parker describes the idea behind her store:

“We call this a store of spiritual and cultural diversity. I wanted to bring things from around the world to Jackson. I wanted to bring things of a spiritual nature to Jackson. It was really important to me to bring the tools and things that people use in different religions.”
New Vibrations opened two months ago on State Street in Fondren. Its bright purple exterior and its location between the Fondren Corner building and Treehouse have brought considerable traffic to the business. Some came following positive word of mouth, some came during Arts, Eats, and Beats, and some simply found it.

“People are beginning to search these days, stepping away from their basic religions, and beginning to open themselves up,” Parker said. “The world is a smaller place than it ever was before. I’ve always felt that we all call God different names, and he or she had different faces in different religions, but that we all pray to the same God and that it’s really important for us to see ourselves talking to – and about – one God and one Creator.”

“I think each person should be allowed their own path to God.” Parker, who was born and raised in Jackson, wanted to let the people of Jackson have some of the same opportunities that she had in determining her own life’s path.

“For us to understand that our diversity and religion is to be celebrated, and not used as a division, I wanted to bring that to Jackson. I found it in my own life really early and I enjoyed reading and studying comparative religion. It’s just always been a fascination to me.”

Parker came from a Christian family, attending both Methodist and Baptist churches while she was growing up. As she grew, she began to attend churches of different denominations, experimenting to find the place where she thought she would be the most content. Now, she says:

“I consider myself an extremely spiritual person, but I don’t put myself in any one religious category.” Her customers do not fit into any one category either.

“Most of the people that come in here consider themselves to be Christian, but they are very interested in other ways of thinking. We have quite a large pagan community here in Jackson and they are huge supporters of mine. They love the things that I have.” What she has is a collection of eclectic items, music, and books.

“I try to make sure I keep things that speak to your spirit or that may be of a religious nature, such as statues of Buddha or Hindu goddesses, or prayer beads. I don’t carry a lot of Christian things, because there are other companies that [do that] and do it very well.”

Instead, New Vibrations carries things like decorative masks, chakra jewelry, crystal balls, Egyptian statuary, karma flags, antique Tibetan singing bowls, natural soap, American Indian jewelry, intention candles, and items to help Feng Shui your home.

“I have things to make you happy and things to give you a spark in your life. I have some Celtic things, I have some things from Bali and Africa, I have some things from different parts of the world.”

“I want to have things that make you happy,” Parker said. “Or make you curious, and intrigue you, and make you question things.” She insists that her store is spiritual, and isn’t representative of what is often called “New Age.”

“I hate the words, ‘New Age.’ I hate them. Everything you don’t understand gets lumped under that heading, and I hate that. I don’t consider myself New Age because I don’t like the words, and I don’t like the connotations those words have. If you’re New Age, then you must be worshipping the devil or something like that, which is ridiculous. Some people may call my store New Age, but I prefer the word, “Metaphysical” – something beyond the physical.”

New Vibrations is Parker’s first business, but she says it is also something more than just that.

“I wanted to have a space – my back room – where people are invited to sit, have a cup of tea or coffee, and talk to each other. Read books about other religions and other beliefs that will open up some conversation between people with different beliefs, so that our intolerance is lessened by communication. I want people of a like mind to gather and talk.” But, she says she knows that conversation and a cup of tea may not be everybody’s cup of tea.

“I understand there are people that aren’t going to be happy with my kind of store. That’s okay. I understand that. If people don’t want to patronize the store, I understand.” But she considers herself fortunate that the business is located in the arts neighborhood.

“I always wanted to be in the Fondren area,” she said. “When I thought about my business, I always conceptualized it here. I wanted the energy here. I wanted the feel of it. This is like a gift from God.”

New Life for Women - Feature

2009-06-07T14:05:00.000-07:00

I won't say much about this one, except that New Life for Women is one of the worthiest causes I've ever seen. It was brought to my attention by my friend and neighbor, Debbie Parks, who introduced me to the people who run it. Debbie graduated from New Life several years ago, but not before the damage was done. She had cirrhosis, which turned to cancer, which killed her last year. But she was clean and sober from the time she left New Life until the end. They're not just good people; they're the best. Miss you, Debbie.

Planet Weekly originally published this with all the women's real names, but enough time has passed, and I think it likely that some of them may not want their names bandied about on the Interwebs. As such, I've changed their names - out of respect for who they are, and where they may be at this time in their lives.

New Life for Women was founded in 1988 as a secondary treatment program for homeless, chemically dependent women. According to co-founder and current executive director Melanie Parks, women who complete primary treatment for chemical dependency – which consists of detoxification and about 30-45 days of treatment in places like Harbor House – typically return to their same places, people, and situations that caused the dependency, and are successful in maintaining long-term sobriety only about one time out of ten. Secondary treatment helps the women maintain sobriety at a much greater rate. Parks estimates that after 90 days’ treatment at her facility, or one like it, their chances rise to six out of ten, but she does admit:

“I don’t think there’s been any empirical data put together about that, but it would be interesting to know what the numbers are with the support systems established through an agency like this one.”

New Life for Women is a 20-bed facility in Jackson that specializes in helping women with a drive to free themselves from dependency on drugs and alcohol. It is only one of a couple of these kinds of programs specifically designed for women, and it is the only one in the metro area that is not part of an attached primary treatment center. Parks says that there are probably four times as many beds available to men as there are to women in the Jackson area.

“Alcoholics Anonymous numbers say that 50 percent of all alcoholics are women,” she said. “But here in the South, we don’t want to see our mama, our sister, our aunt, or our niece be labeled as an alcoholic or an addict.” She says that insistence on believing that women aren’t addicts is complicated further.

“Women take longer to get addicted and they take longer to get sober. It’s a physiological fact. It takes seven and a half to eight months for the brain to be chemically free from the last time an addict takes any mood-altering substance. And women have more baggage. We have abortions, rapes, molestation, and incest. Women often fall back on what they know and that’s not always healthy. We give them a place to learn new skills.”

Women who stay at New Life get a job during the day and stay in the controlled environment at night, taking part in individual and group therapy, learning coping and living skills like budgeting, taking part in spirituality groups, and earning their GEDs, if they need it. Many of the women have lost their children to DHS or to other family members, and courses are also given on parenting.

“Women are the hidden homeless,” said Parks. “If you can clean or babysit or take care of chores, people will put up with you for a period of time. They’ll put up with your disease until you start stealing from them, lying to them, and then they’re through with you.” To help keep them off the street, or from staying with someone who may prove destructive, New Life offers not only the 90 days at the main facility, but also a chance to live in a structured, more independent setting for a year or more.

“We have transitional apartments for the graduates through a HUD grant,” she said. “Once they complete their 90 days, they are eligible to go into the HUD program. This gives them time to get a job, get settled, and let the fog begin to lift.” Women in the HUD program have an apartment with a roommate. They have to save 30% of their gross income and pay their utilities. The grant pays their rent, buys furniture, and ultimately lets them get on their feet financially. They continue to receive aftercare at the center and have a strong support network. Parks estimates that women who go this far increase their chances of success to eight out of ten.

Currently, [Janice Bruer] is one of eight women taking part in this program. [Bruer] left an abusive marriage and joined AA several years ago. She relapsed, starting drinking again, and ended up in a second destructive marriage. When that one ended, she found herself in a series of bad relationships and was jailed seven times in one year. She says she drank dozens of beers every day.

“My old AA sponsor worked for the Department of Mental Health,” she said. “She called me and told me to go to a meeting that night. I told her I was drunk and not coming. She told me something had come across her desk and she needed me to see if I wanted to do it. I went to the meeting and she had information on New Life. I didn’t go through treatment; I’d done that before. But I sobered up and showed them that the alcohol was out of my system. Ten days after that phone call, I came here.” [Bruer] has been sober for the 8½ months since, went through the 90-day program, and joined the HUD program. She had been a homeless, jobless alcoholic for years, but now:

“I’ve got a job at a hotel. I’m in college full-time and learning to be a hotel manager. Sometimes on the weekends, I manage the one where I work. I’m getting experience, I’ve had my driver’s license reinstated, and I’ve got a car. All these things have happened since I’ve been here.” When asked, [Bruer], who says she once was addicted to “high drama,” insists that she is not yet ready to leave the support of New Life.

“I’ve got another eight months to go. I need the time to stay stable. I hope I’ll be ready; I’m doing everything I can to get ready. This is all part of the process to me.”

[Sara Mitchell] came to New Life in 1989 following 60 days in Harbor House. She ran with a motorcycle club, was an alcoholic and an IV crystal meth user. She had two small children; her mother and sister were raising them. She participated in the 90-day program.

“I needed to get out there and take care of my children,” [Mitchell] said. “I had acquired a job and I was ready to go. I’ve gone back to college. I’m a paralegal; I work for a law firm downtown. I’ve worked there for five years and I’ve been sober from October 1989 until today.” [Mitchell] credits Parks with helping her set long-term goals after she had left the 90-day program.

“You want to know what the program did for me? It took a practicing addict who dragged two little children through hell for years and turned her into a woman with a second chance.” [Mitchell] remains close to New Life, has remarried, and is raising two more young children. She is, quite honestly, happy.

“[Sarah] was one of the first women that went through our program,” Parks said. “We treated 450 women in the first five years I was involved.” Most of them have remained sober since. Parks says the idea for New Life came when she needed the program herself.

“I went through primary and secondary treatment in 1987. There was nothing for women in the city of Jackson – nothing. I stayed at a men’s facility with another gal. After I got out, I knew something had to happen regarding a women’s facility. That’s when New Life was birthed.”

Women at New Life receive a minimum of one hour individual counseling a week and six hours of group therapy every week. Alice Dorman is a counselor and runs a “hardcore” 12-step program.

“I got sober through AA on May 17, 1989,” she said. “I grew up in the ‘70s and tried all the other stuff, but alcohol is what got me. I really love being sober and that’s my deal. I want everyone to have it and I know they can.”

Althea Lewis is another counselor, one who says her strength lies in individual counseling:
“There is a uniqueness about every woman that comes through here, and she has other needs, and sometimes you have to get through self-esteem issues or behavioral issues. There is a reason why we act a certain way and when we can pinpoint why, we can work with that.”

“We’re finding that women and men are using chemicals now younger and younger,” said Parks. “We’ve treated more than one woman who has been a fetal alcohol syndrome baby, that their mother put booze in their thermos to keep them from going through the DTs at school. I’ve had at least two that I know of right now that their first time ever in their life being sober was in this building – ever.”

Unfortunately the work that New Life does has fallen into jeopardy.

“We were that close to going under,” Parks said, holding finger and thumb a quarter inch apart. “We were close to not being able to make payroll a couple of weeks ago, but Althea and Alice were both willing to keep working.” New Life is a United Way agency and they’re funded through the Department of Mental Health, but the money received is barely enough to pay salaries. In addition, the building has fallen into disrepair in the years since it opened, because of the agency’s lack of funds. In fact, the main house itself is currently unoccupied; due to the building’s state, the twenty beds are not used.

“St. Dominic Hospital had donated $20,000 to help rehab the building. They’re to be commended; they’re the only agency so far to have done that. I’ve also called [Hines County] Sheriff McMillin and he is sending his carpentry and painting crews the first of January to build us fire escapes and upgrade the building to where we think it’s habitable.” That’s not all that New Life needs. They need new carpet, improved plumbing, bedspreads, vacuum cleaners, some appliances, and even a new bathroom.

“We have a plan to do one large bathroom, but it would run about $6000. That would take care of it. St. James Episcopal Church is thinking about doing part of it.” Parks says they need many things, but she has one major Christmas wish.

“I’d like to see someone do an extreme makeover, like on TV. Rather than taking one unfortunate family, they can help 20 people at any given time, which works out to over 1000 people a year that they can help.” But New Life isn’t waiting for all the improvements to get back to work.

“We’ve got six beds ready to go and we’ve already got a waiting list. We get calls every day, from all over the state. They haven’t stopped. We fill a need.”

New Life for Women is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization. Anyone wishing to donate money to the program, and anyone wishing to donate needed services for the building can reach them at 601-355-2195.

Metal Finishing Services - Feature

2009-06-07T14:03:00.000-07:00

I did some work for a business paper run by a pretty well-known Libertarian, Jack Criss. Though politically we didn't agree, I liked the way he had writers shine a light on the various businesses and businessmen of central Mississippi. I found that it's easy to write about anyone who is passionate about what they do. Everyone I interviewed for MBC was passionate about their work. I picked this piece, because the field in which he works seems dull to those of us who don't understand it, but so necessary and worthy for those who do.

David Church isn’t afraid to spread himself a little bit thin. Unlike some businessmen whose ‘eyes on the prize’ philosophy forces them to focus on one particular role in business – one hat to wear – and whose single-minded determination causes harm to their home life and health, Church is perfectly comfortable wearing those different hats. Husband, father, antique car hobbyist, and avid bicyclist who laments the lack of places to ride a bicycle inside the city of Jackson – he is all of these things. He is also president of Metal Finishing Services, office principal for Criterium Engineers, president of 750 Boling Street Partners, an officer of the Hawkins Field Industrial Park, and a working electrical engineer. Given his choice on what he would rather do, he responds:

“I prefer to be working on my own cars or riding my bicycle. Those are my vices.” In fact, it was one of his interests that led him to opening the doors to Metal Finishing Services.

“It was the old car hobby. I’ve been into cars ever since high school and I never grew up,” Church says. “The first car ever restored was a ’55 Ford; I still have it. In fact, I finally did one for myself and just restored that very car.” Church points to a photo of a 1955 Ford Mainline 2-door sedan, and admits that owning Metal Finishing Services gives him a head start on restoring those cars.

“We do paint stripping, de-rusting, and powder coating for industrial businesses and other customers,” Church says, “like antique car restorers. They’re a big part of it. We take [the auto bodies] down and get all the paint and rust off so they have a good start on it.” This is no shade-tree operation. The company works with several major industries: automotive, aerospace, military, and marine, among others.

“We do some gigantic diesel engines,” Church says, “like for tugboats and railroad locomotives. We can do up to a 20-cylinder electromotive diesel.”

“We do industrial paint rejects. Anyone who operates a conveyorized painting system is going to have a reject rate. We try to reclaim those for people. We also strip paint line hangers that go through the line over and over again and get a buildup of paint.”

In addition to stripping the rust and old paint off everything from old Volkswagen bodies to nine or ten-ton locomotive diesel engines, Metal Finishing Services utilizes powder coating, an alternative to spray painting metal bodies and parts, but one that can still be done in virtually any color and with any type of finish.

“You spray a dry powder that is electrostatically attracted to metal parts,” he says. “You put it in an oven and it melts the little particles and fuses them over the surface. It doesn’t put out any pollution like solvent-based paint and it’s much, much more durable.” He displays several recently coated items, all in red or black. Each is free of any sort of paint flaw, smooth, and with a uniform finish. As proud as he is of the quality of his company’s powder coating, he grows even more animated when he describes their newest offering.

“We’ve got a new service now that is, to my knowledge, the only place in the country that this combination is available,” he says. “We work regionally with car restorers in a 300-400 mile radius. Now after we de-rust their car bodies and strip all the grunge off, we have an arrangement with one of the Tier 1 Nissan suppliers, Systems Electrocoating. They prime all the truck frames for Nissan and they’ve built a special rack. We can now send up a car body – your Volkswagen or ’57 Chevy body – and have it immersed in this water-based primer that’s really high-tech. It’s like an eight million-dollar plant up there. It is totally immersed. [The body] gets in all the little nooks and crannies that you just can’t get with a spray gun. It’s a very good quality primer and you can paint on top of it with whatever you want.” He says the reason why the combination is only available through Metal Finishing Services is simple:

“Systems won’t do it for anyone but us, because there is no way anyone else can get it clean enough. If you were to contaminate their bath, that would be a major problem.” Getting those auto bodies, paint line hangers, and electromotive diesel engines clean enough is a matter that requires elbow grease, ovens to oxidize the paint, and three huge chemical tanks to remove the rust. It also often requires a single item to go through the process numerous times – until Church and his employees are satisfied.

It may sound like a toxic place in which to work, but it is not. We strolled through the plant, and were not disturbed by so much as a foul odor. Church insists that having a healthy, environmentally sound business is of major importance.

“We are environmentally friendly,” he says, ticking off points on his fingers. “We recycle our rinse water. The ovens have incinerators on the stack to burn up any smoke that comes out. Instead of discharging almost 2000 degrees, we recover that heat and heat up our chemical tanks with it. And the powder coating doesn’t use any solvents.”

Church, who currently lives in northeast Jackson with his wife, Allison, and his children Haley and Andy, has lived in Jackson since the third grade. At an early age, he seemed to have an idea of the career path he would follow.

“I always liked to tinker with electronics and stuff, so I went to a two-year program at Hinds Community College and got a technology degree. I did well, and I liked it and wanted to learn more, so I went to Mississippi State and got an E.E. degree.” He was working for Mississippi Power & Light as an engineer in 1981 when he discovered Redi-Strip, a national company that did paint stripping and de-rusting. He visited franchises and their headquarters in Los Angeles and made the move to open a franchise in midtown Jackson; he quit his job at MP&L to do so. He ran Redi-Strip until 2002, when he decided to amicably part from the national company and go his own way.

Before embarking as Metal Finishing Services, Church found his operation had completely outgrown his midtown location and sought to find space in which to work. During that time he discovered 750 Boling Street, which had been the site of the old Challenger plant.

“The ownership reverted to the city of Jackson and they took bids on it,” he says. “We placed a bid that had too many contingencies. The city rejected it. The other bid was way too low and they rejected that, too. We got together with the other guy and came in together to change it up and buy it. The bank actually loaned us the money and I couldn’t believe they did. The building was sitting here empty, with a bad roof and a monstrous note to pay. It was scary.”

Both businesses moved into the building and began seeking tenants. They found them; now the building’s space stays between 85 and 90 percent rented. Metal Finishing Services occupies about 10 percent of the building – about 35,000 square feet. Part of that is set aside for Church’s role in Criterium Engineers.

“Criterium provides real estate-related engineering services,” he says. “We do property condition assessments for people considering purchasing a building. It’s like a home inspection, but scaled up for commercial and industrial properties. We do construction inspection for banks. Right now I’m doing a lot of work for insurance companies because of Katrina and Rita.”
“We’re in about 60 cities now,” he says. “The branch office is a small business; it’s just me and my secretary. The beauty of it is that you have other disciplines in different offices. There’s a chemical guy in Mobile, there’s mechanical, there’s lots of structural people. I get called to do electrical work by other branch offices.” In fact, it was his love of engineering that brought him to Criterium.

“Engineers are required to have continuing education requirements to maintain your license. The head of Criterium was here doing a seminar in Jackson. I attended; that’s how I found out about it. I signed right up.” Church speaks happily when he describes the work he does and the different hats he wears.

“I thought that I would be an engineer and only an engineer, but one thing just leads to another.”

Interview with Dr. Ronald Mason, Jr. (President of Jackson State University)

2009-06-07T13:58:00.000-07:00

Over about a year, Planet Weekly was doing a series of interviews with the presidents of the local colleges and universities: Belhaven College, Millsaps College, Hines County Community College, Tougaloo College, and Jackson State University. Each school was done by a different writer (which turned out well), and I was assigned Dr. Mason of JSU. It is my belief that he has the most dangerous intellect I've ever seen. He is brilliant and knows exactly what he's saying and doing. I still remain in awe of his brain.

Dr. Ronald Mason, Jr. became the President of Jackson State University on February 1, 2000. In his five years, he has led the school into a period of growth, economic development, and heightened reputation and respect. In this time, Jackson State has reorganized many of its schools and colleges, reached into the community to create a Jackson State-based technology cluster, and begun sweeping programs to increase economic and community development. The student body continues to grow and more and more alumni of this historic institution are making names for themselves in the world of business, public service, and the arts.

Dr. Mason’s inaugural address was “Rivers of History, Rivers of Hope,” in which he spoke of two rivers that came together in Mississippi, one of white history, one of black history. He compared the conflicts and meshing of two vastly different societies as a confluence of rivers that could drown a people or could lead them to a broader, unified river. The confluence was Jackson State University and the state of Mississippi and the one river – our future together. It was a clarion call to all that he was a man with ideas to implement, and that he believed Jackson State was more than just a place; it had a purpose, one that it must achieve.

Before coming to Jackson State, Mason worked and studied extensively in the fields of higher education, community development, and law. He earned his B.A. and J.D. degrees from Columbia and was a graduate of the Harvard Institute of Educational Management. He worked for 18 years at Tulane University, as Vice President of Finance and Operations, and as Senior Vice President and General Counsel. During his time at Tulane, he established the Tulane-Xavier-Loyola-Dillard universities Martin Luther King Week for Peace and brought the school the Amistad Research Center – one of the largest collections of original documents and artwork on the minority experience in the U.S.

In 1996, Mason created the Tulane-Xavier National Center for Urban Community. The center took over New Orleans’ housing authority and the students, staff, and faculty developed model programs to assist the residents through several means, including a Ford Foundation public school reform planning initiative, an Annie E. Casey neighborhood development and family strengthening initiative, and a welfare-to-work initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Planet Weekly met with Dr. Mason at his office, high atop the Administration Tower on the JSU campus, to talk about his five years in office and future plans for the university. Mason proved to be dynamic, passionate, and forthright, with a deadpan delivery and sense of humor.

Planet Weekly: When you first came on five years ago, you spoke about a five-year strategic plan for Jackson State. Has that come to fruition?

Dr. Ronald Mason, Jr.: We did a strategic plan in 2002. It was called “Beyond Survival: the Millennium Agenda for Jackson State University.” It had five broad strategies: Remodel the Learning System, Fully Integrate Technology, Enhance Management and Resources, Tell the Jackson State Story, and Create a Model Living and Learning Environment. We took those strategies, broke them into 24 programs, and broke those up into about 200 action steps. That’s how we’ve been moving forward; we follow the plan.

PW: Are you setting your sights for another strategic plan?

RM: We’re actually in the process of updating the strategic plan now. About every two or three years you have to reexamine one. As far as implementing our plan, I’d give us a good solid “B.”

PW: Will these updates stay the current course or expand in new directions?”

RM: I think the plan did anticipate what needed to be done at Jackson State to transform it into a model urban university, which is what the task was. I think we’ve narrowed the problem down to one now – money. I tell folks we don’t have any problems that money wouldn’t solve. The key for us is to be able to do something never done before at Jackson State, and that’s to raise private funds. The trick for us is that we’ve always been given the job to educate, basically, poor people and public servants and most of those poor people are African-Americans. There’s just not a lot of wealth among our alumni, so I have a tricky task: I have to raise money for Jackson State from people who graduated from Ole Miss and Mississippi State.

PW: We know this has been problematic, but are you seeing any increases in funding?

RM: We are and we aren’t. The biggest capital campaign Jackson State had was about $10 million several years ago. Allstate abandoned a processing center on Raymond Road. It’s a 200,000-square foot facility on 30 acres of land. It was worth almost $21 million and we got them to sell it to us for $3 million, which made it about a $17 million dollar donation. This, plus the other cash we’ve raised – we’ve raised about $25 million since we started. We’ve had some successes and what we’ve been selling is the truth: there’s only one university in the largest metropolitan area and capital city in the state of Mississippi – and that’s Jackson State University. Central Mississippi isn’t going to go anywhere until Jackson State rises to the occasion to be what it needs to be for this area. That’s in everyone’s interest, whether you’re white, black, from Mississippi State, Ole Miss, or wherever else.

PW: And what does Jackson State need to be?

RM: We need to be what everyone says they want it to be. The theme of the strategic planning process was “Clarity and Consensus.” Everybody said they wanted Jackson State to be the premiere urban university or Mississippi’s urban university. What that means is that we have to be a bona fide, high-quality institute of higher learning for central Mississippi. For us, it’s a sort of special balancing act we have to play: we’re a historically black institution that needs to serve a mostly-white business community in this area. When I first got here, I thought the disconnect between the business community and Jackson State was that they didn’t like Jackson State. But after while I realized that it wasn’t that they didn’t like it, it’s that they didn’t see it at all. It wasn’t a part of their Mississippi. So part of our job has been to help them see Jackson State, and when you see it, there’s a lot to be said for what is going on here.

PW: So part of the problem is that JSU is a sort of invisible university?

RM: It has been that. The other challenge we’ve had is that they’re not quite sure how to make Jackson State right without making it white. It’s not in their realm of reality that an urban university for Mississippi would also be a historically black institution. But I think we’ve made some progress. I was at a speech the governor made. He said we have two goals for Jackson State. One was to make it the number one historically black college or university in America and the seconds was to make it the premiere urban university – and there is no contradiction between the two. So at least intellectually we’re making progress.

We have some very, very bright students here. They can go to school anywhere. Many of them come from large urban areas; Jackson is probably the smallest. If you go up the railroad tracks to Detroit, through Memphis, St. Louis, and Chicago – that’s where our kids come from. They come from these broken K-12 systems and we’ve had to take them where they are and give them what they need to be successful. That’s the mission we embrace and will always stay true to. We don’t judge by who comes in the door as much as by who walks out.

PW: You have expressed some concerns about Jackson’s K-12 system. Do you feel that the problems are in the curriculum, faculty, administration, student body, or is it pandemic?

RM: Even with the challenges that Jackson Public Schools has, it’s nothing close to what I saw in New Orleans. I did a lot of work in the public school system there. We had kids taking classes in bathrooms; that’s how bad it was.

It’s what you said and more. It has a lot to do with money and the tax base, and the fact that in 1954, all the white folks started these private academies and a lot of their kids aren’t in the system now. That ends up being a challenge for us. What we did was put together our own K-12 academy. We partnered with JPS and created the Mississippi Learning Academy, which is two elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school, all within about half a mile of here. We got some money from the federal government and we got some private money. To attract some bright students to the College of Education, we give them a free ride in exchange for teaching in the Mississippi Learning Academy when they graduate. We rolled it out last year in the elementary schools. We started with 114 kids on the at-risk list and ended up with 7. They raised their test scores by about 25 points on average.

PW: And this goes along with Jackson State’s e-City. What is the e-City?

RM: It’s basically our neighborhood; a five square mile area around Jackson State we call the e-City – the Electronic City. We’ve got some money to do a master plan for it. The short name for the school system we’re putting together is e-City Schools. Our thought is that if you fix the schools, the rest will take care of itself – the housing, the business development. Everybody wants to send their kids to good schools.

RM: Is part of that creating a technology cluster in the area?

PW: We already did it. The e-Center – the abandoned Allstate facility – is the western anchor. If you go out there now, what was an abandoned building is now full of all sorts of high-tech stuff. We have research labs, a digital television station. We have the only tier one commercial data center in Mississippi renting space out there. We’ve got the Mississippi Technology Alliance, a high-tech business incubator. There are 18 businesses incubating out there. On the east is the new TelComm Center and Convention Center. We’re planning a single-family subdivision to our northeast, between here and downtown. Going west, the hope is we’ll incubate the businesses in the e-Center, and they’ll start to locate permanently along Lynch Street. What was once a viable community can become a new viable community, a university neighborhood. We have plans for Lynch Street with restaurants, new student apartments. We just finished one over here. This sounded crazy five years ago, but it’s actually happening as we speak.

PW: Does this give Jackson State an identity as a research and technical school?

RM: Absolutely. There were a lot of surprises I found at Jackson State, and they were all pleasant surprises. I knew the problems before I got here. One thing I saw here was a twist of history. Because of the lack of funding by Mississippi over the years, [JSU] had to go out and get a lot of federal money to build the place. When I got here and saw the stuff funded by the state, like the Public Relations office, it had one person in it. Which is why people never knew anything about Jackson State. But they had all these neat federal centers, all well funded. Among the seven research-intensive historically black institutions in the country – that’s the second level of research universities; the first is research-extensive – for federally funded grants and contracts, Jackson State is number one. We’re not far behind Howard University, which is the only research-extensive school. We’re the fastest growing producer of African-American Ph.D.’s, number two overall behind Howard in Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and number seven nationally, of all white and black schools.

PW: JSU isn’t just a technical school, though. Can you get a good liberal arts education here?

RM: Yes. Two years ago, we opened up the new School of Liberal Arts; we reorganized. Now we have a College of Liberal Arts with a School of Performing Arts and a School of Life and Natural Sciences. That’s our biggest school. But when you talk about research and federal dollars, most of that comes out of the College of Science, Engineering, and Technology. We just opened our School of Engineering three years ago. Now it’s got almost 300 students.

PW: What is your opinion of No Child Left Behind?

RM: If you talk to educators – and remember, the Secretary of Education who just resigned was a Jackson State graduate, which is how we were able to get funding to get this thing started over here – in concept it’s hard to argue with. There is more accountability, competency-based training for teachers. The problem really is the funds for implementation. We were able to pull it off in the schools we’re working in, because we had the money. We had money to train teachers, to redevelop curriculum, and to buy handheld computerized assessment tools, but everyone doesn’t have that. That’s really the complaint from the education community. I don’t think they mind the concept, the accountability, or the subject-based competency for teachers. The problem is how you do it. How do you get every math teacher with a specialty in math and every English teacher with a specialty in English when you’re trying desperately just to find teachers, period. If you’re a teacher from a School of Education, how could you possibly agree with someone who gets a Bachelor’s and a six-week certification course and goes straight into the classroom, when you’ve spent three years just learning how to teach? And you have to learn how to teach; that’s what separates the good teachers from the bad ones. The devil is in the details. As a broad concept it’s hard to argue with, but in the classroom, struggling to find paper and pencils, to also have to stretch to meet these other requirements, so your school doesn’t end up as Level 3 or Level 2, it’s a real challenge. Whether the system will adjust to meet the realities of the situation, it’s hard to say.

PW: What about merit-based pay?

RM: It’s kind of like merit-based hiring. What’s merit, and are the people deciding qualified enough to determine if someone is meritorious enough in the first place? It’s a tough one. Politicians can throw out words that sound great, but it’s the people doing the work every day who have to live the reality of those words, and sometimes there’s a disconnect between the two – like No New Taxes.

PW: What is the current status of Historically Black Colleges and Universities?

RM: As an industry, we’re stronger than we’ve ever been. The leadership across the board is as strong as it has ever been. On the other hand, we have some that have fallen by the wayside, and I think we may see some more, especially among the private schools. It’s very difficult for the privates to survive, just because of the lack of wealth among our alumni. But I think there’s a growing recognition, especially since 9/11, that people we produce for America is a vast, untapped resource. People are struggling to find Americans just to get the work of America done. Out of necessity, they’ll have to look at us. We enroll something like 13 percent of all African-American students, but we graduate something like 30-40 percent. We get them ready to work and that’s what America is looking for right now – workers at all levels. We won’t all make it, but I think the ones that will, will be strong.

PW: Does the fact that JSU is a historically black university keep white students away?

RM: I don’t think that in and of itself. We have these white-only scholarships that come out of the Ayers desegregation case and we can’t keep them away. They line up as long as we give them the scholarships. Apparently it’s not theological why they don’t want to come. What the facilities are like because of underfunding, the quality of life because of underfunding, the availability of scholarships because of underfunding; the more we fix those things, the less and less people will want to drive three hours to go to school when they have the convenience right here.

PW: Why do think JSU is seeing a boom in the nontraditional students?

RM: It’s place-based. Most of them are losing a job, lost a job, or are in transition from one job to another. Our fastest-growing school is our College of Lifelong Learning, which is nontraditional – online courses, certificates instead of degrees, non-credit training courses, those kinds of things. We have a facility off Ridgewood Road. A lot of the white students go there and don’t actually ever see the campus. My sons have two friends, white twins who are at the house all the time. They all like to play basketball. We wanted to come here and play basketball, but they wouldn’t drive here. They assumed if they parked their car here it would get stolen. A lot of people think that; they’ve never been to the campus. They come out here and are shocked. The more people who come here, the less think their car will be stolen, but it’ll take some time. I think we’ve gone from 1.5 to 3 percent white. With other races, we have about 9 percent. Every year, there’ll be more and more. That’s pretty clear.

PW: What is JSU’s enrollment this year?

RM: 8300 total. We jumped 500 this year.

PW: Growth here has been consistent, correct?

RM: Part of it is just demographics; part of it is that we’re just kind of hot.

PW: You’re staying ahead of population growth.

RM: Even with tuition going up. About a third of our tuition goes back into scholarships.

PW: What is tuition currently?

RM: Tuition is $3612 per year. Out of state students pay $4000 [extra]. The dormitory is $2700 and the meal plan is $2000. It’s a good value.

PW: During the past year, we’ve talked to numerous people in the city about development and redevelopment in Jackson. One thing everyone talks about is work at Jackson State. But it’s generally mentioned as ‘work to be done’ or ‘work we hope to see done.’ What doesn’t get mentioned as often is ‘work that is happening.’ Is the work actually happening?

RM: If you don’t see the work, you’re missing it. Right here, we had this old cottonseed oil factory that had been there for 50 years or so – two big, ugly, white storage tanks. We set out a goal of getting rid of the tanks and ended up with a new apartment complex. This was the first new construction in Washington addition in years. West Jackson CDC is building houses along Pearl as we speak. They’ve just announced a new 400-unit single-family subdivision on Raymond Road. We’re putting up a new student apartment facility on campus, with one, two, and three bedrooms. We’re about to build a new campus union right here on the corner of Lynch and Dalton. It’ll have a really great bookstore, convenience store, food court, and bowling alley. A lot of these empty lots around here are ours and we’ll be filling them in as we go. Given the fact that nothing was built here over the last three decades, this is a construction boom. When they finish the parkway from downtown, that’ll take you straight from the central business district right into campus.

Whether I would have done it that way if I had been there back then is another question, but the answer then to urban blight was to buy it up and tear it down – move the people out. Philosophically, I probably would have been against it, but fortunately the question was answered before I got here.

PW: Why aren’t these developments better known? Is it because Jackson State is often seen only from the outside, and the projects are seen as individual ones only?

RM: Certainly if you see it, and you add up all the news stories that have trickled out, the campus has changed dramatically; there’s no question about that. Clearly the part of the city between the campus and the railroad tracks has changed dramatically; there’s nothing there anymore – it’s open land. People would see that if they’d bother to cross the railroad tracks. I think the parkway will take care of some of that. I think as word gets out, which it is, that’ll take care of some of it. Our goal is to make Jackson State a destination, and Jackson needs destinations. By the time we’re done, when Farish Street is there, when the Convention Center is there, when the Civil Rights Corridor or Freedom Corridor – whatever they’re going to call it – from Terry into the campus is there, and there is a new campus union, a pedestrian mall, and we stretch from the campus to the e-Center on Lynch Street, I think Jackson will have exactly what it has asked for: a premiere urban university that is a destination that attracts people to Jackson; not a teachers’ college, not an underfunded challenge that makes successes out of America’s failures. I think we will be the urban university for Mississippi that happens to be black. We can pull that off.

In my inaugural speech, I said this is where the two rivers meet. We’re not going to come out of the confluence of rivers unless we all get together and make it happen. If it happens, it’ll be because we all made it happen.

PW: And you believe it can happen?

RM: I think it’s happening now. Though I’m not sure I believed it when I said it.

PW: So you pleasantly surprised yourself?

RM: I did. In some cases I shocked myself. Some of it is just timing, some of it is initiative, and some of it is hard work. If we just do what I know will in fact happen, we’ll go a long way toward getting us where we need to go. It won’t lock it down; we still have to raise some money. If we can’t do that, all this is a waste of time.

PW: Why did you leave the Tulane-Xavier Center to come to Jackson State?

RM: I’ll give you the short version. I was at Tulane for 18 years. I was Senior Vice President and General Counsel. By 1996, I had run out of things to do three times. I had been there too long.

PW: You were bored?

RM: Yes. I had even asked for Affirmative Action to report to me. I wanted to do something. We came up with this idea of doing some work in the neighborhood. In a conversation with the Secretary of HUD [Henry Cisneros], we ended up actually taking over the Housing Authority in New Orleans. Tulane got $10 million over five years to do university-based programs in the public housing projects. Half of me went to public housing for that. I was basically working two full time jobs for four years. It was out of that project that the center started – the Tulane-Xavier National Center for Urban Community. Candidly, a lot the things we’re doing at Jackson State we tried to do through that center in New Orleans.

PW: You tried?

RM: We tried. The difference is that I wasn’t the president of Tulane; I don’t have anybody to argue with here. It’s still hard work, but there we were institutionally constrained. We’re less constrained here, partly because of who the president is, partly because it’s just a different kind of institution. We are more community-oriented, and we are more part of what goes on around us. Everybody that lives around us went to, or works at, Jackson State.

PW: Is it easier or more difficult working at Jackson State than it was in New Orleans?

RM: It’s more manageable. People in Jackson think they have a lot of problems. We had 750 blighted houses when I got here. In New Orleans, we were dealing with 37,000. It’s a different scale of challenge.

PW: There is a sort of ‘sky is falling’ attitude about Jackson.

RM: And a lot of badmouthing about the city from people who want to make money off of selling property in the suburbs. I think Jackson can be a quality small city. I don’t think I’d like it to be anything else. I go to New Orleans now; it’s crowded, dirty, and traffic-infested. I can’t wait to get back to Jackson.

PW: How did you get to Jackson State?

RM: I was running the center. I had my life set up like I wanted; I was going to work in polo shirts and we had bought a little house and were running the center out of that house. It was good. The new president of Tulane came to me – Scott Cowen; we’re good friends. He called me to his office and said, “Ron, you have to choose. You have to be either the Senior Vice President and General Counsel or the Executive Director of the center.” I said I really wanted to run the center. He said, “I really want you to be the Senior Vice President and General Counsel.” Just about that time, somebody called me about this job. I wasn’t even thinking about [taking a new job]. In fact, I had just turned down a presidency six months before at Chicago State. The weather was a problem.

PW: Did you have any worries about taking the position here?

RM: Not really. I studied it pretty thoroughly; I knew what I was getting into. I was really surprised by the potential this school had that no one knew about – pleasantly surprised. It’s good work here. It’s a labor of love, but it’s a labor. I’ve never worked as hard in my life, but I whistle when I come to work every morning.

Magic on the Court - Feature

2009-06-07T13:55:00.000-07:00

This was one of the first pieces I did that I was thoroughly proud of. It was a hoot hanging out with these guys, and I did my best to make sure their personalities came out in the piece. Ever since, it became a standard in my pieces to do that.

It’s a typical Thursday night at Champion Johnnie Community Center in Jackson. Four men are playing a fast pickup basketball game. Shouts ring out: “Go to the net!” “Right here!” “Shoot!” Their voices echo off the walls, mixing with the squeak of rubber against the floor. The ball travels from hand to hand before James Clayton grabs it and takes a quick shot. The ball bounces off the rim and back. Clayton and another player, Bob Woods, grab for it. Both barely touch it, but the ball bounces past and out of bounds.

Clayton and Woods both race to the ball and immediately start arguing about which of them, if either, touched it and who touched it last. Clayton finally ends the argument by simply throwing the ball inbounds to his teammate. Woods races by and yells:

“He’s a cheater! Put that in the story!”

Clayton laughs, missing his shot. Woods tries to keep a straight face while he trash-talks Clayton, but can’t. He breaks up laughing even after continuing to rag his opponent. The good-natured squabbling continues. The men rebound, pass, pick-and-roll, block, foul, shoot, and score. After forty-five minutes of hard half-court play, the game ends and the four athletes start over to the sidelines.

The men push themselves to the bleachers. When they arrive, all four are tired, but all are smiling. Their wheelchairs may be a tiny bit more battered from the game, but all are still intact.

James Clayton is the team representative for the Mississippi Magic, Jackson’s own member of the National Wheelchair Basketball Association. He plays forward and has the upper body of a pro ball player: shaved head, broad shoulders, and muscular arms. The fact that he plays from a wheelchair becomes somewhat unimportant.

“It was a spinal cord injury,” he says. “It’s been about twenty-three years ago. Gunshot wound right here,” he taps the center of his chest. “Right in my heart. I lost a kidney and a lung.”
“I was on a respirator, kidney dialysis,” he says, speaking about the time not long after he had been shot. Clayton had participated in track-and-field in Memphis before the injury. He was hospitalized for one year. A friend, Ivey Earley, introduced him to wheelchair basketball when he was discharged. Today, both Earley and Clayton play on the same team. Clayton says the sport has been a vital part of his life and his health.

“It helps build my lung and makes it a lot stronger. It’s really been a lifesaver.” In fact, the sport has become so much a part of his life that his body requires it. “Without them, this time of year would be rough. When I’m not working out, I have respiratory problems.”

Alfred Woods, who also plays forward, agrees.

“I find that anytime I just quit for a little while, I find myself having illnesses. My body’s just used to being active.” Johnson is a ten-year veteran of wheelchair basketball, and has been playing with the Magic since its inception. He has been in a wheelchair for twelve years.

“I was cleaning a machine out over at Tyson and someone turned it on when I was inside,” Johnson tells us. “It was called a chiller, a big, huge machine where the chickens drop off to cool. There’s blades and stuff in it. It threw me around, up in there. Ruined my spinal cord.”

Bob Woods is actually the coach of the Mississippi Magic, and has been so for five years. A victim of polio, he began playing wheelchair basketball in 1977 in Portland, Oregon. He came to Jackson in 1991, and has been an active member of the community ever since. Woods suffered injuries to his hand and arm a few years ago, requiring surgery. He gave up playing regularly to become the team coach. He is still proud of his hoop skills.

“I was a Tasmanian rebounder and passer,” he says. “I was the Dennis Rodman-type guy. ‘Go get the ball.’ Give it to the man who can shoot. All I wanted to do is to play with somebody who can shoot the ball.”

Arm injury or not, Woods can still shoot, and he can still play. He pressed Clayton hard, occasionally locking their chairs together. Whenever that happened, everyone would stop and untangle them before continuing play. Clayton points to a gap in the frame of his chair.

“Bob, he knows,” he says, grinning. “One thing I can say about him…” he laughs. “I can say…you know…he’s a dirty player.” Woods denies this loudly while everyone else laughs. He finally joins in, reminding me that Clayton is a cheater. The laughter increases.

The Mississippi Magic is a member of the Division III Gulf Coast Conference, which includes teams in Gulfport; New Orleans; Lafayette, Louisiana; Beaumont, Texas; Austin, Texas; and Montgomery, Alabama. The Magic also regularly plays non-conference games with Memphis, Chattanooga, Knoxville, and Jackson, Tennessee.

This weekend, the team plays Jackson twice on Saturday at Champion. The community center is more than just where they practice, it is also where they compete.

The Magic fields a team of fourteen players, between the ages of 23 and 56. The last few seasons have all been winning ones. This one continues the pattern; the Magic are 10-4, with only one conference loss. NWBA seasons run from September to February, which means the teams are beginning their run to the final tournaments. The team’s goal this year is to make it to the national tournament in Bloomington, Indiana.

To get there, to play in the rest of the games and tourneys that will take them there, the team needs about ten thousand dollars to do so. Collecting money for the season is a challenge that the team has to meet every season. Not only does the team have the usual financial problems: gas, motel rooms, food, uniforms, and so on; but they have to pay for things you may have never thought about.

Athletes do not typically use standard wheelchairs. The chairs can’t stand up to the punishment of a basketball game. Good athletic chairs have their wheels canted out for better performance, allowing them better agility and quickness on the floor. The problem is that the chairs are wider than the standard 32-inch doorway, which makes them impossible to use in one’s own house, or even in most businesses.

The average sports wheelchair costs between two and three thousand dollars. Tubes for the tires cost around $100. In fact, several members of the team need completely new wheelchairs.
“We’ve played it tight. It’s been close,” Woods says. “But there hasn’t been a trip we haven’t been able to make. We’ve been really blessed. The general public in Jackson and the surrounding areas really support us.” But even with that, things aren’t easy. Speaking of last weekend’s trip to Tennessee:

“We’re short this weekend, but we’re pulling in together for the motel. We’re leaving some of us behind to make this tournament.”

Fielding a team out of Jackson proves more difficult than in some cities.

“Memphis, New Orleans, Atlanta; these teams are being sponsored by the professional basketball teams. Where here in Mississippi, we don’t have a professional basketball team,” Woods says.

To keep going, the team, a non-profit group, accepts charitable donations of any size. Clayton says the team receives support from Wal-Mart, and from Kroger in Brandon. But their largest sponsor is the Mississippi Paralysis Association, who gives them five thousand dollars every year. Natalie Ellis, president of the MPA, says they are delighted to sponsor the team.

“It brings a lot of public awareness. It also benefits the people who are injured. It encourages them to take part and shows them that they can still participate in activities that they enjoyed before they were injured.” The MPA also helps sponsor rugby and hockey teams in the state.
Woods says the Magic doesn’t even charge admission to games. “We just ask for donations. Basically, we just want to get people to get out and get involved with the team, and to give them general support.”

To return that support, the Magic doesn’t let the end of the season mean the end of the team’s work. They play all year, switching to exhibition games in early spring. The team goes to schools and plays games against the teachers, or students, or basketball players. The team will spot them fifty points or so and put the other players in wheelchairs.

“The kids always look forward to it,” Clayton says. The team uses the exhibition games as fundraisers, splitting the money raised with the school. They use the opportunity to inform the children about living in a wheelchair, about understanding those people who do, and about avoiding situations that could put them at risk. They also use the opportunity to speak directly to children who are disabled.

“We try to encourage them. You don’t stop. You can go to school, you can work and be active. You can live a normal life,” Clayton says.

“Come out and see the games,” Woods suggests. “You’ll definitely enjoy it. There’s a lot of action, a lot of fun. The people who come really enjoy seeing us play.” He smiles. “It’s as good as pro ball on television.”

The team may not have the roster, and they may not have all the equipment they desire. The team does need support, both financial and spiritual. Come out, watch a game, meet the players, and find out why – both on the court and off – these athletes are Magic.

'Last of the Mississippi Jukes'

2009-06-07T13:53:00.000-07:00

I like doing press releases. It's a challenge to get as much information out there, in as little space as possible. This was my very first paid release. It's here for sentimental reasons.

On April 5th, Last of the Mississippi Jukes, a new film by Starz Encore Entertainment, had its home-state premiere at Jackson’s Crossroads Film Festival. This brilliant documentary, directed by Robert Mugge and produced by David Hughes, takes a loving look at the legendary Subway Lounge, one of the few remaining “juke joints” in the state that birthed the blues.

The movie was punctuated by frequent applause for the performances, and a standing ovation for twenty-five of the performers themselves when they were introduced afterward by producer Hughes. The King Edward Blues Band, the House Rockers, and Chris Thomas King (O Brother Where Art Thou?) were joined onstage by Subway Lounge owner Jimmy King, and by Bill Luckett and actor Morgan Freeman, owners of Clarksdale’s Ground Zero blues club, also featured in the film.

The celebration continued at a fundraising concert for the crumbling Subway Lounge. The event, hosted by local club Hal and Mal’s, was also the scene of Sanctuary Records’ Last of the Mississippi Jukes CD and DVD release party, and was also attended by Morgan Freeman. There the performers from the movie jammed for several hours to a crowd of nearly one thousand, many of whom made donations on the spot to the Save the Subway Fund.

Julep Restaurant and Bar

2009-06-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

I love me some Julep. I won't lie. I've written about them. I've reviewed them. If the world was a fair place, some major food reviewer would leave the whole New York-Dallas-Chicago-San Francisco-L.A. scene and find his way to Jackson, eat at Julep, and write about it as if its the Second Coming. That may be overstatement, but not by much.

Jackson’s own Julep Restaurant and Bar has been selected by USA Today as one of Ten Great Places to “feast on crispy fried chicken.” With September National Chicken Month, it is a timely honor for the restaurant, which specializes in “family-friendly contemporary Southern cuisine.”
Derek Emerson, chef and co-owner of Julep, says of the honor: “It feels good. It’s pretty exciting to be recognized nationally like this.”

The article, which is in the Friday, September 12 issue of the weekday-only newspaper, says that at Julep, “Fried chicken gets the respect it deserves.” Listed on Julep’s menu as Blackwater Farms Fried Chicken, the chicken is fried crispy and tossed in a honey-rosemary glaze.
Blackwater Farms is a Mississippi-based business located just outside of Meridian. They are the sole supplier of chickens to Julep. The birds are all field-raised.

USA Today’s Shawn Sell and John T. Edge, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, selected the Ten Great Places. Edge is a fried chicken aficionado and is the author of Fried Chicken: An American Story, which will be published in 2004.

Julep was the only Mississippi restaurant selected and one of only four restaurants chosen from the South. The other Dixie restaurants are Jacque-Imo’s in New Orleans; Watershed in Decatur, Georgia; and the Inn at Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee.

Julep is located at 1305 East Northside Drive, just off I-55. It opens at 11 am Mondays through Fridays, 8 am on Saturdays, and 9 am on Sundays.

Ten Great Places is a regular feature in the newspaper, appearing every Friday. The article can be found at USA Today’s online issue at: http://www.writersownwords.com/fckeditor/editor/%22http://www.usatoday.com/travel/vacations/great/2003/fried-chicken.htm%22

Interview with Harvey Johnson (Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi)

2009-06-07T13:48:00.000-07:00

I seemed to happier with this piece than most of our readers. I think this was because it was originally planned as one thing, but became another. There really is no one to blame for that; it just happened. I'd been doing a series of interviews on Jackson's Urban Redevelopment. I thought a nifty third part would be talking to the only mayor in history who'd taken an active role in trying to clean up the city. That was the plan. However, we also decided to use the interview to go along with the first issue of a new graphical look, and it was the beginnings of election season. As such, the series was faded into the background and it looked like more of a stand-alone interview. Because of that, I was accused of tossing softball questions at the mayor, which I can't deny. Worse yet, I was a Harvey Johnson supporter, which I won't deny. I wish the interview had come out more like I had originally planned, but I've always been personally pleased with it.

Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson has, in two terms, become one of the most visible mayors in the history of the city. He has elected to take an active role in public education and economic development of the city, pushing to make Jackson the Best of the New South – a city of excellence. Born in Vicksburg, Johnson received his first degree in political science from Tennessee State University and followed that up with a Masters’ Degree in political science from the University of Cincinnati. He has studied toward a doctorate in public administration at University of Southern California’s Washington Public Affairs Center in Washington, DC.
Johnson spent 25 years in the field of planning and community development, served as an assistant professor of political science at Jackson State University, and was a member of the Mississippi State Tax Commission and the Mississippi Gaming Commission. He also served his country as a Captain in the United States Air Force.

In 1997, Johnson was elected the first African-American mayor in Jackson history, a fact that made national headlines. He serves on the Democratic National Committee, the United States Conference of Mayors Homeland Security Task Force, the National Conference of Democratic Mayors, and is president of the National Conference of Black Mayors. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Mississippi Municipal League, the Metro Jackson Chamber of Commerce, and National Urban Fellows, Inc. He has served on numerous other boards, including the American Red Cross of Central Mississippi, Union Planters, and Smith-Robertson Museum. Johnson is a charter member of 100 Black Men of Jackson. He is married to Kathy Ezell Johnson and they have two adult children, Sharla and Harvey III.

We met with Mayor Johnson on December 30, in the busy time between Christmas and New Year’s.

Planet Weekly: The next term of office for Jackson’s mayor is likely to be an important one, with many ribbons to cut on several new projects. Does this affect your continued desire to be the mayor?

Mayor Harvey Johnson: I would like to see a number of projects that have been born, if you will, during our second term come to fruition, but that’s not the only driving force. This is a very rewarding job. I think there are things that still need to be done in the city of Jackson, besides just the physical projects that are going to take place over the next four years, and I’m prepared to do those things. There is a lot of momentum and I’d like to be a part of continuing that momentum.

PW: What sorts of things need to be done?

HJ: I think public education is a very important part of what we have to look forward to. Trying not only to improve the physical facilities we have, but improving other aspects of public education. It needs more supporters in our city. We need to face that challenge and get more people to rally around public education in our community.

PW: How?

HJ: If I had a road map, it’d be done by now. The first thing you do is to try to raise everyone’s awareness that there is a need. Public education impacts so many things. It impacts the ability to attract business and industry to your city, because they want a trained or trainable workforce. It impacts crime, especially if crime is committed by youth. It impacts the stability of the community. Educating young people who will not only go to college and do great things, but will do these great things when they come back home. It is a key to a lot of issues we need to deal with.

PW: What is your role in bringing this awareness to the city?

HJ: The mayor has a bully pulpit. My role is to use that bully pulpit to make people aware of the need to support public education, and how important it is to the future of our city. I have been to every public school in the city of Jackson, some of them two or three times. I’m committed to try to do what I can to make sure people are aware of the need.

PW: How should they support public education, financially?

HJ: Financially is one way. Obviously at some point in time, a bond issue is going to have to be put on the ballot to expand or replace some facilities. There are some other ways to support it. The Adopt-a-School program is a great effort on the part of businesses to lend support. Mentoring is another very important aspect. I think after-school programs are important. A lot of the students in the school system can use that time for recreation, but also for tutoring and studying and basically for staying out of trouble. A better rubric for this whole discussion is Youth Development, not just public education.

PW: What else needs to be done?

HJ: The creation of jobs and the stabilization of our tax base is a critical issue, one that people like to simplify. ‘Just get another Big Box and put it here and you’ll have more sales tax,’ but it’s a larger issue than that. It was just announced that we have a major subdivision being planned for South Jackson. This is an important aspect, not only for stabilizing our tax base, but also creating households and putting them close to the MetroCenter, which has enjoyed some pretty hard times of late.

PW: Residential development does appear to be lagging behind commercial development in Jackson. What should we do to get people to put homes here?

HJ: We have to encourage developers and educate them on what’s happening in our city. We’re doing that. The market that we’re missing is the middle market, and that’s what’s so exciting about the planned subdivision in South Jackson – these are $100,000-$150,000 homes. We aren’t lacking development in the upper scale and we aren’t lacking for affordable homes. But that middle market, where you want a $150,000 house, you have to go outside of the city. That’s what we have to focus on. We reach out to the developers and see how we can incentivize a project. It could be infrastructure – roads, water, and sewers. We’ve been entertaining a lot of proposals on how we can facilitate development with these kinds of homes.

PW: You see this as something that will increase during the next term?

HJ: Oh yes, no question. This is something we’re starting to see the fruits of. There’s been a lot of emphasis on downtown, but we’re also planning on how we can provide incentives to encourage these housing developers to move into our city and do the kinds of things that have been proposed in South Jackson.

PW: The MetroCenter area appears to be the next sort of project. There is already some activity happening there. Is this new subdivision related to it?

HJ: It’s related. It places a significant number of households 10-15 minutes away and that’s what retailers are looking for. In an area of the city where the perception is that people are moving away, it’s good to see new development come, because it means that people are moving there.

PW: Don’t the numbers back up the fact that people are moving away from Jackson?

HJ: The census numbers do indicate a loss of population, but if you look at our building permits, it indicates that new building is very strong here. Over a five-year period, we’ve averaged over $100 million in building permits. I meant the perception of moving away specifically from the West Jackson/MetroCenter area. People are shifting away, but the shift is taking them to South Jackson, the fastest growing area in the city. But obviously there has been a decrease in population from census to census. People are moving into our city from Madison and Rankin [Counties] and surrounding areas, but it’ll take a process to reverse the trend. It didn’t just start in 2000. Our highest population total was in 1970 and it’s been downward since then. That’s common to a lot of central cities throughout the country, so we’re not unique in that regard.

PW: Even so, the suburbs are all growing.

HJ: Yes, yes. But we still represent the trunk of the tree. Someone was at the [City] Council meeting the other day talking about deposits in the area. There may be $6 billion in deposits in the metro area, but $4 billion of that is in the city of Jackson. What impressed me was the scale, that there is still a considerable amount of economic activity in Jackson.

PW: Regardless of anything else, to some Jackson’s biggest problem is crime.

HJ: What the city government focuses on – whether it’s me or the chief – has to be on apprehending those people who commit the crimes in such a way that they receive their just due, and preventing crime to the extend that we can within the system. That’s why we are concerned about after-school programs. We operate nine centers in the city and try to give children something to do. We have a lot of programs that ultimately, we hope, will lead to the prevention of crime. I personally go into those schools and give anti-gun violence messages to those students. I think that crime is a problem throughout the country. I’ve said all along that what we need to be concerned about is making people feel safer and that’s the difficult part. We’re doing that by getting more police officers on the street. When I came into office, we had 350-370 officers and now we have 500, and that’s on top of losing 250 to attrition over those several years. I’ve increased the police budget by 30 percent. We’ve come up with a plan to map out what we can do to reduce crime. We have technology – computers in the police cars, video cameras, and Comstat, a computerized crime tracking mechanism that lets up better deploy our officers. The numbers indicate that crime is down. People sort of pooh-pooh the numbers. If you say that crime is down and your next door neighbor is robbed, you’re not going to believe it. But the fact is that there is a significant drop in crime in Jackson. One indicator is auto thefts. Three years ago we were number six of the top 100 metro areas in auto thefts. The latest report said we were number 74. That’s not getting any play in the papers. When we improve – probably the most significant improvement in the country on just that one indicator – nothing is said about it. It’s very frustrating to get that kind of information out.

PW: There are many who think the biggest crime problem is a backlog in the judicial system.

HJ: We have met with judges, prosecutors, and people from the sheriff’s office to try to get that system improved, and I think it is improving. I think we can use better technology as far as sharing data, and we’re slowly moving into that kind of system. We probably need to move a little faster. I think there’s a much better working relationship between these different tentacles of the criminal justice system. There’s a coordinating committee that we’re pushing for to try to make sure we have ample communication between all the parties in that system. Very early on this year, we looked at our bail system, which was allowing clerks to make decisions about certain offenses without the judges having a say-so in it. We came up with a new system for bailing people out for certain violent crimes. A judge now has to look at that case so you don’t have a sort of rubber stamp.

PW: Which led to some very bad press this year.

HJ: Exactly. We’re improving on that system. Certainly more can be made, but we’re in a better position now to make those improvements because of the level of communication between all parties than we were a year ago.

PW: Development in the city is something you will justly get credit for. There appears to be a real push to continue development and redevelopment. Does the city have room for more?

HJ: When I came into office, I said one of the things I wanted to do was to put Jackson into development mode. Is there room for more development? Yes. We have a fresh plan for downtown economic development strategies. We have a comprehensive plan adopted this year by the city council, an overall master plan for the city. We’ve taken small plans, like the entertainment district, Union Station, the Convention Center, and West Jackson housing, but now we’re in a mode to look at larger plans and how it all pieces together. We’re ready to move ahead and that’s exciting to me. We do need to make sure that deals are pushed by this office. Developers, citizens, and businesspeople need to know that we’re serious about the future of this city and our future hinges on our ability to develop and redevelop.

PW: What sort of identity should the Farish Street entertainment district take?

HJ: My goal with Farish Street is to capture the hope and promise it had 50 or 60 years ago, because it was a self-contained community for African-Americans. It allowed business to be transacted, it allowed entertainment, eating out, going to church; it allowed for all those things. My vision is to try to recapture that and use the entertainment district to anchor that. Another anchor is housing. Certainly another anchor is the religious institutions there. The oldest African-American church in the city is located there. We have a challenge to maintain the district. With the state of the housing, it has been neglected. We have a program we’re putting together to stabilize housing there.

PW: If any project has your name on it, figuratively speaking, it is the convention center. What do you think it will actually do for the city?

HJ: It’s going to create jobs. It’s going to create a venue where people will come to our city who perhaps wouldn’t have had the opportunity to come. But perhaps what it’s going to do is to indicate to the city, the metro area, and perhaps the whole state as to what can be done; what’s possible in the capital city. There are people who think that nothing can happen in the capital city. But with a convention center, with people coming from all over the state, the region, and the nation to this state-of-the-art meeting facility that’s right smack dab in the middle of Jackson, I think this will cause people eventually to stick out their chests a little further. This is something that the people of Mississippi can feel proud about.

PW: Right before election time, we received word about the businesses coming to Farish Street and about agreements being signed regarding the King Edward. Was this fortuitous or was there some planning involved?

HJ: Timing is an important aspect of any endeavor and we have been blessed with good timing, and some of the things that have been planned are coming into fruition. Of course, this was on the drawing board a long time. Did I push to make sure that we could point to that as an accomplishment? I certainly wanted it to happen not two weeks after November 2. If it happened two months before, two weeks, or two days, it didn’t matter to me. But it was important to me that we had some indication that things were moving forward in the city. Again, this comes back from my background as a planner, to say to folks, ‘the plan is fine, but when are we going to get it done?’ That’s what I’m saying to the people involved with Farish Street, the Telcomm Center, the Convention Center people, and it’s what we said about Union Station: ‘Fine, we have the plan, let’s get it done.’ So yes, I was pushing that development on Farish Street as hard as I could to make sure it got done. I’m glad it got done prior to the election, when it happened. Had I not pushed, maybe it wouldn’t have gotten done. I don’t know, but I’m just pleased it turned out the way it did.

PW: Has any sort of management group for the King Edward been selected?

HJ: Not a management group, but the developer has been selected. That will be left up to Historic Restorations. You’re supposing it would be a hotel?

PW: Actually, I’m of the opinion that it will be a mixed-use facility, which I think is a good idea.

HJ: I don’t think it will be a hotel, but I think that HRI will be responsible for it. It’ll be their baby, so whatever other groups or resources they need, they’ll have to come up with.

PW: Certain businesses are rumored to be ready to go in, even though there is no one to run it yet, no one to sign any sort of contracts to bring people in.

HJ: I’ve heard that as well, that businesses are looking to locate there. I’m not sure that the point where we are in this speculation process, whether it’s absolutely necessary to have a management group. What needs to happen first is that kind of interest being displayed, so the developers will feel comfortable spending the money they’re going to have to spend and the city will feel comfortable spending the money that it’s going to have to spend, knowing there is interest out there. I think that kind of speculation is healthy, because we’ve gone from ‘let’s tear it down’ and ‘when are you going to do something about it’ to ‘wouldn’t it be a good idea to have this business here.’

PW: When the King Edward agreement was signed, was it for the entire development or only for the early phases?

HJ: Right now we’re looking at the early phase – the environmental abatement and some limited demolition. With the holidays, I’m really not to sure where we are with that final document that will carry it all the way through to completion, but that will be the next document. When I talked to people a few weeks ago, they said that it would be finished by the end of the year. I don’t know where it is, but it could slip to early January.

PW: What sort of future do you see for the city of Jackson?

HJ: The future looks very good. I think we’re at a point in our history we haven’t been before. We have an infusion of private investment. We’ve had it before, but we haven’t had it in recent years at the level we have now. I think that the citizens of our city believe that we can work together to make our city better. To me, those things indicate that the future is very bright, because people have to believe that the future is bright. Part of my job is to convince people of that, to be a cheerleader and an ambassador and whatever I can be to convince people that we’re moving ahead in the city, that we’re becoming the Best of the New South, and we need to keep working. We have to work at it every day. If we can convince people that we are striving for excellence, and that’s what we’re trying to do, reaching our potential, we’re in good shape and I think that people are seeing that we can reach that goal.