Happy Halloween

Go out and get some candy. Come back tomorrow for the start of that NaNo thing and we'll talk about your haul.

Pulp 004

By the time the endorphins and adrenalines settle—big words meaning the chemicals and humors that keep my lungs breathing and legs moving—I start to feel the dig on my leg and the sting on my side. I’m well into the caverns under this edge of the City. I also start to think, my body slowing down for my thoughts to catch up.

I’m far from the hovel now. If Bloody Ben followed me down into the sewer, either I lost him with the many twists and turns I took to wind me up in this knotted mass of brick and scumwater; or he is toying with me. But that’s not his style. Ben’s a killer but he’s not a fiend. I don’t think my blockhead is sharp enough to lose Ben, but if he was going to pull the knife on me, he would have done it by now. I can rest on that.

But now I’m lost. In the millions of miles down here, a man can easily slip and be taken by the poisons and fangs that grow up from the dank. I keep my eyes open, accustomed to what little light there is, passing with caution at the sight of a possible nest of pit vipers and with trepidations around a hive of arch-spiders that looks empty but damned if I go in to find out.

There’s the rustle of movement and the nearby air suddenly carries a warm scent of living bodies. There’s a faint sound of feet on stone, no louder than a scampering rat. I turn, raising my hands up to fight off my attacker–Is it Ben? No! I see only three children, two boys and a girl, each in dirty clothes and uncut hair. They huddle behind the legs of the teenager that has stepped out from one of the side archways, putting him in them and me. His shoulders rise and his fists clench. Gaunt and lean, his arms are longer than they normally should be, and his fingers seem to extend two inches longer than they should. He is a product of his diet, the food naturally harvested from the soil contaminated by toxic runoff from municipal waste sites. The pinhole pupils and fair green luminescence from his skin, I knew him and his wards to be of the Lost Family.
 
I lower my hands. They keep their distance. There is an exhaled breath between me and them before I speak. 

“I am Old Waylon and mean no harm.” My voice is the loudest sound this part of the world has ever heard. “I am friend of the Lost, of the Great Grandmother and her rat children, of the One’o’clock Hand Brothers and the mouths they feed.”  

The oldest nods very slowly. He sets himself at ease. The three children peer around his legs, one of the boys getting brave enough to walk up to look at me. I am friend to the Lost Family. They once sought me out four years ago when Snapscale of the Gator Clan saw himself a king, even if it was King of the dregs and drowned. I fought back the invading jaws with a fierce club that would grow lilies, watered by the blood of Snapscale and his men. The name ‘Old Waylon’ is recognized by the older boy, who must have been just a waif at that time. He smiles and doesn’t speak, but the Lost Family is mute to outsiders.

“I have lost the way,” I said, knowing what words I must speak if I am to call upon this youth for help. “Can you show me back?”

The teenage boy nods and turns to the three behind him. The unspoken language of his blood instructs them to go back through the passage. When my new guide steps in front of me, I start to follow after giving a look over my shoulder. Two pairs of lingering eyes watch me. If we are lucky, this might be the only time we ever see each other, these children and I. This is not my world and I know that. The Lost will always will be helpful but there is only a handful of hospitality that they can afford me or anyone. There are warm meals and days full of sun in my future. For these children, it is a life of midnights and small bellies, of running lean until they can’t run any more. I don’t wave good-bye. I simply turn my head back and follow my guide out.

Zerks Log 03

Here is another episode of 'Zerks Log,' the premier project from StoryForge Labs.

You can see 'Zerks Log,' in its entirely, at www.Zerkslog.com, where you can watch in high quality, subscribe to it on iTunes and see some behind the scenes material. Feel free if you want to skip ahead and watch all episodes.

Eventually, I think these will end up on a DVD with director, cast and crew commentaries. The notes I write (under the Read More break) concern the writing/creating process than anything that happened on the shoot. I’ll keep you updated if and when StoryForge puts something together.

Trick or Treat

     The lightest bit of snow starts to waft from a night without stars. I’m young, eleven or twelve years old. The few flakes on my glasses kaleidoscope the beams from oncoming headlights. I’m wearing a coat but underneath, I’m dressed as my favorite cartoon character in a homemade costume. My sister, age seven, is a fairy princess. It’s late and she’s tired. She leaves her wand in the car with Dad when we go up to the house.  
     “Trick or Treat!” 

Zerks Log 02

Here is another episode of 'Zerks Log,' the premier project from StoryForge Labs.

You can see 'Zerks Log,' in its entirely, at www.Zerkslog.com, where you can watch in high quality, subscribe to it on iTunes and see some behind the scenes material. Feel free if you want to skip ahead and watch all episodes.

Zerks Log 01

In 2008, I worked with StoryForge Labs on their premier project, 'Zerks Log.' I was brought on as a co-writer with Patty Pino to help develop a online series detailing a spaceship's captain video log. After a few months of working in tandem with Ms. Pino to develop the scripts, SFL had its first shoot in November/December. After some post-production in early 2009, 'Zerks Log' was released to the Internet.

Since this was my first time working on a legitimate film shoot and ultimately, the first time I would see and hear something that I wrote come to be, I would like to go over Zerks here at the site. Each entry will have a few notes detailing the writing process, what happened and what I learned from it (click 'Read More' for them.)

You can see 'Zerks Log' in its entirely, is available at www.Zerkslog.com, where you can watch in high quality, subscribe to it on iTunes and see some behind the scenes material. Feel free if you want to skip ahead and watch all episodes.

Pulp 003

I don’t hear the floorboards snap or the wood crack under my weight as I crash through the first floor and fall down the cellar. I only hear the wretched lot waiting for me in Hell using what air their damned lungs can pump for laughter at my buffoonery. It might be the first laugh that Hell’s had in a long, long time and I would be the first to say I earned it.  How foolish—leaping my way at Bloody Ben, only to have him set to the side and have me fall feet-first through the floor. Lucky for me, though. Fate and his loaded dice would have snapped my neck instead of the dried out wood if I dove any other way.

I roll with the fall since a snapped ankle won’t do me any favors now. The light pouring in from above splashes around the cellar. I look up to see Ben leaning over the newly made holes, an inquisitive glance I’d see in the eye of a farm crow, patiently waiting to see whether a wounded animal yet stopped the struggle and has finally laid down to die.

But Ben knows it takes more than a fall like that to put me down for good. I quickly move away from his sight and start a fast search. There’s two ways into the cellar, through the new entryway above or down the stairs.

A weapon. I need a weapon. Ben will have to come down here and if I can get one good swing with something heavy in my hands, I might be able to escape. There’s a hollow echo to one of my steps and I turn quickly to see I’ve walked across a centuries old manhole cover. The memory of its first discovery hits me, from when I drove out the rats and addicts from this building to make it my shelter from the outside. I used an old length of discarded rebar found in one of the basement’s darker corners to force the cover off, finding a forgotten passage to the city’s sewers.

It’s a dangerous risk but my chances with the unknown horrors blanketed in the forever-night below are better than with the devil I know is upstairs waiting for me. With that seal of decades’ rust already broken, it now only takes my fingers and one good heave to move the cover. By my next heartbeat, I’ve gone under. 

A fall through two stories and I’m left with a one or two bruises, a small gash on my leg, a surface cut from Bloody Ben’s blade on my left side and some splinters. A man learns to be grateful from moments like this. But I have no time to for gratitude. Bloody Ben can track a cold body in winter. And though only the tip of his blade scratched lightly through the top of my skin, I am surrounded by shadows that smell blood and have no need for the concept of ‘mercy.’ Until I am safe, if ever I am to be again, my feet must forget how to stay still.

George

It might have been a golden retriever. Or a Labrador. Or a German Shepherd. I couldn’t really tell. It wasn’t one of the neighbor’s dogs. It wasn’t our dog, thank god. A relief, since this dog was dead.

The dog had short yellowish fur and black paws. I don’t remember its face, the length of its snout or if the dog’s eyes were open.

It was late January in Upstate New York. The roadside snowbanks were three and a half feet high, piled up by the snowplows and stained charcoal gray from their salt. Low hanging clouds in a miserable sky were starting to unload a late afternoon flurry.Not like the dog had a choice in the matter, but I thought it was a crummy day to die.


When I told my Mom about the dog, she said “Better call George Signor.”

Saturday Matinee

The first two Evil Dead movies, the new Monty Python at 40 documentary and whatever else I can dig up. I think I've watched more documentaries than fictional film works over the last four months. With the way this year has gone, the penchant for fantasy has dried up and died. Unreality, not fantasy.

And yet, I'm watching some horror/splatter movies today. If I contradict myself, very well then. I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.

You reading this? What are you doing today?

Pulp 002

Charity save me, it is! “Bloody Ben!” I bellow.

I push him back and hold that wooden board up to keep that few feet of distance between us. Bloody Ben, a devil’s laugh wrapped up in the flesh of a man. His cold glee heard in the rattle of his voice.  It’s the last voice heard by the living and the first heard by the dead. Boogey man of children’s rhyme - ‘The blade that cooled a thousand men warms the hand of Bloody Ben.’

“Ben!” I shout as we pace the room, my swipes with the board keeping this grinning fiend away. “Ben, you bastard deal-maker, signing your name in his book with the blood from your own heart, contracted to collect those reaper refuses to take! Have you finally come for me?” Is this the day that Charity runs out for my weathered shoulders and dirty hands?

“Heh.” It’s all he says, that rocky snicker. What words does he to say need when his knife sings, when that blade screams from Hell’s mouth and collects all the air of a millions words. What countless lives worth of talk have crossed that edge?

He swings his blade at me once more and I parry the blow with to board and step back. Even with a stomach full of fire and ten years given back from Grandfather Time’s pocket watch, I would struggle against the ungodly grace of Ben. Nimble as a cat’s shadow, merciless as the nine-day-fall. I feel the space leaking out of the room. Soon I will be trapped.

Ben guards the door out of the room. If I leap towards the broken boards, the blade will surely find my side. A twist of Ben’s wrist and I will be another cold massed, laid out at his feet.

The walls might be thin enough to bash through, though I’d leave with broken bones. Better a broken bone than a lifeless body, I think. But this is the second story of the building and there is only hard concrete down below.

His dire grin and that hissing cough of a laugh that presses out through his teeth fill my head. I run on instinct. He lunges forward and I leap at him. Better to face the blade like a man! There is the unforgettable dig of metal on flesh that cuts at my shoulder, Ben’s agile body sidestepping my pounce. But in my foolhardy attempts at that death with glory, Charity forgive me, I forgot of the room and its weaknesses. I am aware of my dumb mistake too late to do anything. My landing bursts through the broken spot. There is the loud crack of wood and the crash of a poor, stupid fool’s body plummeting down.

Two Bits

I wanted to shave my head for over three weeks by the time I finally did it in the spring of 2004. I spent twenty bucks on clipper kit and spent a Friday evening shearing away my two inch long hair in the dirty bathroom of my then one bedroom apartment in Troy, New York. In front of a small medicine cabinet’s mirror, I covered the sink and surrounding floor of cracked title with dark half circles. If I left the music on in the other room, all I heard was the constant bumblebee buzz.

Writing Contest from Slate.com

http://www.slate.com/id/2231262/

I'll post what I write after the contest is over.

Rough Night

Insomnia had me up until 4 in the morning. But now, a trip to Best Video. Hopefully, something will pop out and catch my eye (ow!)

Pulp 001

The old coat had done its best to hold in what heat it could, but the night was long and the cold is always unrelenting. Its efforts finally exhaust themselves and a chill wakes me right before that first glimpse of a rising sun passes over the cracks in walls. My first eyeful dips in a cut of light coming from the far end of the room.  host a handful of dancing, whirling dust. The shadows are still the nighttime shade of dark blue-purple, but the edges are fast receding into the thin grey morning haze.

Aye, this room I’ve made for my bed may be broken and dirty, but I say to you, it’s safe. No more rats and any dumb squatters bent on invading know they’ll lose the fight. This building knows my hands well, hands that still make the rocks shudder and can pull the marrow out of young bones.

I push myself up off the floor. There’s a deep sound, a low creek and a hollow thud rising up my gullet. Time for breakfast, I think. Shanks of light sliding through the gaps between the boards up on the windows crisscross the room. I know that soon it will be hot and uncomfortable in here.  Already, my whiskers itch, dry as they are. A long draw of cold water is called for. 

And some food. There’s another rumble when I stand up and stretch. Charity has blessed me with another day with lungs that breathe, another day with warm blood in my heart and life in my muscles. “Perhaps charity will give a fine breakfast.” One of my coat’s many pockets holds a stale heel of bread that might hold me over if need be, but dried bread is a poor reward for this waking. Perhaps Artie’s might spare a plate of something warm for a story?

I think of what tales I haven’t told the old sailor yet when there’s another creek. I stop and the hairs on the back of my arms catch a’hold of the static. A slow breath crawls past my lips. That last sound didn’t come from my old skin or hungry belly. It’s almost too late when I see the shadow pass by a boarded up window. I duck down and grab a loose plank from the part of the broken floor, pulling the wood up in time to block the swinging blow from the body that has crashed through, splintering the boards up on windows as if they weren’t even there. A glint of new light off of sharp steel nearly sets the dust on fire and then, there is no mistaking who it is. Bloody Ben!

Fourth Letter Politics

Just because I've stopped reading comic books doesn't mean you should. The fine folks over at 4th Letter will set you straight.

Herta Müller wins the Nobel.

Congrats to Herta Müller, someone who I haven't read. But hey, no surprise there. I'm American. Remember last year - Horace Engdahl said that the U.S. was "too isolated, too insular" when it comes to literature and fucker was right. Though, here's hoping that with the win, more of Herta Müller's work will get translated or inspire people (i.e. myself) to learn German.

I stopped reading comic books.

The first one was Iron Man #208. My Dad bought it for me in July 1986, one the same month my sister was born. I think he gave it to me so I wouldn’t feel left out of all the attention being given to my new baby sister.

I remember him telling me, “Iron Man was one of my favorites.” At five years old, he could have told me he liked for the Dodgers and I would have liked the Dodgers. Apin’ the old man, as it were.

The cover of that comic is a raspberry bubblegum blue sky with three missiles soaring out towards the reader. Iron Man is flying alongside, right arm outstretched as to reach the missile closest to him. In the bottom right, a box reads IF IRON MAN CAN’T CATCH THESE MISSILES, IT’S THE DEATH OF A NATION!, with the last four words in dramatic orange text. It’s a fun cover but I remember nothing of the story inside. For all purposes concerned, Iron Man doesn’t stop the missiles and a nation I didn’t know about beforehand was wiped off the face of the earth. 

First Post

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