tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084536143737073452024-02-20T00:38:14.293-08:00Joseph Mark BrewerYou are welcome to join me on my journey through the writing life.Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-84064444723100245202012-09-08T00:19:00.000-07:002012-09-08T00:20:02.787-07:00Why write?Consider today's blog as a first cousin to the Quick Hits writing tips. In previous posts, I said that all writing can be boiled down into Who What When Where and Why. Today I'd like to talk about Why.<br />
<br />
As in Why write? Why write about _____________? Why do you spend all your free time neglecting friends and family and <i>having a life</i> so you can scribble a few sentences on a notepad or stay up all night pounding out sentences <i>as if you life depended on it</i>.<br />
<br />
Why indeed.<br />
<br />
Anyone can give you a reason for writing: convey and idea. Tell a story. Spread the news.<br />
Writers suffer a more debilitating affliction, they write as if their soul will expire if the don't.<br />
<br />
See, people who write do it whether they like it or not. They cannot help themselves. They pick up a pencil and write a story as soon as they've read their first book. They see how it's done and want to to do. Some hear a poem and know they've heard something that touches their soul, and just know they have to do the same thing in order to live. Some hear the stories of their ancestors and are convinced that recording them is an act of precious preservation.<br />
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For me, writing began when I read newspapers and then a news magazines and realized I was learning about things going on on the far side of the world. It put the idea in my head that I could travel and tell a story for people who may never have been where I've been. When I was older and I enlisted in the Navy as a journalist, I traveled to the far side of the world, and it captured my imagination like nothing ever before. Which is why I've been writing stories about Japan for so many years, stories that over time have been broken up into little pieces and rearranged into other stories.<br />
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One of the very first experiences I had in Japan, trying to have as ordinary a day as possible in the midst of everything that was so new and different, was the day I went to a park, sat on a bench, and watched the world around me. I saw the pigeons swoop and sway and then land on the vast plaza, the moms and dads and babies in strollers and young people stealing intimate moments. Then I saw a grandfather playing with a granddaughter, a child no more than 2 years old, the old man grinning, clapping, talking in a sing-song voice, the little girl scampering to and fro, first to a pigeon that landed oh so close, then back to the grandfather when the bird suddenly took flight, laughing brightly.<br />
<br />
"This could be anywhere," I thought. And then I realized I could write a story placed in Japan, about the people I met and lived with: servicemen, Japanese guys and gals, government officials, everyday folk. I decided to use my expat experience as the basis for tell a story about right and wrong, how the unforeseen and the accidental can change the story of person's life.<br />
I wrote many different versions of a story I had in my head until the cast of characters came out in such a way that a detective story emerged, and that's how I came to write <i>Be Careful What You Ask For</i>. It's the first of series of novels about a police inspector who becomes a private investigator in retirement, but never seems to escape the cast of characters infiltrating his life: cops, gangsters, and a wealthy industrialist who seems to be his only client.<br />
<br />
Why do I write? To tell these stories.<br />
<br />
Why do you write?<br />
<br />
<br />Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-15250513859406610642012-09-03T19:18:00.000-07:002012-09-03T19:19:48.610-07:00Detective novel continued 4<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here is another chapter from my detective novel. Be sure to check out the other</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">posts, and let me know what you think.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Charlie Parker Jones felt nothing, sensed nothing except the raw
ache of the rejection he could not believe was real as he stared at the subway ticket
kiosk below the streets of Roppongi. He had no idea how he got there. His mind
was a blur as he tried to grasp what happened: flashes of Kimi Yamada saying
she had to see him, then saying she could not see him anymore. Words like
“please leave,” “my parents,” “I cannot anymore,” but her body telling him more
truth words ever did, melting into his embrace, clinging to him, fighting her
unwanted promise to let go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Her rejection wounded
him, made him flee when he knew there was nothing he could do, nothing he could
say to change her mind when she broke free of his grip and hid her face, unable
to look at him as she lied. He wanted to stay. He never ran from anything in
his life. But the weeping, the “please go” was more than he could take.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some inner autopilot guided him
to a train. It was minutes before he was aware his mind settled on this: talk
to someone about Kimi, about what just happened. Now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></div>
<a name='more'></a>+<o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> The evening began well enough. Jones got
Johnson and Ballard settled then turned his attention to Kimi. He told them he
was leaving with Kimi once she got off work, to go to her friend’s place. He
could see Johnson and Ballard didn’t care, they were just glad to be away from
the Marine Corps for the weekend. Still, Jones kept an eye on his friends while
scanning the room for Kimi. When he finally made eye contact he did not like
the look of the smile she gave him, but did not think much about her announcement
“I need to talk to you” when she finally made it over to his table. So later
one, when she signaled to him to meet him, he followed her beyond the shadows
of the dim hallway past the restrooms. Then his eyes adjusted to the dimness and
saw she was in tears.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> “What’s wrong, baby?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> “Oh, Charlie, you know I love you …” she
began but sobbing was all he could hear. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> “C’mon now, baby, what is it? I’ll take
care of it, I promise …” he whispered, trying to be strong and soothing at the
same time, embracing her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> “Oh, Charlie, we …”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> “What, baby?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> “I …”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> “What, Kimi?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> She paused to collect herself, and then
began her speech: “I can’t see you anymore. My parents won’t allow it. They do
not approve of me seeing an American and a soldier and a black soldier…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> “Whoa, Kimi …” Jones said, pulling away,
looking deep into her eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> His hurt look was more than she could
take. All she could do was shake her head “no” and look away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> “Is that how you feel?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> Kimi just kept shaking her said,
pleading: “No, Charlie, no, … I don’t want to … I don’t want to …” yet she
could not bring herself to defy her parents.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> Jones gently put his finger under her
chin and lifted her face up so he could look into her eyes. “Is this really how
you feel?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> “No, …” and with all her might she
wrapped herself around Charlie, never wanting to ever let go. In his arms she
wasn’t a student or a waitress, Charlie wasn’t a foreigner or a GI. Together
they were perfection. She gripped his body so tight he couldn’t breathe. And
when Charlie could not mistake the heat of her desire, he raised her onto a
table and Kimi took him in. She never felt his tears falling on her hair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">+</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Jones’
someone to talk to was Des Washington, a Navy chief petty officer who lived in
the navy housing area in Yokohama. Just last week the chief said his family was
in the States visiting in-laws, and that Jones should drop by while the wife
was away. They’d drink scotch and listen to some Diz and Miles and of course,
Charlie Parker.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Washington was what Jones’s father would
have called: “a brother of the highest order.” They met one cold January night
when Jones scraped up enough money to catch a show at the Blue Note in Aoyama. There
he met Washington and his wife, a lovely Filipina with huge black eyes and an
unforgettable smile, made it her business to adopt him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Jones introduced Kimi
to the Washingtons shortly after that, and was pleased when Kimi said she had
no idea GIs lived so well in such large homes in their own community. Charlie
was proud of his friends, and hoped that the impression would help win Kimi
over, help her see her parents were wrong about American military, and accepted
his friends not as foreigners but as sincere, caring people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> With a plan becoming clearer
in his mind, Jones settled in for the ride to Yokohama and Chief Washington’s house. Welcoming
the relief he felt, his mind shifted to a calmer, steady place. He had a plan,
somewhere to go and someone to talk to, someone he respected, someone he knew
could help him get his mind right. As the train spend through the darkness, he
tried to make sense of what had happened, to get his mind right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Des Washington,
scotch in hand and a new music system at a mellow volume, his stocking feet propped
on a copy table, was blasted into the here and now when thunderous knocking
crashed his reverie. His “damn it, who’s at my door?” punctuated his moans and
sighs as he got on his feet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Spying through his front door peep hole at
the kid Marine, “shit, what’s that kid doing here?” was all he could to think
to say, but then he saw the pain and anger in Charlie Parker Jones’ eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Washington opened the door.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “Chief,” was all Jones could think of to
say, suddenly realizing he was face-to-face with a man who probably didn’t care
about his girl problems, who probably wanted some alone time without some fool
knocking on his door after midnight. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="ecxmsonormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> But Washington managed a “Charlie? Well,
don’t just stand there, c’mon on in, man!” If the chief was surprised by the
boy’s presence on his doorstep, Jones didn’t see it. Before he knew it he had a
tall scotch in his hand, was stretched out on the chief’s sofa, and was telling
everything that had gone on that evening. One scotch became three. Jones did all
the talking. </span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Washington sipped his scotch, never saying a word. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="ecxmsonormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Washington was smart
enough to know a young man has to talk himself out before anything else could
be accomplished, and Charlie Parker Jones had plenty to say. The music and the
Cutty Sark fueled Jones; Washington was sure the young man would eventually get
it all out of his system. No man could keep up that rush of emotion and regret
and optimism all night<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="ecxmsonormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Charlie’s barrage of
reflection and misery continued even as Des found a frozen pizza to bake.
Realizing how starved he was, and how perfectly the pepperoni and gooey cheese
appealed to his sudden, intense hunger, Charlie gave in to the chief’s
suggestion to help himself, and had half the pizza in his belly before
Washington finished one slice. After a trip to the kitchen for some more ice,
he found Jones fast asleep right where he sat, his head having fallen neatly on
the padded arms of the sofa. After a long look and a decision to clean up
later, Washington went to bed. He decided to deal with the young Marine in the
morning. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-27671072737974382912012-08-30T01:35:00.000-07:002012-08-30T23:32:50.131-07:00Building community of readers and writersAfter having a Facebook account for 3+ years and connecting to family, friends and former coworkers, I wondered what I really could accomplish with the thing. I knew it would come in handy when the day came I actually had a book published, but I didn't want to use my own site for that. I plan on having a separate site for anything that has to do with writing and publishing.<br />
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But something happened as I delved deeper into social media and waded through the many sites that offer all types of advice on going legacy, going indie, becoming a brand, building a following -- jeez. All I wanted to do was try to get a handle on this stuff.<br />
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And Facebook. One of the things that intimidated me when it came to 'friending' on Facebook was, heck, I don't know these people. Why would I want to friend them? And they friend me?<br />
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And then Twitter came along, and I realized that becoming a citizen of the Web meant introductions were in order. So how was I going to introduce myself? As a journalist? An editor? A traveler? A veteran? No: I got into all this because the time had come to get my fiction published. It was time to introduce myself as a writer.<br />
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And then it all clicked: I was following writers on Twitter, making friends on Goodreads, so when I see that those people have a Facebook account, how about 'friending' them on FB, and .... what? They don't know me. I don't know them. But there's one thing we have in common: a love of reading and a love of writing.<br />
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Bingo.<br />
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So I started the process of finding friends, and the really cool people who accepted, found out the reason why I was contacting them when I was 'invited' to write on their 'wall.' This is what I write: Thank you for helping me build a community of readers and writers.<br />
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And now I am friends with novelists, poets, writing instructors, all kinds of people who care about words and reading and books, and it's not for the purpose of selling, for getting a review, for reminding folks of a buy-it-now sale. Now I feel like I'm friends people from across the country and around the world who love writing and ideas and are helping me build a community of readers and writers. To share stuff. To get turned on to new stuff. To remind folks of good stuff already out there.<br />
<br />
And I think that's pretty cool.<br />
<br />
If you like this idea, just find me at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/joe.brewer1">https://www.facebook.com/joe.brewer1</a><br />
and if you like, follow me on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeBrewer1">https://twitter.com/JoeBrewer1</a><br />
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Hope to see ya soon.Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-65627185788060537442012-08-26T19:28:00.001-07:002012-08-26T19:28:24.695-07:00Quick Hits No. 9In previous posts about writing, I've focused on the how, not the why. This post by Norma Jean Lutz I found on the Be A Novelist web site hit home for me. Among many other terrific things, she relays what Albert Einstein had to say about stories:<br />
<br />
<em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”</em>
<br />
<em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></em>
<em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;">What came immediately to me was Aesop's Fables, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Peter Rabbit: stories that capture the imagination and along the way, leave gems of truth and awareness that sit in one's subconscious, to emerge at (hopefully) times that amplified their worth. When I discovered I could learn about the world by reading stories written from far off lands, in things called newspapers and magazines, that notion already had a home to go to, thanks to stories already in my mind.</span></em><br />
<em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;"><br /></span></em>
<span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;">It's only natural to want to attempt to recreate what one has seen and appreciated all one's life. Draw a picture, build a sand castle, tell a story: all of these potentially wild flights of the imagination are what gives life a certain </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small; line-height: normal;"><i>je ne sais quoi</i> I know I could not live without.</span></span><br />
<em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;"><br /></span></em>
Lutz asks the question 'Does a story have any practical use?' Good question, in these technological times. But we as a people have always been tellers of stories. So it's only natural that some of us satisfy that itch that can only be scratched by not just telling a story, but writing it down and sharing it.<br />
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Now, about that getting up in the morning thing ...<br />
<br />
<a href="http://beanovelist.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/of-what-good-is-story/">http://beanovelist.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/of-what-good-is-story/</a>
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See ya next week!Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-79089157720545258872012-08-22T13:27:00.000-07:002012-09-03T19:20:15.709-07:00Detective novel continued 3<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="text-align: center;">Here are a few more scenes from the detective novel I'm writing:</span><br />
<span style="text-align: center;"> (previous posts can take you back to the beginning. It's worth it!)</span><br />
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> A clamor unusual
for Roppongi after midnight began to swell outside the jazz club, and as Sato
and Endo entered in the vestibule, ready to go, Endo wondered what the buzzing
sound was. He got his answer when they opened the front door and found
themselves in the midst of a throng of reporters and photographers. The
uniformed officers had been able to corral the scrum off to one side, but were
overmatched once Endo and Sato appeared.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Endo saw the reporters make a rush to corner Sato, and he
tried to put himself between the Sato and the crowd to forge ahead to the police
cars. Sato pushed his way forward as he announced the department would be
issuing a release soon, to check with the usual people there. One glance back
at Sato and Endo could see the disappointment in his eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “Who died?” a young, well-dressed woman shouted as she thrust
a microphone at Sato. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Sato ignored her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “Who died, officer?” she repeated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “We are notifying the victim’s relatives so I have nothing to
say,” Sato replied.</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white;"> “We heard it was a waitress,” she asked.
“A university student.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Endo
turned toward her voice and saw the face that went with it: a strikingly pretty
face, framed by an expensive haircut, and as he glanced down at the rest of
her, he could see she was dressed too well to be a newspaper stiff working in
the middle of the night. He pegged her as young, ambitious and out for a big
story. She must have scored a tip on what happened at the Down Low. She had an
ANK TV sticker on her microphone. He looked for television cameras, and saw
more than he cared for.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> The
woman glanced at Endo but turned her attention back to Sato. She saw he was
looking directly at her.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> "There
will be a press release soon," Sato quietly replied as he struggled to get
through the scrum; the officers were outnumbered, the sea of bodies quite
unwilling to yield.</span></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white;"> "What about the girl?” the young
woman shouted. “She was a student at Waseda?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Sato
then realized the woman may have been one of the customers, or knew someone who
had been inside.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> “How
did she wind up in a back alley?” she shouted. “Do you have any suspects?"</span></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white;"> "There will be a press release in a
little while," Sato repeated as he followed Endo, who finally managed to force
an opening in the crowd.</span></span><br />
<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white;"> Encouraged by the eye contact, the woman
elbowed her way past two reporters an quickly stepped in front of Sato. </span></span></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Were there
any foreigners involved? Everyone knows the club attracts many foreigners. And
GIs.”</span><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “The press release …” Sato began.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The crowd then pushed in on him, spinning him around as the
woman’s voice shouted: </span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">"Was it a gangster killing?"</span></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> He saw <span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white;">Sato ever so briefly stop and stare at her.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Were any
yakuza involved?” she shouted, pushing ahead, sure she had Sato’s attention. “The
place is supposed to be owned by Jun Fujimori. Ses Fujimori’s son. Is he a
suspect?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “No…” Sato began, but the reporter saw the flicker of
recognition in Sato’s eyes. Ses Fujimori, boss of a crime syndicate entrenched
in all levels of business, politics, government. A man with a world-class mind
who started as a gifted safe cracker and bank robber before moving up to gambling
rackets. Once Ses’ father, Key, cultivated his gifts of leadership, there was
no stopping him. The millions he extorted during construction boom in Shinjuku
made Fujimori wealthier than he could have imagined.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> And as a child, Ses was Sato’s closest friend. It was a friendship
Sato spent years hiding from the department, especially the one time he went to
Ses for help in arresting one of his men. Ses agreed, knowing Sato would be in
his debt, a fact never far from Sato’s mind. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The reporter heard the briefest of catches in Sato’s voice before
he recovered and muttered something about the news release before turning away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The reporter knew she had something.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> So did Endo. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">+<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Once Abe finished hustling Johnson and Ballard out of the
club and into a police car that quietly pulled away with no lights, no siren,
no crowd and no reporters or news cameras on that side of the building, he made
his way around to the front of the club, and seeing the commotion, rushed over
to wedge his body between the reporters and Sato and Endo, enabling them to
reach the cars. Sato and Endo quickly got in one and Endo sped away as Abe
wordlessly got behind the wheel of the other, leaving the reporters’ questions
hanging in midair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Endo said nothing as he drove back to Azabu station, but his
thoughts were a blur. He glanced at Sato, stoic and grim, and Endo had no idea
no idea how to read it. But he knew then he had to find out why Sato reacted so
strangely to the reporter’s questions. Was Tanaka right? Was there some
nefarious tie between Sato and the underworld?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> As Endo pulled into the back parking lot at Azabu police
station, he saw Sato quickly leave the car for the building. Sato seemed to
have snapped out of his reverie. In his command voice he called back to Endo
that he was going to call the American military authorities in Yokosuka about
finding this Jones person, and that he’d be along as soon as he could. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Abe had pulled into the lot by then and walking up to the
detective’s room, Endo asked, “Did you see Sato’s expression when that reporter
mentioned Jun Fujimori?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “No.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “Really? I did.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “You didn’t see anything.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Endo stopped and stared at Abe. Was he joking? Was he
covering for Sato? Had he just insulted him? He didn’t want to get off on the
wrong foot his first night on the team, but he could not believe Abe missed something
so obvious. Abe glanced at Endo staring at him from the stairway, and with
little patience said, “Endo, the inspector would have said something. He
didn’t. So it can’t be important.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Endo followed Abe to his desk. “That woman said something
about Fujimori. I saw something.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “You have to follow the leads,” Abe said, setting his ample
rump in his squeaky ancient wooden office chair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “Don’t you think it’s important that a Fujimori owns the
club?” Endo blurted. He couldn’t believe Abe wasn’t seeing the situation as
clearly as he did.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “That’s nothing,” Abe said slowly, patiently. “Everyone knows
Jun Fujimori owns that club, and Jun Fujimori is a nobody. He’s a hothead and a
daddy’s boy who couldn’t pick a pocket. Jun and that idiot cousin of his who
always seems to be hanging around, those two are harmless. There’s nothing
there.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “What do you mean, nothing’s there? What about the
inspector’s reaction?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Abe’s long, hard stare right through Endo made the young
detective cringe, but he fought through the contempt rising inside him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “Endo. Inspector Sato has solved a lot of cases. And it was
the prime minister himself who insisted Sato be assigned to the Imperial Escort
Division. And then he was sent to the diplomatic security section. He asked to
come back here because he wants to do real police work one more time before he
retires. Sato is the best there is. So when he says something is so, it is.
When he says it isn’t, it isn’t.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Endo saw that Abe was not going to tell him what he needed to
know. He went to his desk, his mind racing: “That reporter knew the place was
owned by Jun Fujimori. And Sato didn’t like hearing that. Fujimori. I better
tell Tanaka.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-left: 2.75in;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">+<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Once Sato reached the American military authorities in
Yokosuka and explained to them he needed to talk to Jones as soon as they could
locate him, he phoned Chief Wada to let him know that foreign GIs may be
involved in the case, and that he’d let him know as soon as he could if there
was going to be any difficulties. Sato knew the sensitivities surrounding the
issue of the American military’s presence and the firestorm that ensued every
time a GI was involved in some crime. He dreaded dealing with that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> He slowly made his way up to the detective’s room, airless
despite worn fans spinning in vain, years of cigarette smoke staining dull
walls under harsh fluorescent lights.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Endo stopped writing his report and stood as Sato entered. “What
are we going to do next?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “When the Americans find Jones, they’ll give us a call and we’ll
go down to Yokosuka and interview him,” Sato replied as he took off his jacket
and sat down at his tidy desk. “In the meantime forensics will give Kato a
report of what happened to the girl. And we’ll match up our notes with the
crime scene photos when they come over. The usual thing. We still have to
review what the customers and staff said.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “The customers said little,” Abe said. “The GIs said even
less.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “I think that bartender
wanted to say something, but was afraid,” Sato said. “I know she was giving the
manager angry looks. And I know that manager is hiding something.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “But what about the
GI? What if he really did beat her?” Endo asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “We have to check out what the GIs said. But Jones could be
anywhere,” Sato said. “The Americans will find him. Then we’ll talk to him.
Then we’ll see.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Endo was certain the GI was their man, but he also knew
nothing about the Americans. “Have you had much experience with the Americans?”
he asked. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “Yes,” Sato replied. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Endo waited for him to continue but Sato said nothing more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />
<br />Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-77796855090059943262012-08-19T19:57:00.000-07:002012-08-19T19:57:58.434-07:00Emily's Secret<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Chapter Two<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> With
Emily laid out in the funeral home’s basement and Earl in the kitchen of Ross’
apartment, reluctant to enter his empty home as the end of that awful day drew
near, Ross still dreaded making that phone call. It was to Earl’s sister, Ann.
He loved his niece and in some ways was a mentor to her, but as Ann grew older,
they grew apart, for no reason other than the different lives people have, with
little common ground besides blood. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Still,
Ann was the closest relative not just to Earl, but also to Emily, whose
immediate family was all dead and whose in-laws never bothered to make the
attempt to keep in touch. During Ann’s rare visits to Connor she spent most of
her time with Emily, with Earl so busy with the funeral home. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">As his
aged crooked finger gently ran down a list of numbers in small black book, Ross
peered at Ann’s name, still Taylor, and the exotic address, some Rue or
another, in some place in Paris, France. Ross began dialing a number. The
ringing began, and continued for some time before he heard a faint ‘hello?’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">+<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Earl
spent the night on the bedding he placed on the floor, unable to sleep in the
bed he shared with Emily. He spent most of the night unaware of being awake or
asleep, except for when he dressed and went downstairs to the living room to
acknowledge his neighbors’ sympathy. It was possible the entire town of Connor
turned out to pay its respect to Emily Taylor. Visitation was two nights for
four hours each, and both nights the funeral home on State and Elm overflowed
with folks wanting to offer some word of kindness to Earl and Ann and Ross.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">The
Episcopal church was packed for her funeral service. The procession to the
cemetery was 35 cars long and the crowd at the graveside service numbered over
500, according to Dave Weisbrodt, who was there with his brothers and a cousin,
all policemen and close friends of the Taylor family.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Emily
Taylor wasn’t particularly religious but she did attend Episcopalian services
somewhat regularly, sang with deep reverence, and knew the music by heart. The rector
said she would be remembered as someone who always gave of her time to any
cause no matter how small. Many mourners from all over Connor were there
because of a kindness she showed during some time of need, and most of the time
it had nothing do with the funeral home or the church, or the women’s aid
committees and other charitable groups. Everyone who knew her knew she took a
personal interest in nearly everyone in Connor. No one ever had anything bad to
say about Emily Taylor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Earl’s
shock and grief were still too deep within him to rightly acknowledge the
outpouring of love and kindness folks showed for Emily. He spent most of those
hours nodding his head, tilting it to one side, rubbing a handkerchief under
his nose, and throwing pleading looks at Ross whenever he felt truly overwhelmed. Despite
soldiering on at the funeral home and maintaining his poise during the
services, he was numb, and his soul had a perpetual raw, nagging ache.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"></span></div>
<a name='more'></a>+<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">With the
burial over, the crowd dispersed, Joe and Sam set about rearranging the funeral
home to its normal state. Ross undid his tie and sank into his brown leather
easy chair in his apartment. He could barely stand up, and was glad he had the
excuse of grief to hide his pain. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep
his secret; he certainly didn’t want to blurt out, now of all times, Dr.
Burger’s diagnosis. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">The
morning after the funeral, Earl found one of the half-dozen coffee cakes he
found in his kitchen, gifts from his caring neighbors, and crossed the wide driveway
to Ross’s apartment on the second floor of the funeral home. He found Ross
dressed in his usual black slacks, white shirt, and black necktie, his shoes
shined to a high gloss, the few strands of white hair remaining carefully
placed exactly where he thought they should be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Ross
fetched a cup of coffee as Earl explained that he had to leave that house,
where he was born, lived his whole life, next to the family funeral home at the
corner of State and Elm. Ross knew Emily had been born in the house on the
other side and she and Earl grew up and fell in love and lived their lives
together closer than most couples he had known. So Ross only nodded his understanding,
accepting Earl’s need be away from where he had known love and loss. There was
nothing to say to a nephew in such grief. All Ross knew how to do was place his
aged hand on Earl’s shoulder.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Earl
said goodbyes to Ross, telling him he was going to the lake house and that he’d
be back soon, then packed a bag. He was wan and spent and aimless and restless
and missed Emily intensely, and knew he couldn’t spend another minute in that
house, the house he’d grown up in and then shared with Emily. Her absence was
fresh, raw and painful, and he knew he didn’t want to be alone in that house,
the house he lived in with and without his father and brother, with and without
his mother, and now, with and without his wife. Earl wanted nothing more than
to park his Chevy next to the lake house and stare at that lake for a long,
long time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">+<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">The
Adirondack chair on the porch overlooking the lake was warm from the summer sun
and Earl’s body heat. He’d been sitting in it for hours on end and this was his
third day at the lake. Every day Earl sipped beer and thought about Emily. He
hadn’t bothered to go to town for food or the mail. There was enough food in
the cupboard. He wasn’t at all interested in having news from the outside world
invade his. He hadn’t turned on the radio since arriving. The television wasn’t
worth the bother.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">The lake
house was really a farm house Earl paid to have moved, whole, on a flatbed semi
truck from Anderson’s farm to the property he bought right on the lakefront, at
the far end of Connor County. With the crawl space dug and the foundation
poured and the utilities ready to be set, the two-story Federal-style frame
house was put in place by a friend in the heavy equipment business, and Earl
spent the rest of the summer of 1950 building a porch on three sides, a 15 foot
square addition off the back, and a barn 30 yards or so away from the back door,
for the mower and tools. There was about an acre of grass to mow around the
house and the driveway was nothing but gravel, for an eighth of a mile. It was
three miles to the nearest town, a postage stamp state highway crossroads with
a gas station, general store, diner and post office for the surrounding farms.
There were a few places like it left in post-war Indiana. Progress hadn’t
reached this corner of the state and no one was complaining. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Earl sat
in those whitewashed wooden chairs and thought many thoughts, like how the
house was supposed to be a getaway from the pressure of always having to
something to do at the funeral home. It was for family and summers and children.
Emily so wanted children. Her 20s were spent trying to get pregnant but suffered
miscarriages, one after the other. The year she was 32 she was pregnant and it
seemed everything was going along so well until she developed toxemia and then
baby died in her womb. After that the doctor said she should not get pregnant
again. There was surgery for her, and for Earl, to help guarantee that. They
wept that morning they had their procedures.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> Earl knew it had taken Emily years to
reconcile the fact she would have no children. Earl took it as a sign of
failure. Good husband, good provider, responsible son and business partner,
just unable to be a father, to give his wife what she dearly wanted. She told
him time and again that she accepted their fate, that she was fine with it and
that they should be thankful for each other, and Earl knew she was right, but deep
down it was one more thing to be disappointed about. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Earl did
not serve during the war, so he had no war experience, nothing to share with
the men he knew from school who had left home and then came back so different,
and still so themselves. Then his friends became fathers, joking about the
‘buns in the oven’ and ‘yard apes’ and ‘mouths to feed’ and then boasts of daughters’
recitals and sons’ little league successes and good grades and science fairs. Earl
would listen politely and nod his head, but he had no more notion of being a
father than Ross did, the old bachelor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Emily
and Earl’s friends knew they had no children and politely skipped mentioning it
when they thought of it, and as the years passed, with friends marrying and
starting families, it was just another thing that made Earl feel he was different
from the other fellows. And even though Earl liked to think of his students as
his children, at the end of the day, with the house so quiet, so still, with Emily brushing her hair,
sitting on the bed, staring out the window, Earl was aware she wasn’t tucking
in her children, reading them a bedtime story or listening to their prayers.
That silence tucked them into their bed, the weight of disappointment became their
blanket. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">The
subject of children was never mentioned between them, not after the final
miscarriage. But Earl felt it deep, deep in his gut, that there was an
essential part of him that just wasn’t right. And as Earl sat in the Adirondack
chair, staring at the lake, those first few days after Emily died, with a
feeling like he had been disemboweled. He sat in the chair with his mind
floating free, then without warning the ache to just be with her overcame him
in such intense spurts, he felt faint.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> +<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> What invaded Earl’s mind as he sat in the
chairs, drinking beer and staring at that lake, was was running to the house,
finding Emily on a gurney with a sheet over her face, then having no escape
from the endless lines of people telling him how wonderful Emily was and how
much she was going to be missed. He wanted to shout at all of them “I am the only one who’s going to miss her! I made
love to her that morning! We loved each other with all our hearts!” but the
people who came through the house, paying their respects, were just being
polite, saying it was only right that it the home was so full, too full to hold
all the people who came to remember Emily. There they were, person after
person, old and young, from childhood days to the present, one person after
another having nothing but a kind word about Emily. Earl didn’t want to hear
any of it. He wanted Emily there, sitting on the sofa, telling him about her
day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> +<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">It took
three days for him to wander to the back of the house, to the back rooms,
Emily’s rooms, which he treated as her private lair. To Earl’s recollection, he
never found any compelling reason to enter them, no in the thirty-some years they
were together in that house.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">And nothing
in the two rooms would have indicated that a male ever inhabited them. Figurines,
knickknacks, a bolt of cloth, a sewing machine, a dressmaker’s dummy, yarn,
patterns, and in the middle of the room, an overstuffed easy chair with doilies
and a side table holding a lamp, pincushions and thimbles. On the other side of
the room there was a trunk with scattered bits of newspapers, and some books.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Earl
knew Emily sat in the room for hours just sewing or reading. He knew that in
the back of the house the grove blocked the sun so didn’t beat down and make
the room unbearably warm but there was still good indirect sunlight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> He
looked into the other room and saw a table with an old manual typewriter he
knew had never been used in years, covered by a dust cover, and books, some
quite dusty and moldy, on three sides of the room, on shelves from the chair
back molding to the ceiling. Most of the books in the room belonged to his
sister Ann, a doctor with a UN agency who spent most of her time with medical
missions in Africa. Emily sometime’s called it Ann’s room, and there was were
two easy chairs with matching end tables.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">As he
turned to leave the room a trunk he didn’t recognize caught his attention. It
was neither a steamer trunk nor a something resembling a military footlocker.
It was really just an old, battered brown chest with a lid and withered brown
straps, and a lock and key mechanism that fell undone. It was under a table by
the far wall. Earl could not ever remember seeing it, and its presence puzzled
him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Placing
the paper and pens on the table, he knelt down to open the trunk. Blowing away
dust, he lifted the lid and found the trunk empty except for manuscripts with
cover sheets, held together with long tacks in holes from a three-hole punch.
Each cover has a title, and at the bottom of the page is the name E.W. Taylor
and year, going back 21 years, and in pencil, small marks indicating #2, #3, up
to #14. He lifted #4, saw 1962 written
on the first inside page, and begins reading. A girl and a boy, riding bicycles
out the old town road to the woods north of the lake, finding the ponds hidden
in the groves, claiming the spot for the own, each daring the other to wade into the cold spring-fed waters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">It only
took a moment before Earl realized he was reading a novel Emily wrote many
years before. It may have been written in 1962 but he recognizes the events in
the story, a bike ride the two took out into the country when they were 11 or
12. And he could not stop reading the story. It is a captivating, clear and
clean and exciting in more ways than what he remembered. As he reads it, he
found it strangely appealing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">“These
all must be stories,” Earl said as he lifted each one up, thumbing through one
after another before setting back down into the trunk. Each one seems to be as
good as the next. The words flowed, and he recognizes Emily’s wit and
imagination.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Holding
the thick manuscript, he never realized he slid to the floor, dropping like a
sack of flour, aware only of the discovery of a hidden truth in front of him. A
trunk full of manuscripts, of stories Emily must have written, and he never
knew anything about them. A total and complete secret, something Emily never shared,
never said a word.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">It was minutes
before Earl realized he was staring at words on a page, words his wife had written,
words that seemed to flow so easily, words that told a story Earl could only pretend
to be able to tell. The shock sent him to a place in his grief where he could only
demand to know why? Why didn’t she ever tell him about the stories? Why did he have
to find them in a trunk after she died? Why? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">And at
just that moment he remembered an envelope he saw in the stack of mail,
neglected and lonely on the table in the kitchen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Running
to the kitchen, he grabbed the mail and sure enough: Smith + DeWitt, a
publisher in New York, addressed to E.W. Taylor, with the lake house address. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">The
shock of seeing the manuscripts somehow made finding the envelope seem like the
punch line to a cosmic joke. The postmark is from four weeks ago. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> Emily must have had some of the mail sent to
the lake house address in order to keep him from seeing it, was all Earl could
think of. He collapsed in a chair as another shock overtook him while he read the
words on the fine stationery: This is a second letter, informing E. W. Taylor
they liked the manuscript and were still waiting for a decision to go
ahead. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Earl’s
head spin. “Could she have been hiding it all this time? Was she ever going to
tell me about any this? Why didn’t she tell me about all this? What was she
hiding? What was the point of not telling me about any of this?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">He
returned to the back bedroom, holding the publisher’s letter, surveyed the
manuscripts, taking it all in when he spots an envelope at the bottom of the
trunk. It’s in Emily’s hand. He gasps, seeing her slanted, round script.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Opening
the envelope, a letter from six years before falls to the floor. He sets
himself onto the floor before reaching over to pick it up. He has trouble
focusing on the letters. It reads:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">“My
Darling,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">“If you
are reading this then something must have happened to allow you to see my
babies, all of them neat and tidy, covered and complete. I wrote these stories
as something to do many years ago, and over time I began to consider them our
children.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">“When we
could not be blessed with children of our own they became even more precious to
me, and I guess, even more private and personal. Some of the stories are about
growing up with mama and papa, and how lonely my life was except for the
wonderful family next door, your family. Some of them are about our adventures
as children. Some of them are about how life changes for a woman, who falls in
love, marries, finds herself as happy as life could possibly allow, happy to
face every new day with the man she loves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">“Of
course some of the stories are silly nonsense, too, but I love them all.
Please, please forgive me for not sharing them with you, darling. I guess I
wanted to have just one thing that was mine, my very own, and I selected this.
I never meant to keep my babies a secret, and I’m sure someday I’ll tell you
all about them and this silly old letter will be something to laugh about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">“Please
know that I love you with all my heart, that you are the best man in the world
and I am so lucky to have you for my very own. I thank God and the fates that
allowed me to come into the world the same day as you, next door to you, my
darling. To have you in my life, almost from inception, was something more than
I could have ever asked for, or deserve. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">“Your<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Em”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">+<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Earl
folded the paper, gently placed it back into the envelope and placed it on top
of one of the stacks of manuscripts. Softly shuffling out of the room and down
the hallway, Earl grabbed a beer and returned to his Adirondack chair, a
million questions invading to his mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">An Emily
he never began to emerge from the pages of stories in a trunk in a back
bedroom, an Emily who spent so many years of her life writing, writing,
writing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Staring
at nothing, he thinks and drinks until he can do neither.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-35612988581802272362012-08-13T17:17:00.001-07:002012-08-13T17:17:24.642-07:00Quick Hits No 8To recap: Quick Hits writing tips was born from conversations I have had with editors, writers, and wanna-be writers and about writing a story, any story: how to start, how to follow through, and what it takes to get the idea on paper in a way that others understand.<br />
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I know for most writers it's all very elementary, but who among us has had a an idea waiting to be hatched, a story to be told, and then, wham! We act like we've never written our name?<br />
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Thanks today goes to Mary O Paddock's tweet (@MaryOPaddock) about writing advice given by Christopher Moore, via her blog Jumping Off Cliffs. Moore is the author of <i>Lamb, the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal</i>. I have never read it, nor have I ever heard of Christopher Moore. But upon reading his advice to writer's, that's all going to change.<br />
Here's a link:<br />
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<b style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">http://tinyurl.com/9avzk7a</b>
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If anyone would like to comment on this or any other posting in the blog, please feel free. I'm looking forward to reading what you have to say.<br />
See you next time!<br />
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<br />Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-34638917906910617662012-08-11T01:29:00.000-07:002012-08-17T02:43:10.729-07:00Emily's Secret<br />
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<u><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Emily’s Secret<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Chapter One<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> Had
Emily Taylor known she was going to die that morning, perhaps she would have
told her husband the news she had been too stunned to tell before then. It
wasn’t that she didn’t want to tell Earl, it’s just that she could hardly
believe it herself. She had decided to wait awhile and let it all sink in, the
notion that a novel she had written was going to be published. The letter from
the publisher was so unexpected it didn’t seem quite real. She sent the
manuscript in on a lark, after all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">If she
had known she was going to die that morning it’s possible she would not have
spent any time weeding the flower beds, but there she was: she loved gardening.
It felt purposeful, pulling out weeds by the roots, checking under leaves for
bugs, spying the latest garter snake on the perimeter of the lawn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">There
had been a gentle, nourishing rain early that morning. She watched it from her
bed while Earl slept. It was a soft, brief rain, as if the heavens were giving
the earth a drink of water. She remained entwined with him, listening to his
heartbeat, looking out the window, and was a little surprised when the first
rays of morning finally peaked through. But she was glad it was morning. She
couldn’t go back to sleep. There was something stirring inside her, something
that said, “Get up, get out, get going” that was too urgent to be ignored. She
skipped making coffee, not wanting the aroma to awaken Earl, and after pulling
on a tattered blue cotton sweater over her old Ship-and-Shore blouse and slipping
into her barely usable Levi’s she had on hand just for gardening, she went
downstairs through the kitchen and out the back door, straight to the shed,
already warming up to mid-June temperatures. She had a sense she had to be
outside, and the early morning warmth was so inviting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">With
work gloves on and with a claw tool and hand spade in hand, she spent an hour
working up a sweat by thoroughly weeding each of the six flower beds. Emily
felt good, being damp and breathless at that hour. Admiring her work as the sun
rose above the fence line and the poplars; her industriousness was rewarded
with a rare morning breeze.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> The
day before, Earl mowed the grass, edged the sidewalks and used hand clippers to
chase down stray wisps of grass along the fence posts. It was so neat and tidy
now, Emily couldn’t suppress a smile of satisfaction. She loved the little
yard, especially with the hyacinth, daffodils, violets and the irises bloom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">And she
felt satisfied that getting that chore out of the way would please Earl, who
would be up soon if not already, with errands to run before they drove to the
lake house. He’d want to be leaving not much past mid-morning, whenever he
returned from the store. Having a few home chores out of the way made resting
at the lake house that much more satisfying for him, she knew. She also knew
she had plenty of time to pack what they needed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Earl had
a renewed sense of vigor, of that she was certain. And he liked to show his
vigor. Like last night, a passion so wanton but controlled, eager but so
directed, so powerful but exactly timed with her arousals, her needs. Maybe it
was the benefit of a long marriage, of so thoroughly knowing a lover after so
many years; it was nearly impossible to get any signal wrong, and when it was
more than right, when it was the right combination of energy and passion and
experience, it was ecstasy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> Sitting
in the grass, Emily hugged her knees to her chest, warmly recalling her
unexpected and surprisingly exquisite evening making love with Earl, then lying
awake in the night, listening to the soft rain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">She was
pleased the semester was finally over, that Earl had graded all his student’s
essays, and that she endured the graduation exercises typical of small liberal
arts college. Being married to a popular history professor had its benefits,
but its drawbacks, too. With the end of the term, all she wanted was her escape
to the lake house and begin a summer where she had her husband all to herself.
And that morning had finally, finally arrived.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Pleased
with herself and everything in her life, Emily decided she would tell Earl her
big news that morning, as soon as he was awake. They could celebrate somehow,
even if they were only heading to the lake house. Earl would be pleased with
her, and he would think of something. He was good at that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> She looked up at the bedroom window,
searching for a glimpse of her husband, but saw nothing. She didn’t see Earl in
the kitchen window, either. She wanted to wave to him and beckon him to join
her in the yard, to share the quiet moment and tell him her news. But she
couldn’t see him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Emily
contemplated making coffee or simply having orange juice, but that meant getting
up. Her chest was throbbing some now, but she had medicine for that, and knew
it was time for her pills. Her legs ached some from kneeling down in the grass
and tugging out the weeds by the roots. She tried to stand up, in order to
fetch the pills, but she was beginning to find she could not command her legs.
Sighing, and still thinking she should be feeling better after such a beautiful
night, she tried to rise but found herself stumbling forward, unable to keep
her balance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">It was
then her heart stopped working altogether.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Like a
long rope slithering down to the ground, her legs collapsed beneath her as her
heart slammed shut and her torso arched forward. Her eyes saw the grass racing toward
her face as her mind struggled between darkness and light. The words “no” and
“Earl” raced across her brain as she tried to will her left arm to reach out
and break her fall as she clutched her chest with her right hand, grasping the
smooth white cotton of her blouse, all the while trying to discern the strange
inner sound of her heart not beating.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">+<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Earl was
already up, and as he readied for his day, he didn’t think anything of not
seeing Emily right away. His shower and shave and dressing was done in the calm
silence of the upstairs just like any other day. If a radio was on at all it
would be the kitchen radio. The bedside radio would be off, as he knew Emily
always turned it off once she was out of bed. He already knew she was up. It
never crossed his mind to look for her, even after dressing and walking out the
front door to fetch the morning paper. Wherever Emily was, he was sure she was
fine. He sat on the front porch step and took a look at the front page, then
the baseball scores. He had a t-shirt on under his unbuttoned white short-sleeve
shirt, and even at that early hour he could feel himself sweat through the
t-shirt. He thought he felt a breeze a few minutes before, but now it was just
still air getting hotter and thicker by the minute.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Next
door in the funeral home, Ross Taylor, Earl’s uncle, was wondering how many
days he had left on this earth, he being over 90 and recently diagnosed with
cancer. Splashing water on his face in preparation for shaving, he looked at
himself in the mirror as he did every morning, and again muttered: “Another day
on earth, old boy. Today is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be
glad.” Ross wasn’t particularly religious, but he was an undertaker who knew
all there was to know about life and death. He preferred life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Ross was
only a couple of years older than Earl’s father, George, and he’d been to
medical school when he decided that being an undertaker was easier and took a
lot less time. Ross was a practical man to the core: he didn’t have any great
notion of saving lives, he simply ran out of money for medical studies. He took
a job with old man Heilman in that very house, working as an apprentice
undertaker, and he was surprised to find in himself the desire to give the poor
souls who died a dignified exit. It was an easy decision to leave the little
missionary medical school in town when old man Heilman offered to take him on
full time and make room for Ross’ brother, George, in the deal. Herman Heilman
started the funeral home business in Connor as the only undertaker and embalmer
in the county, dating back to just after the Civil War. Once Ross and George
were established, when George came back from the Great War, it didn’t take long
for them to make the ancient German gentleman an offer. They bought the
business, the house the funeral home was in and the house next door and all the
paraphernalia outright. When the deal was made, Ross moved into one of the
upstairs apartments in the huge building home that housed the funeral home on
the main floor and living quarters on the second. George needed the house next
door for his family.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">That
morning in May, though, as his mortality set in and his mind rolled it over,
the truth was his thoughts were turning to nothing in particular as he shined
his shoes. Quietly completing that task, and slipping his feet into the
thick-soled brogues and tying sturdy knots, he stood erect, straightened his
tie, and for no reason at all, glanced out the window, and saw Emily lying flat
in the back yard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">The
funeral home’s two new men, Joe Sloneker and Sam Mullins, who recently bought Ross’s
share of the business, were in the other second-floor apartments. Neither were
prepared to hear the strange shriek of the old man, the “Oh, Heavens!” before
the summons “Joe! Sam! Come quick!” Neither had even been in Ross’s quarters.
Neither was prepared to see the old man, ashen and shaking, when they ran into
the hall and heard him call from his door, looking so feeble with a voice so
taut: “Quickly, Mrs. Taylor is lying on the ground in the back yard. She looks
like she’s hurt!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> Joe
and Sam looked at each for the briefest of moments, then they took off to the
stairway, with Sam calling back “call an ambulance!” Ross began dialing
immediately. The Army medic in Sam and Joe kicked in, and as they made it out
to the yard, Sam turned to Joe and cried “FIND EARL!” Joe dashed into the house.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> But
Earl wasn’t there. With the pang of caffeine dependency too great to ignore,
and not bothering to walk through the house or out the back to see just where
Emily was, Earl walked the two blocks down and one block over to the coffee
shop. As he walked he debated whether or not to order breakfast. He didn’t like
to eat any meal without Emily. But he figured she was probably in the basement
doing something before getting ready to go to the lake house. If he had
breakfast at the coffee shop she’d want to skip breakfast, and he didn’t like
to see her do that. She was five-three and all of 102 pounds. He was proud and
impressed by the fact her figure was basically the same for the past 40 years,
but her reluctance to have even an occasional bowl of corn flakes disturbed his
inner peace. He knew her heart was weak, her blood pressure unsteady and
cholesterol extremely high. He knew that’s why she avoided fried food and
coffee, but a few berries in some corn flakes couldn’t hurt. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> He
turned the corner onto Main Street and headed for the coffee shop in the still
morning air just as Joe ran out to the front of the house and looked down the
street, calling Earl’s name. Earl heard nothing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> In
the back yard, Sam wasn’t prepared to see Emily face down in the yard in that
awful helpless state, limbs akimbo, but his army training was in control of his
emotions as he gently turned her head and shoulders to the sky and brushed away
some still-damp blades of grass, performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and
held her pulse far longer than necessary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Kneeling
next to her body, he took off his shirt and covered her face, to shade it from
the sun. He made her legs as straight as he could, crossed her arms over her
chest, and then sat on the grass next to her, waiting for the ambulance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">He spent
a few moments gazing at Emily’s body, and realized he didn’t feel anything. It
bothered him. The woman gave him a job when he couldn’t find one, and was more
of a mother to him than his own mother had been. Still, he couldn’t shake the
stoicism needed when fatal circumstances arise. It bothered him some that he
was so self-possessed. But the feeling passed as quickly as it came, and as he
sat, staring at the grass, then at the house Earl and Emily lived in, he
realized he’d have to answer the ambulance crew’s questions, and then he realized
he moved a dead body before the police arrived. He didn’t care. It was only
then he felt his eyes burning, tears rising from the depths.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> After
calling the ambulance, Ross immediately phoned Dr. Burger, the Taylor family
doctor. He called the private number. Ralph Burger answered on the second ring.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> “Ralph,
Ross Taylor.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> “Hello
Ross. What can I do for you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> “I
just phoned an ambulance for Emily. It looks like she’s … “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">And
Ross’ voice began to waiver a little. But he cleared his throat and said, “I
just saw Emily face down in her back yard. The two young men who work here are
outside looking after her. Then I thought I better phone you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> “Do
you know what happened?” Ralph Burger knew all about Emily’s bad heart, just as
he had known all about her parents’ and sisters’ bad hearts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> “Let
me look out the window.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> After
a moment, Dr. Burger could hear the catching and sorrow in Ross’ “Sam covered
Emily’s face, and is sitting beside her. She’s lying perfectly still.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> “I’ll
meet the ambulance,” was all Ross heard before the line went dead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">As Ross
Taylor replaced the receiver, he gently collapsed into an ancient Queen Anne
chair next to the phone table in his Spartan, immaculate apartment and sobbed
quietly for several minutes, not once reaching for his handkerchief. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> The
blare of the ambulance siren rushing up Main Street caught Earl’s attention.
Sitting and chatting with Bob Unger, chewing on toast and sipping coffee, Earl
was getting an earful from Bob, who once again claimed to know where the best bass
fishing was at Two Mile Lake. Earl’s lake house was on Milan Lake, but he drove
over to Two Mile on occasion, for variety’s sake. Bob knew this and wanted to
give Earl the latest on what the fish and game fellows had been up to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> The wail of the ambulance broke into Bob’s
discourse. Both men turned to look out the picture window onto the sidewalk. An
ambulance on a weekday morning usually meant an elderly person needed
assistance, and if things went badly, the funeral home would be notified. Earl
got up and walked over to the pay phone, dropped a dime in the slot, and dialed
Ross’ number. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> The
ring caught Ross off guard, but he assumed his professional manner quickly and
answered the phone in an even, professional tone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">“Ross,”
Earl said. “I just saw an ambulance …”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> For
the first time in Earl’s life he listened to Ross lose his composure: “Oh,
Earl, come quick. Emily is …” but before he could finish, Earl was racing
through the coffee shop, out the door, and back home in a dead run.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> Breathless
and wobbly as he reached the front of his house, for a moment he wasn’t quite comprehending
the ambulance in his driveway and not the funeral home’s. He refused to think
of Emily in any danger -- just maybe a slip and fall, perhaps, or maybe she was
unconscious. Running past the ambulance he finally slowed down when seeing the
gurney in the yard, and Emily on the gurney, and a police officer in the yard
along with the ambulance crew. The officer was Tom Weisbrodt, a sergeant, and Earl
recognized the ambulance crew but couldn’t exactly place them just then. Neither
man said a word as they pulled the sheet over Emily and rolled her past him and
slide the gurney carrying Emily into the old converted Chevy wagon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">“I’m
sorry,” Weisbrodt began, but Earl just turned and said, “I’m going with them”
and ran toward the ambulance. He remembered their names the driver and the
attendant, cousins named Al and Bob Tincher, and they knew Earl and didn’t say
anything when he leaped into the back of the wagon. They let him in, and once
the ambulance was secure, it sped off to the Baptist hospital.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">There
was only one ambulance corps in town, and the attendants knew which hospital to
go to depending on which church that customer’s family attended. If Emily had
been Catholic the ambulance would have gone over to St. Joe’s, a smaller and more
prestigious hospital. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">The
Taylors were Episcopalian and that meant Protestant so that meant the Baptist
hospital, which had begun life as the small missionary medical school before
the great influenza epidemic forced the deacons to decide that the medical
students might be better off in Indiana than Africa. These days it was a
full-fledged hospital and the only four-story building in Connor, and it had
seen more than its share of the regular traffic of sickness and disease and
misery and death. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">As the
ambulance made its way to the hospital, Earl looked down at the shrouded body
and undid the corners and pulled back the sheet in order to look at Emily. Her
hair was a mess. He smoothed if off her face, and then ran his index finger
down the bridge of her nose. It was small, intimate gesture whose beginnings
predated his living memory. The first time he made the gesture he was little
more than two years old, and he wanted to touch her face, but didn’t want to
hurt her. So he imitated what his brother Georgie did whenever Georgie wanted
to make Earl smile. And sure enough, when Earl tried it on Emily, he got a
smile, too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Emily was
his light, and he knew deep in his soul the day he dreaded was upon him. In the
back of that ambulance, speeding toward the Baptist hospital, Earl gazed down
at Emily’s face, her countenance peaceful, he knew her light was now out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Dr. Burger
startled him when the ambulance doors swung open, a brilliant morning sun
shining right into the rear of the ambulance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> “Earl,
let’s go…” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> “Do
you think …” Earl began to ask.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> “Let’s
get her inside out of the sun, Earl,” was all Dr. Burger would say as Al and
Bob wheeled her into the hospital. Earl didn’t notice right away that the two
men didn’t turn toward the emergency room, but were wheeling her to the morgue,
at the end of the hallway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Realizing
this, Earl’s shock and grief exploded. A low animal moan came forth from deep
inside him; his knees buckled, and Dr. Burger placed his arm around him and sat
him in a chair to keep him from falling onto the dull waxy linoleum hallway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> “Earl,
look at me” he commanded.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> “Emily,
oh Emily," Earl began to sob.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> “Earl,
look at me. You know Emily is dead. She was D.O.A. I don’t want to do anything
invasive like an autopsy. You understand? Do you want me to do one?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">“Oh,
god, no ….”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">“I’m
sure it was her heart. Now, you know I have to fill out a death certificate.
Look at me, Earl.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> Earl
looked up at Dr. Burger, but all he could really make out was the doctor’s
bushy white eyebrows and his clear gray eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> “Earl,
in a few minutes I’ll come and get you and you can spend all the time you want
with her, until your two boys come over and Ross can take care of things from
then on.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> Earl
sobbed, silent spasms wracking his body.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">“Earl,
look at me. Normally I’d give someone a sedative for what you’ve just gone
through. Do you want one?” Earl stared at him with a wounded, pained expression
but shook his head no.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">“Listen
then. Sit here and don’t move. I’ll be about<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">fifteen or twenty minutes. I’ll call Ross
and the boys, and then I’ll come get you. I’m not going to do an autopsy unless
you want me to. Do you?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Earl
looked at the man’s face as if he was talking to a stranger. He didn’t
recognize his own voice when he answered “no.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Dr. Burger
sighed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">“All
right then. Stay here. It’ll be awhile but I’ll call Ross and the boys and you
can wait and then they’ll be here. All right?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">“Yeah …”
but Earl’s voice trailed away. Dr. Burger stood erect again, turned on his
heels, and headed toward the morgue. He had no intention of tearing organs out
of Emily Taylor. He was as positive as a doctor could be without taking a dead
woman’s blood pressure that Emily had a fatal cardiac episode. It was simple. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Two of
the on-duty nurses glanced down the hallway and saw Earl slumped in the metal
and plastic chair. Both were local women, both had mourned their mothers,
fathers and husbands at Earl’s funeral home. They had seen Earl in his black
suit, looking competent and concerned, caring and cool. Now he was the grieving
family member with a vacant, shocked look on his face, red from tears, his arms
wrapped around his torso.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">Suddenly,
without warning, Earl jumped up out of the chair, picked it up by its legs and
began slamming the chair on the floor, repeatedly, with the most painful,
hurtful moan escaping from somewhere deep within him as the chair was crashed
onto the linoleum time after time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">As
suddenly as it began, it stopped. Bent over the chair, spent, weeping, moaning
in grief, Earl collapsed into the chair, which withstood its beating.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">The two
looked at each other and shook their heads. Both knew Emily and Earl and their
families from days gone by. They both believed men took to becoming widowers
harder than women. And poor Emily. No children. Just Earl and that funeral
home? Was that all anyone was going to remember her for?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";">The two
women, starched and professional, brushed small tears from the corners of their
eyes, and returned to their stations. Dr. Burger, who had witnessed the episode
from the small side office about twenty feet away, resumed his note taking, a
small smile on his face.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-28930834271384229392012-08-10T13:05:00.000-07:002012-08-10T13:05:00.150-07:00Quick Hits No. 7OK, today is a master class.<br />
<br />
Here's what John Steinbeck had to say about writing.<br />
Special thanks to Maria Popova @brainpicker.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/03/12/john-steinbeck-six-tips-on-writing/">http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/03/12/john-steinbeck-six-tips-on-writing/</a>
<br />
<br />
I especially like #2.<br />
<br />
See you next week!<br />
<br />
<br />Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-3503887309481714652012-08-05T17:05:00.000-07:002012-08-05T17:05:16.912-07:00Quick Hits No. 6In my posts about writing, I have been focusing on getting started: think about it and get it on paper. Ask yourself some questions, answer them in your head, then get the words on paper. Today I'd like to share this with you:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">“When you write a story, you're telling
yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the
things that are not the story.” ― Stephen King, On Writing</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
At my first writer's conference, I heard "writing is rewriting." It has stayed with me to this day. Trained as a journalist, I am used to the notion of get it out, get it right, but get it out. Writers without daily deadlines, once they get whatever it is they want on paper, treat those words as if they belong in a museum. That's a good way to never get anything done. The next step is just what King says: "(take) out all the things that are not the story."<br />
<br />
Every word you write won't be a part of the final product. That's OK. It's not the words you start with, but the words you end with that count.<br />
<br />
See you next week.<br />
<br />
<br />Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-74376127043954902612012-07-30T21:54:00.000-07:002012-08-01T01:21:10.962-07:00Quick Hits No. 5When I began tuning into Social Media one of the first names to jump out at me was Chuck Wendig. I realized that if there was someone this cool swimming in the deep of the socmed pool then I wanted to jump in, too.<br />
And one of the first things I read was 25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing Right now.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2012/01/03/25-things-writers-should-stop-doing/">http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2012/01/03/25-things-writers-should-stop-doing/</a>
<br />
<br />
I want to focus on No. 6<br />
<br />
<h3 style="border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 20px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; margin: 20px 0px 6px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">
<cufon alt="6. " class="cufon cufon-canvas" style="display: inline-block !important; font-size: 1px !important; height: 20px; line-height: 1px !important; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative !important; vertical-align: middle !important; width: 19px;"><cufontext style="display: inline-block !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden !important; padding: 0px; text-indent: -10000in !important; width: 0px !important;"></cufontext></cufon><cufon alt="Stop " class="cufon cufon-canvas" style="display: inline-block !important; font-size: 1px !important; height: 20px; line-height: 1px !important; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative !important; vertical-align: middle !important; width: 39px;"><canvas height="20" style="height: 20px; left: -1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative !important; top: 0px; width: 58px;" width="58"></canvas><cufontext style="display: inline-block !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden !important; padding: 0px; text-indent: -10000in !important; width: 0px !important;"></cufontext></cufon><cufon alt="Waiting" class="cufon cufon-canvas" style="display: inline-block !important; font-size: 1px !important; height: 20px; line-height: 1px !important; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative !important; vertical-align: middle !important; width: 65px;"><canvas height="20" style="height: 20px; left: -1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative !important; top: 0px; width: 80px;" width="80"></canvas><cufontext style="display: inline-block !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden !important; padding: 0px; text-indent: -10000in !important; width: 0px !important;"></cufontext></cufon></h3>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #525151; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">
"I said “stop hurrying,” not “stand still and fall asleep.” Life rewards action, not inertia. What the fuck are you waiting for? To reap the rewards of the future, you must take action in the present. Do so now."</div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #525151; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #525151; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">Take action. </span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #525151; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">A friend of mine is trying to get started on a project but did not know where to begin. "Just write something!" I shouted. "Write you name. Draw a line down the middle of the page and write what a boy would say on one side and what a girl would say on the other. Describe the awfulness of your apartment. Tell me how you hate to walk to the grocery store. But just write it down!"</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #525151; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">He thought it had to be creative. It doesn't. It has to be <i>something. </i>The creative part comes later. First comes the writing.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #525151; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small; line-height: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #525151; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">Take action.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #525151; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small; line-height: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #525151; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">If you can write a tweet, an email, or text a message, you can write. The creative part comes later. Just write. Write and write some more. What you want to say will rise up from the words on the page. You'll see them reaching out to you, begging to be set free. </span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #525151; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">But no such emancipation will take place if you don't take action.</span></div>Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-72708580533579158982012-07-27T12:58:00.000-07:002012-07-27T12:58:36.417-07:00<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12536.Rosie" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Rosie" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327939674m/12536.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12536.Rosie">Rosie</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7113.Anne_Lamott">Anne Lamott</a><br />
My rating: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/370111078">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
I read this to introduce myself to Anne Lamott's work. I am glad I did. Despite its title, at first the story seemed to be about Elizabeth Ferguson, Rosie's mother, and the people who populate her life: Andrew, Rosie, Rae and James. The story seems to unfold as a tiny family saga, from Elizabeth's mother to Elizabeth to Rosie. But there is an imperceptible shift, from Elizabeth's tumultuous inner life to Rosie's life of becoming herself in a world where her one constant is her flawed, beautiful, patient-despite-herself mother. Lamott's gift is her ability to simultaneously describe Elizabeth's reckoning of her own faults, Rosie's adventures with her best friend Sharon, and Rosie's awareness of the mysterious world of grownups, one populated with kindness and understanding alongside cruelty and abuse. I was sad to come to the end of the book. <br />
<br /><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/9743181-joe-brewer">View all my reviews</a><br />
<div>
<br /></div>Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-80799838739818384342012-07-22T14:21:00.000-07:002012-07-22T14:21:46.826-07:00Quick Hits No. 4<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">In his tribute to Nora Ephron in <i>The New Yorker</i>, Nathan Englander shares some observations on the art and craft of writing I'd like to share with you.</span><br />
<b style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></b><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;">He wrote: "It’s that the goal of the true craftsperson is simply to put story out into the universe—to find the tales that really count and to tell them in the form they demand."</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px;">Isn't that really what a writer tries to do? Send a story "out into the universe." I know I'm guilty of of keeping my stories hidden from the universe for any number of reasons, most often because I am not satisfied with them. But what writer is?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px;">I have just finished editing a story that began life 20 years ago. The original idea has morphed into something that can only be appreciated if one applies the six degrees of separation rule. The story is now ready to be launched into the universe, but 20 years?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px;">That's ridiculous. But what's worse is I have a story that's been written in some form for</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px;">30</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px;">years that has yet to see the light of day. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px;">So you can see, I've been on this journey through the writing life for some time. And I admit it has existed in my head, for the most part. But now I'm ready to go "out into the universe."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px;">This is why I think his conclusion seems to timely for me right now:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;">"You set out to do something, and to do it right. And if it doesn’t come out exactly as planned—you don’t just live with it, you find a way to make it even better than it would have been before." </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px;">Check out the article here:</span><br />
<b style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></b><br />
<b style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">http://tinyurl.com/7fsj4g8</b>
<br />
<b style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">See you next week!</span>Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-45732697767857631492012-07-16T14:11:00.000-07:002012-07-16T14:11:29.336-07:00Quick Hits No. 3Sometimes writing begins with the smallest of details. Describing something, however small, exercises the engine of your imagination, and frees the words trapped there. Consider: How a fried egg's yolk runs as if it seems to want to escape its fate. How a fastidious man refuses to allow smoking in his car, he so loves its new car fragrance.<br />
Getting started on a story may be as simple as a small, insignificant observation. At the end of Chapter 3 in "Rosie," <span style="background-color: white;">Anne Lamott writes "... she lifted a bottle of nail polish and, with a forlorn look on her face and a gaping, heavy hole in her chest, spent the next half hour slowly tipping the bottle back and forth, watching the swaths cut in the polish by the silver stir beads, the silvery etchings in crimson." </span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">If the devil is in the details, heaven is there, too.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">And don't forget to check out Joss Whedon's Top 10 Writing Tips</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<a href="http://www.whedon.info/Joss-Whedon-s-Top-10-Writing-Tips.html">http://www.whedon.info/Joss-Whedon-s-Top-10-Writing-Tips.html</a>
<br />
<br />
See ya next week!Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-10229603289908047082012-07-14T23:55:00.001-07:002012-07-15T00:04:36.059-07:00Writing something you can put your name to<br />
Perusing through some short films on the PBS website I found this Mike Wallace interview with Rod Serling from 1959, just after Serling wrote several terrific television programs during TV's 'Golden Age' and before launching "The Twilight Zone." What Serling has to say about writing a story, standing up for what you believe, appreciating good writing as art even if it is a television program is all as relevant now 53 years later as it was then.<br />
<br />
The program lasts 21 minutes. It is time well spent.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://video.pbs.org/video/2251283302">http://video.pbs.org/video/2251283302</a>Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-83686957450399883252012-07-08T16:50:00.001-07:002012-07-08T17:21:25.805-07:00Quick Hits No. 2<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">A continuation of last week’s
post:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Another topic in the
conversations I had focusing on writing centered on how the essence of stories
are lost in the verbiage the writer wants to use when stringing sentences
together. In other words, the writer
knows what he or she wants to write, and the sentences come out beautifully,
but the story is hard to find among the finely turned phrases. I think what
happens is the writer knows what he or she wants to say but gets caught up
"in the moment" of writing and the words get in the way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> For example, find any recent college or high
school graduation story, print or viral, and see if the story includes basic
information: name and location of school, the guest speaker, valedictorian, salutatorian,
what was said, how many students graduated -- you name it. Is it a speech
story? Depending on the guest speaker, maybe it is. But far too much time was
spent trying to come up with different adjectives and adverbs to describe a
run-of-the-mill graduation story without getting in the facts, takes far too
much time to write, and for the editor, takes far too much to edit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">How does this apply to writing
fiction? Ideas tend to grow from the inside out, like dropping a pebble in a
pond, and watching the ripples grow larger and larger. But writing is
rewriting. It’s like that unruly shrub that needs to be trimmed back. So get some
sharp clippers and have it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Writers love to stand in shade
and drop pebbles into ponds. Who doesn’t? But the work of the writer is standing
in the sun, hot and thirsty, clipping back the shrubs to make them look like
something. It isn’t easy. In fact, a lot of times it just plain sucks. But in
the end it’s worth it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">See you next week!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-6609257326948966752012-07-07T00:16:00.000-07:002012-08-17T02:48:47.912-07:00Another stop along the wayThis has been a pretty cool week on the journey. I discovered two amazing things:<br />
A place to let folks know about me and a place for folks to read what I write:<br />
about.me and wattpad.com.<br />
About.me is a site created by the folks at AOL as a "free service that lets you create a beautiful one-page website that's all about you and your interests. Upload a photo, write a short bio and add your favorite social networks to show the world the big picture of you."<br />
Speaking for myself, sharing me is weird on so many levels, but the point is, in sharing our stories we share ourselves, don't we?<br />
I have read over and over the notion that writers cannot work alone any more. It isn't enough to live in one's world and then anonymously send out one's stories to the world -- if that was ever the case.<br />
For better or for worse, engaging with the world, at least the world of like-minded storytellers and readers, is part and parcel of life in the world we now live in.<br />
If anyone had asked me to accept such notions only a few short years ago I would have blanched and pull the covers over me head. "Writers are introverts," I would have shouted. "Writers live in their own worlds. We like it there! That's why we're writers!"<br />
But then I realized I had to embark on this journey, this journey into a life I thought I was living, a writing life. And now that I've embarked on this journey, I know pulling the covers over my head is only useful for sleeping.<br />
In fact, I discovered wattpad because I decided to engage with the online world, a part of which is Twitter. I knew I was on the right path when I discovered writers such as Margaret Atwood engaged in social media. It was one of her tweets that lead me to wattpad. And what a great idea: a place to share stories.<br />
So I hope to meet you on the internet and read your stories there, too. I think these two sites will improve my chances of doing that.<br />
<br />Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-15454122727487662072012-07-03T01:45:00.000-07:002012-07-03T01:45:24.060-07:00Quick hitsHere is the first in a series of weekly Quick Hits -- writing tips that that I've picked up on my journey through the writing life.<br />
<br />
Quick hits No. 1:<br /><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> Over the past week I've
had occasion to talk about young writers and writing in general in four
completely different conversations with four different people. And I found
myself saying the same thing in each one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> First, let me say that when I am not writing fiction
and traveling down the road to publication, I work as a newspaper editor. I've
been a reporter and editor in the news field for over 30 years and I have a
degree in journalism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">
These days I am a copy desk chief and page designer at a newspaper in
California. I read stories every day. I see great ones, good ones, average
ones, and just plain awful ones.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> Then I go home and read blogs, Tweets and other
things on the web pertaining to writing: writer's block, not having time to
write, not knowing how to get started, and other topics that confound writers
of all stripes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> In each of the conversations I said basically the
same thing: A writer has to know what he or she wants to write about, they have
to have an idea of how they want to start the story and they have to know where
the story is going to go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> I also said that all writing answers the five Ws:
Who, What, When, Where, Why. And I throw in How for good measure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> Sure, it's an old saw from journalism school no one
seems to want to use any more, but I guarantee any piece of writing, whether a
news story or fiction or how-to book, will answer those questions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> For example: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> "Shelly heard shots. Her new-mother instincts
kicked in before she knew what she was doing, and her precious Caleb was
cuddled in her arms as she quickly knelt to the floor. <span style="background: white;">She didn't see the shooter but that didn't stop her
from reaching for the shotgun by the back door."</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> In one paragraph we know<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> Who: Shelly<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> What: grabbed her baby<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> When: When she heard shots<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> Where: We don't know, yet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> Why: She is a new mother.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> This paragraph could have been in a news story, short
story or novel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> Overly simplistic?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> I don't think so. It does the job and enables the
writer to get something on paper, even if it is only first draft
material. Give it a try! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> See you next week.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-35365133835643849282012-07-01T00:53:00.000-07:002012-08-18T09:42:14.623-07:00The Portrait<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This is a short story from my collection "Stocking Stuffers." A little December in July, if you will.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The Portrait<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It
wouldn’t do to have Christmas cards sent out without pictures of the baby.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
thing was trying to decide where to go, which department store offered a better
deal, knowing that getting roped into spending $150 for a $9.99 special was what
all new parents had to watch out for.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And
really, that wasn’t the half of it. It was getting a nine-month-old in a good
day with a good temperament and ready smile for the camera, car ride and
stroller and bundling and unbundling notwithstanding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This
first Christmas as a parent was turning into a strange, strange thing indeed. This
precious, wildly mobile, dazzling baby, with a will and lungs of iron, came
into the world in a foreign land and endured undernourishment, allergies,
travel, mosquitoes, musty, damp weather, more travel, incontinence, love, being
photographed and filmed inside and outside, wet or dry, dressed or naked, was <i>everything</i> to mother and father and
grandmothers and grandfathers and all the various relatives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So
there was no pressure in getting baby’s first Christmas picture absolutely
perfect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Nah.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">That’s
when dads all over the world step up and say …<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Let’s
just go to Sears.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Murmur
murmur.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“When?”
the young mother asked, knowing that the baby was guaranteed picture perfect only
from 9:00 to 9:15, morning and evening. Any other time is asking for a
disaster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Whenever
you want,” the father wisely replied.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Murmur,
murmur, huddle with the older, wiser grandparents, happy now that the new
generation had arrived.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Why
don’t I call over there?” the
all-knowing-while-still-getting-over-being-suddenly-a-dad father offered,
practicing the truly useful art of any-attempt-at-getting-information-is-seen-as-doing-something-constructive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It
was agreed that this was O.K.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
phone call was made.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Oh,
you can come anytime between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m.” the sweet voice said in reply to
his inquiry. “Seven days a week.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“I
see. Do you have any openings?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Oh,
it’s first-come-first-serve.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Really?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Yes.
We take names right at nine o’clock.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Silence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Anything
else you need to know?” the sweet voice asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Yes.
Where is the studio located?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“The
doors right off Hamilton.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Thank
you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He
turned to face his family.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Well,
what did she say?” the mother asked, somewhat impatiently, knowing the father
never came right out and <i>said</i>
anything. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
pregnancy had been hard on her. The toxemia nearly killed her. Traveling home
and living with her parents was hard for her, and having a baby that cried all
the time was hard for her, and not being able to find work was hard for her.
She was tired all the time and the father felt helpless to do anything about
anything except try to make her life as easy as possible, and he knew his
answer right that moment would determine whether this would get her support or
it would become another stressful ordeal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“First
come, first serve,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Gasp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“I’m
not going to stand in line with the baby just to get his picture taken. It’s <i>below freezing</i> out there,” she cried.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“I’ll
stand in line,” the father said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“What?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“I’ll
get there at seven-thirty or eight and be the first one there and stand in line
and be the first one in. Then all you have to do is show up when the doors open
and we can walk right in. Then they have to take his picture. It’ll work out
fine.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">She
looked through him, down into his soul, to see if he was serious.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Trust
me,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Sounds
O.K. to me,” the grandmother offered. “Yes. He can go and wait in line and we
can get the baby ready to go and be there at nine o’clock,” the grandmother said
with a certain finality in her voice that was very much the period at the end
of a sentence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“When
will we do it?” the mother asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Tomorrow,”
the father decided.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Indeed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">For
the rest of the day the grandfather, grandmother, father and mother listened to
the radio for the weather reports, to see what kind of day would be in store
for the baby and his first picture.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
father already knew.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
only thing you have to know about Prairie Canada is that the wind never stops
blowing. And it always blows at the worst moments. And in December, the wind
chill would freeze the spit on your lips. It was the kind of cold people refer
to when they say “When Hell freezes over.” With a wind chill. All the heat
sucked out of the atmosphere. Absolute zero, marrow freezing, eyeball blinding
cold.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And
he would face that in morning. He had to. His son had to get his picture taken.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">+<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">There
was much discussion the next morning about when to be there to make sure the
father was the first one there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This
was at 6:00 a.m.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Better
make it seven-thirty,” the grandmother said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Eight
will be all right,” the grandfather said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“The
doors don’t open till nine,” the mother said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“I
better be there at seven-thirty,” the father said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Do
you want to take some coffee with you?” the grandmother asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“No.
It’ll make me want to go, and besides, I’ll just dress warm. I’ll be all
right.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
grandmother smiled a satisfied smile. She knew the father would dress warm and
he would stand in that spot and he would stay there until the doors were
opened. He would be the first one there and he would make sure he had first
pick at what time to take the picture. And the baby would be there on time,
warm and happy, ready to get his picture taking. That morning she was as sure
of that as anything in her life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">At
7:15, in long underwear, two pairs of wool socks, jeans, shirt, another shirt,
sweatshirt, parka, gloves, toque, and an empty bladder, the father made his way
to the car. It had been started, warmed up, and the ice had been scraped off by
the grandfather. It was a ritual, sort of, in wintertime.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“I’ll
see you there,” the father said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“What
time do you figure?” the grandfather asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Exactly
nine o’clock,” the father replied.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Right,”
the grandfather said. “Nine o’clock. Better be there a few minutes before.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
father got into the car, which was now quite warm and happily humming, and he
steered away from the curb and up to the end of the street to turn left to head
toward downtown.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He
looked in the rear-view mirror. The grandfather was watching him, and continued
to do so until after he turned on his left-turn signal, came to a full and
complete stop, looked both ways, and turned, not too quickly, into the left of
two lanes heading west to downtown. The grandfather watched, thinking that by
nine o’clock, he’ll have to go another route. Traffic would not be right to go
turn left up there. Not to get there by nine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">+<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
father discovered he could not park the car on Hamilton Street in front of the
doors leading into the store. There was a loading zone along that curb a block
long, so he would have to park across the street and down towards the corner. The
parking meters didn’t have to be fed in until 9 a.m. but he knew he wouldn’t be
there to do so then. He decided he better do it just then and forget about it. The
meters would only take quarters, twenty minutes per, and so it would be at
least five quarters before he could get back to the car if all went well, and
probably six. Two hours, from 7:30 a.m., was 9:30 a.m.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It
occurred to him to bring quarters, but it was luck that he had six of them, and
he put them all in. If he was going to be the first one there, he would be in
and out by nine-thirty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He
hoped.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But
as looked up and down Hamilton Street for the dozenth time, there was not a
living soul to be seen. He felt like the man running the race and was either
way ahead or way behind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">That
did not prevent him from running across the street down to the opposite end of where
the doors stood, all metal and glass and cold like guardians keeping the store
safe from whatever rose up from the street.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It
was 7:32.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He
was the first one there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">If
it wasn’t for a five-story parking garage directly across the street, he still
would not have seen the sun come up. There were far too many low, fat, cold clouds
for sunrise to be visible. It mere days it would be the shortest day of the
year. The morning would never really shake off the dark, and the cold, about 8
degrees Fahrenheit, was an old cold, cold that had been in the air for days, stale
and bitter, and was eager to settle into your bones.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He
noticed then that his moustache was starting to ice up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But
he kept his hands in his pockets, his head down, and his weight on the balls of
his toes. He bounced up and down, like a top-heavy pogo stick, and he took
quick glances down the street every few minutes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">No
one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">His
mind began to drift.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Cold
and alone, waiting for an appointed hour, waiting to take some action, waiting,
waiting, reminded him of when he was in the navy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Standing
watch, at night, in the cold, the wind blowing off the water, the dampness that
made your bones feel arthritic even if you were just 21 years old. The time
passing so slowly, meaningless, for at that hour, the time before waking up the
cooks, before reveille, before another day on a ship, the watch stood, the
watch observed, and generally, as the ship slept, the watch froze.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">His
mind drifted to a place it seemed to like to visit when it needed to pass the
time. Whenever he had to stand the watch and pass hours upon hours with nothing
to do but stand, perhaps pace a few feet, and rest his hand on the .45 and two
clips that was never used, his mind drifted into a sort of mantra, one from his
school days, one from spending hours in church:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Hail
Mary, full of grace, the lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women, and
blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of god, pray for us
sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He
prayed; he prayed entire rosaries, he prayed entire rosary cycles, the
sorrowful mysteries, the glorious mysteries, all of the mysteries, real and
imagined, all of the things that he brought forward into adulthood from his
imperfect Catechism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He
did not have the mind to mentally build a house. He could not recall baseball games
from memory, he could not recite the periodic table of elements. Back then, alone
in the world, in uniform, in peacetime, standing watch, knowing that there
wasn’t anything he could do or anywhere he could go, not then and not later,
the only thing his mind could focus on was saying the Rosary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Again,
and again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
prayers drifted upward into the atmosphere, and perhaps were then carried away
in any strong breeze. He wasn’t sure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But
on Hamilton Street at 7:42 a.m. his mind found that mantra. Like old friends
picking up a conversation that was dropped years before, it continued as before:
Hail Mary, full of grace …<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As
people passed him to go to jobs he didn’t have, he prayed to himself, and
watched the people begin their day, and he thought he wished he could be like
them, going to a job, and not having to stand in line like this, but then he
felt guilty, because he knew he was doing this for his son, not for himself,
and for his family, so they could have a nice picture of the boy, his boy, and
everyone could see how good he looked, how happy he was.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">…
the lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women …<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It
was 8:07; the din of delivery trucks drowned the traffic. The streetlights still
glowed. The cars coming up the street turned into the parking garage. It hadn’t
snowed for several days, but the snowy world around him was a frozen one, and
the drivers this day were a little less cautious, feeling like the streets were
solid enough for normal driving.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">…
and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary …<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He
could see himself, in his suit and overcoat, his shoes shined, going to work. He
never had a job like that. He worked nights, usually, in newsrooms, editing
news stories and laying out pages and putting together a thing called a
newspaper, something of little importance to some, occasionally of great
importance to a few.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">…
mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Once
in a while something in the newspaper was the sort of thing people kept in
their home, a part of it clipped out and placed in a Bible, or a scrapbook,
something holy: a birth announcement, an engagement, an obituary. A picture of
a child on a perfect day. A daughter receiving a scholarship. A son receiving a
medal. Little things, scraps of things, pictures and words, on newsprint,
printed every day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He
missed it. His heart ached for it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">8:32.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
din of a day beginning increased in volume. The streetlights went out, the
darkness finally receded a little.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He
knew he was glad to be there, to be doing this, this plan that working well so
far. He was the only one there, and he knew he would be the first in line.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As
long as the mother and the baby got there by nine, things would be fine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">8:47.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Are
you waiting in line?” asked a woman pushing a stroller that carried a sleeping
18-month-old wrapped so snug he envied the little thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Yes.
For the photographer, you mean,” the father said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Yea.
It’s too cold to be out here but I thought I’d come early and be the first one,”
she said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Yea.
Y’know, it’s worth it, being here first. I gotta get going this morning.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Yea.
So how long have you been here?” the woman asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Since
7:30.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Really?
Who’s getting their picture taken?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“My
son. He and his mother should be here any minute. We want to get it done right
away before anything else happens today.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Wow,
what a great idea. Holding a place in line. I should have sent my husband down
here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Two
more women with babies in strollers had arrived by then, and the story of the
man arriving at 7:30 to get a place in line for his wife to get the baby
picture spread quickly. Most agreed getting their husbands to do it was what
they would do next year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">8:57.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As
he saw, in the corner of his eye, the lights in the department store to come
on, he spotted a familiar truck carefully turning the corner and slowing to a
smooth stop in front of him on Hamilton.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Are
we late?” the mother asked as she rolled down the window, baby in the car seat
and grandfather behind the wheel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“No,
right on time,” the father said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He
could see that the baby was bright-eyed, alert and happy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“What
a great idea,” the woman behind the father said to the mother. “Sending your
husband.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Yea,”
she responded, shyly, looking at her husband, smiling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A
woman on the other side of the door marched up, turned the key in the lock, and
as she opened the door, the father bounded across the sales area to the counter
beneath the Photography sign. Everyone else was jockeying for room to get through,
stroller and parent, to make their way to the counter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">9:00.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Which
time can I sign up for?” the father asked the woman that appeared from behind a
door and stepped up to the counter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Anytime
you like,” she smiled.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“How
about now?” he asked over his shoulder as his wife walked up up to the counter
with the happy baby.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Fine,”
she said, smiling up at him. “Perfect.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-68051313000044941872012-06-30T01:59:00.001-07:002012-06-30T01:59:18.178-07:00Detective novel continued 2<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; text-align: center;">
Here are a few more scenes from the detective novel I'm writing:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; text-align: center;">
(previous posts can take you back to the beginning. It's worth it!)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; text-align: center;">
+</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; text-align: center;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Watching
Sato interrogate the two black GIs, Endo was sure they were lying to save their
own necks and would incriminate this Jones person who killed Kimi Yamada. Rejected
by a beautiful Japanese woman and the little waitress repeating the “No,
Charlie, no!” And then the GI fled the scene without talking to his comrades or
taking them with him? It was good enough for him, and he looked forward to
getting this GI Jones in a room and getting a confession out of him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Still,
he wanted to know what Sato was thinking. He asked him, “You think he did it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> “I
don’t know,” Sato said. “But it means contacting the Americans. That means the
press, headquarters, all kinds of interference. Such a nuisance. But it must be
done.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Endo
wondered why it made Sato look so unhappy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">+<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> As
Nakamura made his way out of the club a tearful, enraged Hayashi cornered him just
before he reached the exit, grabbed him and spun him around, her hands like
talons reaching out to claw the man’s face.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> “You
lied about Jun Fujimori, you ass!” she hissed, furious at feeling she was part
of an elaborate lie. She knew the club’s owner hated that Kimi Yamada was
involved with a black American GI. She knew he was the son of a yakuza boss, a
thug, a skirt chaser, and a man who could not control his temper. But criminal
or not, she did not want any part of misleading the police. Hayashi’s fury
propelled her words: “You <i>knew</i> he saw
Kimi with the GI. And you <i>know</i> he
sent a note to the bar. Why didn’t you tell that detective?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> “Are
you kidding?” he whispered, watching Sato talking to the GIs in the other room.
Ashen, desperate for the opium he craved, Nakamura hissed, “You want to get
killed? I don’t. When he saw her with that black foreigner he was ready to go
crazy. It was all I could do to keep him from doing something stupid, the ass.
I know he owns the place, but he’s dangerous when he’s angry and he wanted Kimi
for himself.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Hayashi
didn’t care what excuses Nakamura came up with. “That cop is going to find out
that a gangster’s kid owns this place and then he’ll back asking all kinds of questions,”
she warned Nakamura. “And I’m going to tell him.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> “You
say anything,” the manager said, transforming into something truly reptilian
and menacing, “and you will be dead. I don’t want anyone tracing this back to
us. Or we’ll both be dead.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Hayashi
knew Nakamura was right. She slumped onto a chair and moaned, “I don’t want Kimi’s
death on my conscience.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> “You
don’t even know how she died,” Nakamura said. “That GI could have done it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Wiping
her tears away, she looked at Nakamura. “That GI loved Kimi. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> “You
don’t know anything.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> “I
know more than you think I do. And if you don’t tell that officer about him…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> “Don’t
say a word,” Nakamura said, evil in very word, “or you’ll be next.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Hayashi
felt too drained to move. Nakamura’ menacing scorn filled her mind. She knew
the creepy little man was right. Mentioning the club owner’s name could be
fatal. And she liked her life, small as it was.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Poor
Kimi.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Hayashi
knew she would never be able to get that girl out of her mind. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-71561848119571478282012-06-25T20:06:00.000-07:002012-08-17T02:50:48.226-07:00Detective novel continued<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Here are a few more scenes from the detective novel I'm writing:</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
(previous posts can take you back to the beginning. It's worth it!)</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
+ <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The two Marines had silently watched Abe walk over to a sergeant and two officers,
point directly at them and then say something that made the other customers
gather their things then stand and leave the club. Then they watched Sato’s
interrogation, all the while calculating the odds of their spending the night
in a Tokyo jail.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The taller of the two, Lance Corporal Ty
Johnson, was thin for a Marine. He had been a long-distance runner in high
school and in the Corps he had the reputation of never fatiguing when the
demands of physical exertion and bearing 70-pound gear packs were at its worse.
Johnson did not know exactly what was going on, but he could tell Sato was a
man you did not mess around with. As he sat and watched Sato he knew his
conscience was clear. He had done nothing and had nothing to hide. He was not
sure he could convince the cops, though.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Private Rodney Ballard was not the
reflective type. He had waited all week to come up to Tokyo and have a good
time. When that waitress came in screaming, stopping the show dead, he knew any
hopes he had for a weekend away from the base, from being a Marine, was all
gone. Typical Ballard bad luck. And now here were the cops, and one of them
spoke English too damn good.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Johnson didn’t know Ballard well enough to
know for certain if he could keep his mouth shut and stay out of trouble. Not
knowing gnawed at him.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ballard was certain he was going to spend
the night in jail. He could barely sit still while Sato was interrogating the
staff. He kept muttering “I should have known, I should have known” over and
over. “Go out on the town, wind up with the police. Every time. Happens every
time.”<br />
“Shut up,” Johnson hissed. “Shut up and be cool. We
didn’t do anything. We don’t know anything. The sooner we’re out of here the
better off we’ll be.”<br />
“How many times you been arrested?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“None.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Thought so,” Ballard muttered. He knew
from long experience the odds were pretty good that if the police were asking
them questions on a Friday night they would be seeing the inside of a jail cell
before the night was over. <br />
The two stopped hissing at each other when Sato walked
over, grabbed a tiny black chair and sat directly across from them. Abe and Endo
positioned themselves behind Sato. The police sergeant did not move. They all
kept an eye on the Marines as Sato flipped to a page in his notebook, click his
pen, and said: “My name is Sato. I’m with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. Thank
you for your cooperation. I have a couple of questions for you. First, do I
have your names right? Johnson and Ballard?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Suspicious “yes sirs” came forth.<br />
“Was there another man with you tonight?<br />
Ballard began to say “no” but Johnson cut him off:
“Yes sir, there was one man, Charlie Jones. Another Marine. We’re all Marines.”<br />
“Ah, Jones,” Sato said, scribbling in his notebook.
“Embassy?”<br />
Neither could hide their surprise at the question.
Johnson only said, “No, Yokosuka,” wondering how some Japanese cop knew where
Marines were stationed.<br />
“Here for the night?” <br />
“We’re staying at the Sanno, sir,” Johnson replied.<br />
Sato knew the place. It was the American serviceman’s
hotel. Of course. It wasn’t so far away. “Is that where your friend is? At the
Sanno?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The question came out innocently enough, and
Ballard didn’t like it. Johnson could tell Ballard was about ready to say
something stupid so he kicked his foot. Ballard shot Johnson a dirty look as he
reached down to rub the spot that ached so, but he kept his mouth shut.<br />
Sato ignored it all. “It would take just a phone call
to find out if he’s there.”<br />
“OK!” Ballard said as frustration and contempt
overcame him. “We don’t know nothin’. What’s this all about?”<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a> “Someone was badly hurt earlier this evening,” Sato
said in a quiet, even voice. “We want to know what happened, to talk to
everyone who was here.” Sato emphasized ‘badly hurt.’<br />
Ballard he knew cops did not ask questions when
someone gets hurt unless that hurt means raped or dead. He stared at Sato’s calm,
patient, expressionless face, and said “I got nothing more to say!”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Ballard!” Johnson exclaimed, but Ballard’s
fierce look of defiance stifled anything else Johnson had to say.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“It’s all right,” Sato said, studying the
two men. “My questions are all in the line of duty. You don’t have to say
anything. But this is a criminal investigation, and I can hold both of you for
seventy-two hours. I have room at my police station for guests. Nice way to
spend the weekend, no?”<br />
Sato knew they were angry about
getting caught up in something they probably did not know anything about, and had
yet to see anything to indicate they were trying to be evasive. He knew were in
club when Yamada was killed. But that said nothing about the other Marine.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ballard shot Johnson another fierce look,
but slumped in his chair, confused by his anger and dejected by his
frustration. “Where was that fucking Jones?” was all he could think of. “He
brings us here and then he takes off. His girl gets hurt and we’re gonna take
the rap, the fucker. Where the hell is he?’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Johnson could tell Ballard had given up. He
looked at Sato and asked, “What do you want to know, sir?”<br />
“Where is Jones?”<br />
“I don’t know, sir.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ballard couldn’t help himself: “We don’t
know nothin’!” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sato ignored Ballard. So far the other
Marine seemed intelligent enough, so he asked again: “Tell me where Jones is.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Johnson didn’t know how to answer, so he
said, “Sir, we got some liberty this weekend and Charlie said let’s go to the
Sanno and see the town. And tonight he wanted to come here, to this club, to
his girl. So we come up from Yokosuka and we go to the Sanno, and then we come
here. He dates a girl here. A waitress. Kimi something.”<br />
That was when Johnson realized he hadn’t seen Kimi
Yamada for some time.<br />
“Where’s Kimi?” he asked.<br />
“Who?’ Sato asked.<br />
“Kimi, sir. Kimi Yamada. Charlie’s girl.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“She’s dead.”<br />
The sudden, absolute shock on their faces convinced
Sato they didn’t know anything about Yamada. But Jones was a different story
altogether, and Sato suspected their story probably lead to him. <br />
Ballard recovered himself sufficiently to sincerely protest,
“We didn’t do it, man, you gotta believe …” but Sato raised his hand, stopping
Ballard’s plea.<br />
“When did you arrive at the club?”<br />
Johnson quickly answered: “Nine thirty or so, sir.”<br />
“Where were you before you got to the club? When did
you leave the base?”<br />
Johnson said, “We left the base at six, sir. We knock
off at four and we were on the ship getting ready to come down here and we
left. We’re checked in already at the Sanno. You can look it up. We had a
couple of drinks there at the club, and then came here. It took us that long to
get here.”<br />
“Sir, we didn’t do nothin’,” Ballard said, slumped in
his chair, his anger waning.<br />
“You were here in the club the whole time? Didn’t go
anywhere else?”<br />
Johnson replied, “Yes sir, Charlie brought us here,
set us down, the music started, and that was that. He left the table a few
times and then he was gone.”<br />
“When was that?”<br />
Johnson thought for a moment: “I don’t know. Maybe
sometime after ten. The kid with the guitar was playing.”<br />
Sato closed his notebook. He knew that despite what
Abe saw in the alley he would have to be convinced Jones was not a suspect
before he could clear his mind. He hated dealing with the American authorities,
particularly the military, but all signs were pointing to a phone call to the
American Navy’s investigation people.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At this point, he did not need anything
more from Ballard or Johnson, at least until he could speak to this Jones
person. As Sato stood up he asked, “You’re checked in at the Sanno, right?”<br />
“Yes sir,” Johnson said.<br />
“Then give me your room numbers and your base
information and be available to talk to me if we need to. I may come looking
for you again. If necessary I’ll notify your superiors of what happened. In the
mean time, do you know when Jones left the club?”<br />
“Ten, ten-thirty, maybe,” Johnson said. “He got up and
went to the back, I think, but then he came back. We didn’t really see that
much of him, sir,” Johnson said.<br />
“That’s right sir! We didn’t see nothin’!” Ballard
chimed in, not trusting the fact a cop was going to let him go free.<br />
“All right,” Sato said. He turned to Abe. “Find
someone to help these two get to the Sanno. If they don’t go straight to the
Sanno I want to know where they went and why.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
+<o:p></o:p></div>
Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-87898045000705820642012-06-24T16:29:00.000-07:002012-06-24T16:29:08.236-07:00Writers RoundupSome good stuff from across the digital spectrum this week:<br />
<br />
Rob on Writing: Are You Still Tryign to Sell a Million E-Books?<br />
Read what Rob Guthrie has to say about tenacity.<br />
<b style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">http://tinyurl.com/6m4ss6g</b><br />
<b style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Writers Digest: 5 Story Mistakes Even Good Writers Make</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Find out when to hold back and go for broke.</span></span><br />
<b style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">http://tinyurl.com/85nverz</b>
<br />
<b style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">WriteToDone: Patrick Ross talks about 4 Rewards from Creative Writing Immersion</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">See what Patrick shared about tapping into creativity.</span><br />
<b style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">http://tinyurl.com/7trywtl</b>
<br />
<b style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">CheryRiefWrites: How to Pitch Your Book</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Linda R</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">ohrbaugh covers the basics of the book pitch</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>http://goo.gl/6TOja</b></span></span>Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-20903119926676882522012-06-19T12:36:00.000-07:002012-08-17T02:52:25.894-07:00Friday at the Hotel Bar<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> While the detective novel is going through its edits, you're invited to take a look at a short story from my collection ''Still life in the Rear-View Mirror.''</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;">Friday at the Hotel Bar</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> Mike Benton knew that so far, it had been a bad
day. He just hoped, and prayed, that it wasn't a sign of things to come.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> He really had prayed. From his long-ago
Catholic childhood he remembered the prayer to the Virgin Mary. And he wasn't
being a smartass when he began saying, "Hell, Mary, full of grace, the
lord is with you... ." He wasn't aware of his slip-up. It was just a
reflection of his mood.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> He had just been to see where he would be
working, the job he took sight unseen, the agreement to take the job a verbal
handshake over the phone. What he saw left him shaken. Then he went to the bar
of the hotel, at least the only hotel he could find, that had a sign that said
'bar', and to be honest, after an hour or so in town, he really didn't know
where he was going. But he knew it was late in the afternoon, his wife and baby
boy were at the hotel taking a long, late nap, and there wasn't any reason to
go wake them up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> So he stepped into the bar, attached to hotel
that looked like a set for a bad ’70s Western. It had that late afternoon look
to it, not quite open, not quite busy, the walls, a blond-colored paneling,
faded and probably sticky to the touch, the floor, linoleum with Olympic-sized
cracks, whole chunks missing, and the tables and chairs, well, the tables and
chairs that shit-brown color and in a state that indicated they were at least
secondhand when they found their way here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> There were fluorescent lights on the
ceiling but they weren't turned on. That moment usually came at closing time. A
huge swath of late afternoon sun was catching four or five panes of dirty glass
and it was amazing at how well lit the room was because of it. There looked
what appeared to be heavy velour curtains that, at some point, would be drawn
shut. Beyond the far curtain, a funny shade of black with a brown tint, was a
small stage, probably big enough for four band mates, but definitely crowded if
there was a fifth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> A bartender and a couple of old-timers at
the other end of the bar were the only other people in the place. The old-timers
took no notice of Mike, who sat on a stool and ordered the first beer he recognized.
Not being from those parts, the beers had different names. When the beer
arrived, the bartender put the beer in front of him and then returned to his
post in the middle of the bar, half listening to the old timers, half thinking
to himself. A short man with wavy brown hair that looked suspiciously like it
was dyed that color, the bartender didn't once look at Mike again until Mike
asked for another beer. The first beer had taken a painfully slow 15 minutes to
drink. A reformed smoker, Mike had nothing to do with his hands except flip
over matchbooks and coasters. It was one of three reasons why he didn't go into
bars anymore. The second and third reasons were asleep in a motel three blocks
away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: center; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;">+<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="line-height: 200%;"> He had driven through the most harrowing
mountain canyon he could ever remember, deposited two cranky people he loved
into a not-quite-clean motel room, and in the hopes of getting a feel for the
town, went for a walk around.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> The walk revealed nothing. The town was
small and there was nothing to see. For the hundredth time he wondered what the
hell he was doing there. So sitting in the bar seemed like a good idea at the
time. The place began to fill up, by twos and threes, men, grubby from days
spent in the mills, the woods, the machine shops, flush with their Friday
paycheck and looking for a place to spend it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> Mike had forgotten that it was Friday.
Within a half-hour, the barstools were filled with the rumps of the working
class, the tables and chairs had filled with the jeans and overalls of their
brethren, a short, plump, matronly, grandma-looking woman, with a wearing face
and a smoker's cough, appeared as soon as the men came in and swiftly brought
beers to the tables the men filled without so much as saying two words to anyone
at any table, even though she was greeted at the table by nearly every man with
friendly bantering and a recognizable dose of respect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> Mike noticed that the bar was not the sort
to set out a happy hour snack assortment, no chips or pretzels in bowls to make
thirsty patrons more thirsty. Among the assorted bar orders were orders for
bags of chips, and pretzels, and cigarettes, and the rare non-beer order was
usually a rye, or a rye and coke. Mike saw there was little in the way of
liquor behind the bar, that was a rye or a blended whiskey, the type that
promised powerful hangovers the next morning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> There was a buzz in the room now, and some
coughing, joking, snorting, yelling, some of the man clearly relished the fact
that they were where they were, and anticipating something, it seemed to Mike. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> There was a jukebox on the far wall, but no
one had put any dollars in, no one seemed interested in looking over its
selection. Mike thought it was because of a poor selections or that the patrons
were just cheap.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> But at the stroke of five-fifteen, out of a
side door came a smallish, thin woman in a pink tank top, orange shorts, and
ridiculous white platform shoes with heels at least five inches high, helping
her appear taller than she was. She had long arms and shapely legs and a certain
roundness to her ass. She was carrying a boom box and a towel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> The place erupted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> HEY BABY! A few men shouted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> She bent over, ass to the crowed, and the
men began whistling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> Unsmiling still, she began a tape of
raunchy hard rock and still bent over, her rear high in the air, laid out her
huge beach towel, as if she was getting ready to sun herself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> The old grandma waitress walked over the curtains
and pulled the cord to close them, and as she did, she flipped a switch, and
out went the lights in the seating area and on came the lights for the stage. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> Pandemonium!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> Standing with her back to the crowd, she
put her left hand under her right breast, and her right hand under he left
breast, reached down, and in one motion, flung her hands up in the air, off
came the tank top, and she was facing the crowd, a tiny bikini top that
couldn't help but conceal breasts no bigger than teacups, but that didn't
dampen her enthusiasm for her routine, a choreography so complicated it was
hard to tell if she was really dancing or just in an epileptic fit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> And still, she didn't smile.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> It seemed she had to concentrate on what to
do when, what to do next, her thoughts visible by the shape of her brow. The
girl, who could not have been more than 19, was so focused on what she was
doing, she couldn't help but betray that she wasn't entertaining so much as
trying to get through the set.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> The audience didn't care. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> Oh, there were some discriminating stripper
afficionados who turned away from the act in disgust and announced to no one,
'She's a rookie. She don't know what she's doin." But not many.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> Recovering somewhat from the shock of the
spectacle, Mike put down his beer, left some changed on the bar, and walked
out. The sudden, harsh late afternoon sun nearly blinded him. Once he stopped
blinking, he suddenly wondered if anyone was watching him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> The new editor of the weekly paper at the
hotel in time for the strip show.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> Scandalous!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> He hurried the two blocks to the motel. He
couldn't wait to wash and get the grimy feeling off him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> He thought about the girl, though, and
wondered what in the hell she was doing here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> Granted, she wasn't pretty, but she had a
steely determination. Surely, if this was where girls went to be strippers,
this had to be the bottom. If this was baseball, Mike this had to be what
old-timers called 'the low minors.' Hell, it was probably the instructional
league.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: center; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> The beer wasn't settling well, and neither
was Mike's conscience. Everything so far had been a disaster, but he really
wasn't recognizing truth. He had made it to this place, with his wife and baby
son with him, to embark on a job that had taken months to find. It was a
two-bit town in the middle of nowhere, and it was a tremendous blow to his ego
to find out that this was the only job he could find. And as if he couldn't
sink any lower, he walks into a bar to find a stripper to go with the watery
beer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> As he reached the door and pulled out the
key from his pocket, the door swung open. His wife did not look happy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> "If this town doesn't have a place
where I can get a facial, I'm leaving," she announced.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> Oh-oh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-70281037029519776592012-06-10T14:42:00.000-07:002012-06-24T15:42:12.388-07:00A Father's Day<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">For fathers past, present and future, and the people love them. </span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A Father's Day</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That
day the alarm went off at 5 a.m. On a normal day that’d be an hour I’d be going
to bed. This wasn’t a normal day, and not just because I wasn’t home. I was
home, in a way. I was in the town my son lives in, a city on the Canadian prairie. It’s sort of a second home. I
was visiting, and I took a motel room, and we were seeing each other and
hanging out and this particular morning we were getting up at five a.m. But it
wasn’t a normal day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A
trip to see the lad included a drive up to Sheho, a town of 350 on the
Yellowhead Highway between Winnipeg and Edmonton.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There
is a church there, and a cemetery, and the grandfather wanted to go to the
church that day for it was the church’s feast day and there the priest would
come from Brandon. There’d be a service in the tiny church and then there’d be
a ceremony in the cemetery next door, where the grandfather’s mother and father
were buried. The lad was supposed to be the altar boy. He’s an altar boy at the
Orthodox pro-cathedral in town, and he was supposed to assist at this event.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
mother didn’t want the grandfather to drive, and in conversations before my
arrival I said I’d be glad to go to Sheho, and that I’d drive if necessary. This
was what the mother wanted. She didn’t think her father was up to driving
anymore. The day before the trip I saw the grandfather and his new station
wagon, and we talked, and we decided he would drive. I didn’t want to insult
the man, nor argue his daughter’s case, as it wasn’t mine to argue. I was going
to be a passenger. I’d keep an eye on things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">With
arrangements made, and the alarm now having performed its duty, it was up to me
to shower and shave and get ready to go in a manner to set an example with the
youngster. I needn’t bothered. He was up, dressed, and ready long before I’d
turned on the hot water tap in the bathroom. He was good at getting up, and
getting ready. He was trained well. I needn’t have worried, and by the time I
was ready, we were on our way to the grandfather’s, who wanted to leave early
so we’d have time for breakfast on the way. That was how it turned out, too. By
the time we reached the town of Ituna there was time for breakfast, big and
reasonably priced, eaten in an easy manner with the grandfather and father
teasing the lad about his entry into the sixth grade the next day and how big
he was getting, and how he’d be as big as his dad before long. The boy took it all
with a grin. It was clear he loved being with his grandfather and father.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our
small party arrived at the church grounds just as the service was starting. In
Orthodox churches, separating the congregation from the altar, there is a great
screen decorated with icons and images from the life of Christ and his
Apostles. Behind this screen the priest was hearing confession. There wasn’t
enough time for the boy to find out if he was needed as an altar boy. The
service began soon enough as the priest, finished with confession, walked out
wearing his gold vestments and began the opening prayer. It didn’t appear that
the boy’s services were required after all. The boy sat next to his
grandfather, and as the service began, it was clear that there were going to be
more people than there would be room in the small church, even as they took
seats in the vestibule of the church. I decided to spend my time outside,
listening as the service progressed, listening to the choir respond to the
priest’s supplications. The average age of the choir, much like that of the
congregation, was about 65 to 70 years old. Even with the Dumanski’s two boys,
aged 3 and 18 months, and the boy, it was clearly an older crowd at the church.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sheho
is the Cree word for prairie chicken. When Ukrainian immigrants came to the
area at the turn of the last century, when the province was still the Northwest
Territory, such creatures lived in the scrub tree thickets and groves, along
with the prairie dogs, pheasant and quail and deer. It was tough, dry, cold
country. The land needed to be busted up and plowed, grain planted and
harvested and be shipped East to the food companies so a nation could be fed. An
immigrant’s part in the whole process started with a homestead, 40 acres, a
good horse, a mud house, or if you were lucky and had the right type of trees
on your land, a house with four strong walls and a roof, raised and set before
that first bitter prairie winter set in. And a man knew his best friend was the
horse he was tethered to, the two of them busting land that would help the
family last another year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Taking
on land in plots close to the Yellowhead Highway meant a man had land close to
the road traveled by the characters that typically went back and forth on
roads, peddlers and agents and such, people who had news to tell, and so a man
didn’t feel so cut off from the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A
community would build a school and a teacher would come and be paid by funds
raised by the families, or in livestock and vegetables. Many of the people
standing and sitting and listening to that priest celebrate that feast day in
that old church, 97 years after its dedication were students at such schools who
lived their lives on such homesteads, educated in a time and place far removed
from the new country and a new century they’d not yet gotten used to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
grandfather had grown up on the hardscrabble land, his father working land here
and there, wherever a deal could be made for something better, hedging a bet
and working out of bad luck, mostly. Older brothers worked the land, he and a
younger sister tended to the animals before school. There were four or five years
of that before work became a serious thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
service began its second hour, the Orthodox liturgy lingering over the mystery
of the Christos. The late August sun began its work in earnest, heating a land
with wheat, canola, oats, peas, timothy, alfalfa, ready for the combine, the
reaper, the header. The land was hard and thick with grasshoppers. Late-summer
rain brought mosquitoes quick on the attack. It was hard to remember they were
God’s creatures, even when standing in a church yard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
after the service the congregation assembled outside and the priest blessed the
church, the land and then the procession up the small slope to the cemetery
south of the church. The grass was freshly mowed and weeded and some plots had
fresh flowers. Despite the walkers and canes the procession was something like
a children’s walk, the old men and old women with grandchildren and great-grandchildren
of their own visiting the graves of their parents, their aunts and uncles,
their brothers and sisters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kuzyk,
Romaniuk, Melnychuk, Shevchenko, Svoboda, Wiesliu, Dymanski. The graves bore
names I didn’t know, and I knew I was a visitor to the place, linked to the
land there by the blood of a son who was Ukrainian and a Canadian as well as a
German-Irish American.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I
stood there, watching the procession, the priest praying the prayers of the
living for the souls of the dead. And that’s when I realized these grandfathers
and grandmothers were at once aged and at the same time they were children visiting their families. That's what was really going on. It was a special day for the people who loved that church, who had their
families buried here. They wanted to be there on a holy day and say hello to mama
and papa, and tell them they’re still trying to be good boys and girls, doing
what the Bible said, to honor thy father and mother.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">I
bent over and whispered into my son’s ear, “take a good look at all these
grandmas and grandpas. You know who they really are? Children, coming to visit
their mothers and fathers. When they come here they are children again.” My son
looked at me and laughed a small laugh at the idea. I don’t know if he
understood what I said, or whether he laughed at the idea of all these old
people being young.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Before
heading home, the grandfather wanted to show the boy the house where he grew up.
It was only a mile or so from the cemetery, on a gravel lane, behind a grove. The
old man and the boy got out of the car and walked across a field of ripening
oats. I stayed in the car, and watched the two cross the field.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I
knew the grandfather, nearly 80 now, liked these visits with the past. And I could
easily see him as a lad no older than my own son, crossing that field after
school, or with a pole with a few fish from the stream north of where I stood.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We live solitary lives at our own peril. Some of us are put on Earth lucky enough to know the goodness and the love of parents who bear us, and we try to live our lives as our parents did, and their parents did. Some of us remain single, and some go on to have children who go on to live the lives they are meant to live. And if they are lucky they fondly remember a loved one, and a visit to their resting place seems as natural as the desire to sit and talk once more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">My
cousin once said it wasn’t really Christmas until he was with his dad. I know
what he means now. My special time of the year is when I’m with my son. It
doesn’t matter if we spend the day at a cemetery, or reminisce with an old man.
It’s better that way, I think. Some memories are treasures too fine for
wrapping paper and bows.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-508453614373707345.post-37493237835484429742012-06-08T00:51:00.001-07:002012-06-08T00:51:42.303-07:00What was Victoria's Secret?<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">Here's a little something while the editing continues:</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<u><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></u></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<u><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />Victoria’s
Secret<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 23px;"><u><br /></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Something
seemed out of place in the living room decorated red and green and gold. It
didn’t take long to see it was the pale peach bag off to the side of heavily
decorated Christmas tree with presents populating the lower reaches.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> It was a pale peach shopping bag, tasteful
and eye catching, and even if it did not have the easily identifiable
Victoria's Secret script on each broad side it would have stood out among the
gifts in shiny lacquered paper with festive bows and ribbons. These gifts
dominated the landscape, but once the bag was noticed, it stood out in a
decidedly un-Christmas fashion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> The bag was under the tree in the living
room of a predominately female household. Three grown daughters frequently darkened
the front door to the hallway and stairway and kitchen of their youth. One, the
youngest, may not have even officially left home. But her infrequent presence
made her seem more a visitor than a resident. This worked out well for the
wayward uncle visiting that particular Christmas. He could stretch out in
slumber in her unused room, giving the poor convertible couch in the television
room a reasonable retirement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> In a house with four women it would seem
that a pale peach shopping bag from Victoria's Secret would invite some comment. It didn't. Studiously ignored or
embarrassingly avoided, it sat off to the side, on its own.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> In that house, in that year, that
particular Christmas was one fashioned for grownups. The presence of the
wayward uncle did little to improve the ratio of men to women. Women
outnumbered men 4-3. So it can be said: That particular Christmas could be
construed as feminine. So a shopping back from Victoria's Secret was not so out
of place, even among the holiday decor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> As it was, the house wasn't quiet, nor
still, and the mother and her husband juggled schedules and errands and
daughter's schedules and holiday demands. It was how their life was defined.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> The
wayward uncle’s payment for renting the space in the house was a cut-glass bowl
he filled with wrapped chocolates. His reward was being with family for the
holidays. Over the years a lot of his free time was spent at that house, with
that sister and her daughters. He felt welcome there. He was close to his
sisters and as close to his nieces as most uncles are, or try to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> It could be said that the mother and her
daughters were close: the upheavals of life certainly had visited them in their
lives together in that house. And it's understandable a mother with three daughters
wouldn't have the exact same relationship with all three. Even as adults,
children don't lose their uniqueness, or their differences, as they are bound
to be in different stations and places in their lives. At any moment, a mother
keeps in mind these differences, and manages the best she can the needs of
those hearts she holds dear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> This particular Christmas also was unusual
not just for the absence of children, but, the ritual of opening gifts in the
presence of loved ones was postponed until evening, when all could be together.
It made the day calm and steady in a way more typical with adults than with
children.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> And so when evening approached, and all the
characters assembled, in the usual rush of family and greetings and
conversation and food and warm familiar emotions, the Victoria's Secret bag
remained anonymous, holding its position, waiting its turn for attention. As
everyone assembled, settled, and viewed the scene, its presence was silently
noted but uncommented upon. As the unwrapping of gifts came to its conclusion,
the Victoria's Secret bag become more noticeable, until, at last, it was the
center of attention.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> The oldest daughter reached for it and gave
it to her mother, who accepted it with a puzzled but bemused smile.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> "I wonder what's in here?" she
asked quietly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> "It's a surprise," her daughter
answered.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> And after lifting a piece of wrapping paper
from the top of the items, each one was introduced to the viewers, in silence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> A baby blanket.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> A rattle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> A infant's toy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> A baby book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Gasps and murmurs were one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Tears fell from the mother's eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> The mother-to-be couldn't contain herself
any longer: "We're going to have a baby!"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Joy and laughter erupted: An entire
household, and entire holiday, an entire family was set on its head! The
mother-to-be confessed she'd known for months but couldn't, wouldn't say anything
until Christmas, and said it was the hardest thing she'd ever done.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> The mother, now a grandmother-to-be, knew
that silence, that keeping of a secret, was a gift, for she knew her daughter
would tell her anything. Her sacrifice of silence sealed the surprise. The ruse
was perfect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> All eyes fell on those innocent items, and
the promise they held.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> And no one every looked at the pale peach Victoria's
Secret bag quite the same way afterward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Joseph Mark Brewerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05411282975607740964noreply@blogger.com0