A Comic Book Series? Really? YES!

Lately, I've been toying with a new for-comics project.  It had fantasy, modern day, and deep-future science fiction-y things going on, all bound together by a single character's mind-warping journey across multiple, simultaneous lives.  It still seems interesting, yet rather hollow at this point.  I'm ready to shelve it.  Not because it doesn't have inherent value, but because, as usual, my interest wanders.

I'm still working on both The Killers Club (novel) and the first DEATH TO: short story.  No worries there, though I am endlessly perturbed at the slow pace at finishing both.  Anyway.

I will very very very soon be actively working on a new comic book project to be announced more properly very very very soon.  It is the story of my oldest fictional universe, which has been un-neatly crammed into my overall background framework omniverse(s) for a long time.  This universe was the first time I took random characters and worlds I'd been dreaming up and putting on various forms of paper (snippets of plot, names, scrawled event concepts, endless #1 cover mock-ups, rude character sketches, et cetera) and actually threw them in a pot (metaphorically speaking), mixed, and attempted a cohesive whole.  The problem with it's always been there are too many elements, I'm only one writer, and I could never decide exactly where, when, and whom to start the actual STORY with.  I keep coming back to my very first creation that lies within this universe, a "superhero" who within the framework of this particular earth isn't the first or even the greatest of them, but still holds a special place in my heart.  He's never going to properly be in this story at all, not as he was always meant to be before.  That's a key element of this last form of this plan.  He was meant to be so many things, now actually WITHIN this story, and that's really important.  He was meant to be, but never will.  Now it all falls to his sister, because he's been murdered... but he's still watching over her and a core cast of... but I can't say much more than that!  Not yet!  I've probably let out too many spoilers already but I'm just too excited.  I fell asleep thinking about early elements of a first year, if this goes to series WHICH IT MUST, and those thoughts woke me after less than five hours sleep.  I'm still not totatlly over this whatever-it-is bug in my system, but my mind decided I DON'T CARE ABOUT THAT.  I must begin work on this "new" project and FINALLY... finally... start telling this story.

Send me a comic book artist, would ya?  Anyone?  Caged, spell-bound, hungry for a story to tell, who enjoys superheroes, tragedies, maybe noir (this gets dark fast and repeatedly but I myself have little to no direct exposure to noir though I love the idea of noir), and cosmic things.  ASAP.  Thankee-sai.

Live excellently.  Forgive freely.  Embrace weirdness.  Hate no one.

Still Sick? Yep. Oh, and MOVING

And, I don't see the situation changing anytime soon.  I'm pretty sure I picked up this bug when I went swimming in the lake a couple weeks back. First time out this year and I get something; grand fun.  So, swimming's out for a while. The pool here in the park's open now, but I'm not getting in there and risking getting someone else sick.

WedMD's helped and hindered me.  It's helped reduce my ignorance about what I may have, but it's presented one or two options I don't like as even remote possibilities.  I've latched my head onto the first result that comes up for my symptoms, which the site claims is something that generally goes away on its own... after about two months.  Which means two months of generally not feeling like doing much, being extra slow at certain aspects of my out-of-the-house job, and not getting near as much done at home as I'd like, either.

Of course, the only thing I really mind terribly is how much worse this is letting me slow down my writing.  I grab onto most any excuse not to write, and boy, is this one a good one.  It's fuel for my depression, too, but not in the old ways.  I don't want to kill myself or fuck my life up too much.  I'm still GOING to work, which is repeatedly amazing to me.  I'm just not writing much.  I didn't write at all again yesterday, instead letting myself go to bed early after managing to finish half my dinner.

I shouldn't worry too much about it.  I've been working on The Killers Club for so long, what's a few more weeks... or months?  Unlike Her Longest Night, I think I won't release this one without a few beta readers, maybe even an editor or proofreader.  No idea where I'll come up with the money for that now Kurt and I are moving, "upgrading" within the trailer park.  That's got to be done, though, even with me sick these days.  There are just too many things wrong with our current home that we don't have the time, money, or energy to fix on our own anymore.  Better to take on another short-lived, manageable mortgage than continue to watch this place crumble around us.

Plus, in the new place I get my own office.  Even my own bathroom away from the space we've been sharing with the cats.  I clean the litter boxes and I love all the little rascals, but it will be SO DAMN NICE to have a couple of spaces where I'll be FREE OF THEM again.  Right now, there's nowhere in our current home that we can keep the cats out of, because of the layout of the place.  In our new trailer, my office will have a door that can and will stay shut most of the time.  I'll let Kurt in occasionally, as long as all cats and any lit cigarettes don't come in with him.  He says he'll quit smoking during the moving process.  I want to believe he could, but realistically... I'll just be happy to keep his smoking out of my office (lol).

I'm wondering if I should focus more energy on the DEATH TO: story for a while.  It's got a greater chance of being done and published sooner, since it is a short story as opposed to a novel like The Killers Club.  I don't want to stop working on The Killers Club, though.  I'm torn.

One of these days I will have to hit the hospital again, hoping that my self-diagnosis is correct and they'll have something to expedite my body healing itself.  There are funny little superficial reasons I want that process sped up.  Mostly I'd like to be able to finish a meal again and have the energy to take my damn new bike out every once in a while.  I despise being sick.  It's my least favorite thing about being human, this getting sick business.

Live excellently.  Forgive freely.  Embrace weirdness.  Hate no one.

Where Things Lie, and Where They Might Go

I've been sick and, for most of the days of this little illness, in a bit of a depressive funk as well.  The work on The Killers Club and the first DEATH TO: story has continued, though at a dreadfully stilted pace.  Perhaps some of the sentences and paragraphs I've stabbed into these stories will stick.  More than a few of them have, in the moments after typing them up, seemed to offer some insight into the characters and events that I might've missed otherwise.  Still, it maddens me to only be writing in the last half-hour before midnight.  I have to do battle with whatever inner beast's reduced me to that.

I've noticed again and again recently how many books I've begun to read or re-read over the past year and set aside.  It's built up into piles on bookshelves and in other crevices of my home, I'm sure, that are just out of sight.  At the moment, I'm mostly focusing on Anne Rice's Servant of the Bones.  It is a welcome reprieve, a warm old friend, and just a great damn read.  I'm following Azriel out of Babylon and I honestly can't remember any of what happens to him next, so it's like a new book again.

I also noticed Marvel's coming out (yet again) with another new X-Men #1.  This one has a "dream-team" of X-Women.  I'd seen pictures on Facebook lately of Storm sporting her old 80's mohawk, but had no idea this was actually happening in the comics.  To see Storm leading another team, sans men, and with the mohawk again... it seems interesting, especially with a somehow re-empowered Jubilee back on the team (I really, really haven't been following these things for sooooo long), and yet... the budget still doesn't seem to have room for regular trips to the ol' comic shop.

Last week, I started talking with an artist friend about turning one of my new story concepts into a comic book series.  As of this weekend, there's been no contact and little thought on the project.  It might become something.  I would really like that.  We'll see.

As of yesterday, I'm working on another new Doctor Who fanfic story.  This one will not feature any recognizable incarnation of the Doctor.  At least, it won't be any SPECIFIC Doctor.  There have been many points along canon, established continuity during which the Doctor travelled alone, for however long or brief a time.  Therefore, this story (if I write it) can be thought of as potentially happening at any point along his timeline.  The Doctor of this story will be the any-Doctor.  I will only loosely describe his physical appearance.  I will give him a "new" human companion at the beginning of the story, but he'll end up with a native companion at some point.  This one evolved from a monologue I geeked out at my partner the other day in the car, in which I had a brilliant idea for an entire season of the show Doctor Who which would logically explain NO RETURN TRIPS TO EARTH (for the duration of the season).  It's since become the basis for a fanfic novel/storyline.  I'm in the world-building stage with this one.  It's kind of exciting.

I've been sick and I can't push myself too hard right now.  This sucks, because I just got a bike and I've taken it out a grand total of once.  Perhaps I can take myself up on this long-shelved notion of breaking out my walking stick from Florida and explore one of the hiking trails at a local state park.  Tomorrow seems endlessly good for that.  The proverbial tomorrow.  Hopefully, when the actual tomorrow (Tuesday, June the 11th) comes, I'll get my ass out of this house.

I should start drawing again.  If I'm not writing, drawing should become what I'm doing while I'm just otherwise sitting on my ass.  I have plenty of old comics to bring out and find panels to sketch from.  That's how I started drawing the first time, all those years ago, back when I was bored and barely paying attention in school.  Doubt anything will come of it, but who knows?

Live excellently.  Forgive freely.  Embrace weirdness.  Hate no one.

How to Start Writing

contents
Amanda Palmer video; intro blurb; Essentials; The Format; The First Sentence; The Story; The First Sentence, Revisited; The Concept; The Writing; A Prompt; easy story starters

First, an Amanda Palmer video, the beginning of which is so beautifully Amanda. Watch at least the first 20 seconds or so, please and thank ya. You'll laugh or smile or decide to watch the whole thing (something I have not done as of typing this little run-on interrupted sentence) and then maybe you'll become an Amanda Palmer fan and thank me later. Or whatever.

 

How to Start Writing

Writing isn't all that hard.  I spent most of my life thinking it was this big, stuffy, difficult thing that I wanted to break into, like a cat burglar.  I felt like Catwoman peering in at a jewelry showcase through a rooftop window, except for the parts about me being a boy and not having a whip.  And no, even though I'm gay I'd never dress up as Catwoman (drag's not my thing, and anyway I'd prefer to wear the Phoenix's costume if I was going to do drag, but I digress).  The important thing to take from this paragraph is that I'm gay.  No, I'm kidding!  Writing IS NOT HARD.

Getting started is the hard part.

ESSENTIALS

Do you know sentence structure?  Do you understand the roles of all the punctuation marks?  Knowing how to use them is infinitely more impressive than being able to stolidly explain the rules and exceptions.  The basic rules of grammar should be second nature to the point that you don't remember the words for the rules anymore, but you can spot a bad usage from a thousand miles away.

Of course, understanding the rules innately doesn't preclude BREAKING them every now and then.  Or all the time.  It's fun!  But, you need some understanding of the way the structure's supposed to look/work/feel.  As the Doctor would say, because shut up.  And yes, it does kind of work the same way.

Didn't do so well in English class?  Are you like me, being all un-college educated?  There are online courses.  There is just the flipping Internet!  Use the Internet.  Use Dictionary.com and all its various avenues of informative wonderfulness.  Use that Internet connection for something other than celebrity gossip and looking for the next click to big bucks.

Hone your skills first.  If you don't have a solid foundation of grammatical comprehension, it will show in your writing.

THE FORMAT

What are you trying to write?  Is it fiction or non-fiction?  Most advice I can offer is more helpful with fiction because I've never tried to write non-fiction.  If my suggestions help with non-fiction, too, all the better, but I'll always be more geared toward fiction writing because my passion lies with telling those kind of stories.  Make-believe and made-up worlds are what thrill me.

What are you trying to write?  Is it a novel, a short story, flash fiction, a screenplay, a stage play, or a commercial that just happens to tell a cute little surprisingly captivating story while selling something?  Know your format well, for it will help determine all the angles of your story's content.  Also, be open to recognizing whether a story fits into the format you want it in; sometimes, it will tell you it should be longer or shorter, and you should never ignore that signal from the deeper recesses of your brain.

THE FIRST SENTENCE

A lot of people think the first sentence is the hardest part to write.  This isn't entirely wrong, but it is inaccurate.  Before you even think about what your first sentence should contain, convey, and evoke, you need to know something about what your story is about.

THE STORY

What is the point of it?  What is the tone of it?  Who are the central figures?  Who are supporting characters around each of the central figures?  Where are the most significant scenes going to take place?  Do the settings have some importance in the flow of the story, or are they nothing more than background dressing and mean little more to the plot?

These and many more questions need to be answered before you begin writing most any book.  I say "most any" because, of course, there are going to be exceptions.  There will be at least one time in your writing career where an idea runs away with you and surprises you at every turn, where your mind is constantly throwing out curveball concepts, surprise guest-star characters, and interesting tangents that seem to threaten the direction of your story until you figure out your entire estimation of where things were going is wrong.  That happens, and it can be glorious.

THE FIRST SENTENCE, REVISITED

Once you have your main characters set in mind and an idea about where things need to start, you have to decide at which precise moment to introduce your readers into the thick of things.  More than the first sentence itself, understanding everything around that moment is key.  You have to know which people to include in the moment, where it is taking place, what the mood should feel like, and then figure out how to begin to pull your reader into all of that in just a few words.

Your first sentence should entice.  It should whet a reader's appetite for the following paragraph, the next few pages, and the entire story to follow.  Sometimes, that first sentence will end up being so remarkable that it will still be resonating with the reader up unto the very last word of the book.  Sometimes, it will seem to fade from mind before the first page is turned to the second, but it still needs to bring the reader in.  Only you can decide how to open your book.  That first sentence resides in you, and you won't find it anywhere outside yourself if you want the book to be true.

THE CONCEPT

You can find ideas for stories anywhere.  When a concept occurs to me out of something I've read, watched, or listened to, I like to call those things that have inspired me this funny little word I concocted; inspirons.  My inspirons are numerous and uncatalogued.  Your inspirons could be similar works to what you want to produce, or they could be completely the opposite.  You might get an idea for a sci-fi western while watching a cooking show.  You might get an idea for a fantastic children's book while listening to country music.  You never know when inspiration will strike, which is why you should always be open to the random thoughts that occur to you.  One of them might just pay off.

THE WRITING

Once you have your story idea and the notion of what you want your first sentence to be, if you haven't already written it down somewhere or typed it up in the very early form of your first draft file, you need to figure out how you're going to write your book, or short story, or whatever it is.  I recommend setting a schedule for yourself.  Writing daily works best for me, though I have trouble writing at the same time each day so at this point I don't even try to do that.  I do make sure to make time every day to write, even if it's in the last thirty minutes of the day.  I keep track of my WPD (words per day), even jotting down a big ol' 0 on those days I let myself write nothing, for whatever reason.  Keeping track of the unproductive days helps keep you connected with the story you were trying to write, reminds you of the failure of that day, and just might be the thing that inspires you to start writing again on the next day (usually does for me).

Do you have a space all your own, which you can retreat to and find total solitude and serenity?  Good.  Use it to write.  Silence works well, or music in your ears.  Myself, I have to share my office with my lover, so I typically have to put music in my ears in order to write (he likes the TV on most of the day, and our office is open to the living room so there's no other way to shut out that noise than plugging into my music collection).  Retreat from the world, from the people and animals you live with, and from the distractions you create for yourself.  Retreat into the world of your own story.  Learn to live there.  Learn to breathe the ephemeral air of that place.  Make yourself dependent upon the way it feels to spend time there, or the story might not feel alive to anyone else who happens to read it someday.

A PROMPT

As an exercise, take the time to write a piece of flash fiction today, tonight, or by week's end at the very latest.  Flash fiction is loosely defined as a short work of fiction between or around 500 to 1,000 words.  I've only recently begun to experiment with this format myself, and found the experience to be enlightening as well as fun.  I turned it into a series here on the blog and then turned that serial into a short story now up over on Smashwords, but I suggest starting with a single, stand-alone flash fiction story.  Make it about anything you like.  I suggest using a word processor program where you can keep track of your word count.  If you like, set a word limit for yourself.  1,000 worked for me, but you may want to keep it shorter, which is fine and may actually make it more challenging and more fun for yourself.  Keep the word count in mind only for how it will shape your story and however many characters you want to fit into it.  If this is too limiting, expand the word count.  No one's watching over your shoulder, so of course you can do whatever you like.  I only recommend keeping it to a maximum of 1,000 words because this means you will create a very small fiction, something to use to hone your skills further and practice your craft, but short enough it shouldn't interfere with your thought processes related to any other story or stories on which you may already be working.

If you need help coming up with an idea for your flash fiction exercise, here's a list of easy story starters.  Take or leave as you please.

1. Google the first random phrase that comes to mind, click the Images tab, and see what catches your eye; use this as a springboard for one or more stories
2. think about your childhood and see if there are any stories there you wouldn't mind sharing with a stranger; turn this into a little anecdotal tale
3. use a game of word association with a friend or loved one to make a list of random places, names, and events; look over the list and pick out the things that seem to fit well together to form a story

***

Live excellently.  Forgive freely.  Embrace weirdness.  Hate no one.

How to Self-Sabotage Successfully

Ever wonder how you can sabotage yourself at every turn?  Derail any forward momentum and stymie your progress at every attempt?  Follow my example!  Or, you know, not so much.  I am trying to do better; that's all anyone can do.


How to Self-Sabotage Successfully

I am a clinical depressive.

I've said that before, but I'm never sure if I fully convey what that means in terms of my life and my writing.  Maybe this post will help in that regard.

Writing Plan

My plans in terms of my writing are all about story.  I have concepts for so many novels and franchises that if I had a team to help me churn this stuff out, and contacts, and agents, I could be producing a monumental amount of fiction.  As it stands, working alone, as slowly as I do, I'll be lucky to get a third of my intended books finished while I'm still alive.  That is a fear that cripples me; that I have all these plans laid down, and most of them will come to nothing.

Look at my career so far.  My first published work was a serial novel that stopped after the first installment came out.  I worked on part two, for a while, and then let it drop.

My first full-length novel was not a stand-alone, as it should have been, but merely the first part of a trilogy.  Surprise, surprise!  I only got, maybe, about halfway through the second book of that trilogy before I let it drop.

Now I am working on a solitary work of fiction, a novel that explores the possibilities of social media where applied to serial murderers, and I find myself stretching out the work of finishing it endlessly.

No Career Plan

I have meandered for as long as I can remember.  I begin projects of all sorts and varieties, work on them furiously for a short time, and then get distracted by something else and let the projects drop.  Sometimes, there are valid reasons, or at least that's what I tell myself.  More often than not, I just get exhausted thinking about how much work remains to actually complete any project, and it's easier to begin something new than to stick with something that's going to take real effort and deeper thought.

I have such nebulous ideas where my future career is concerned.  I get lofty ideas, get inspired by random things, and I let everything in the world distract me, every day.

This is a real problem.  It is a problem I walked myself into.  No one is responsible for it but me.

Accountability

One thing I have overcome is my old habit of producing no new content.  For a long time now, I have been keeping a journal in which I jot down my daily word production.  I even write down zeroes for those days where I have produced nothing new (I don't count blog posts and, so far, have not counted flash fiction).  The zero days were coming fewer and further between for a while there, but I've been letting them creep back up on me again.  I was sick recently and skipped THREE WHOLE DAYS, in both stories I have been actively working on.  It pisses me off that I let that happen.

How much I write and what I write is entirely up to me.  The time I set aside for writing has become the last hour or half-hour of the night, so that I can allow myself to fritter away the bulk of every day I live. I only work at my job four days out of the week.  I designed my work schedule to allow for three consecutive days every week during which I'm supposed to get ahead in my writing, but I never do anymore.  I settle for these late night, last minute, terribly short writing spurts, and it's not enough.

I am choosing not to do enough.

Divided Focus

My problem used to be letting a new project distract me completely from an older one.  That used to be the death knoll of anything I was writing, the conception of an entirely new, largely unrelated story.  Most of the time, these dangerous new story threads will come to be out of the blue.  I let myself think of them as funny little afflictions, sent down by my own brain to derail my train of thinking.  It usually works pretty damn well.

Right now, I am successfully continuing to work on two different projects.  I am continuing to write my novel The Killers Club while also advancing the story of a scientist, an activist, and a Throwback in my first DEATH TO: short story.  I'm not writing enough in either of them, though.  Really, I'm not writing enough into the novel; the short story's advancing well enough, but it doesn't really have all that far to go.  It's the novel I should be focusing more time and attention on.  The short story hasn't been consuming my thoughts and energy since October of last year.

Foundation

My life is somewhat stable these days.  I work a regular job.  I get paid and pay bills.  I take care of animals and try to help around the house, when I can muster the energy or bother to spend the time.  I have a home and a vehicle, pay my taxes and try to make the world a nicer place in little ways.

Having a stable life has helped make it easier to keep writing.  When I didn't know where my next paycheck was coming from, or my next real meal, it was real hard to worry about where my writing was going.  Now, I've removed most of the life blocks that were between me and completed fiction, so why do I keep inventing new ways to distract myself?

Self-Imposed Exile

I am a member, barely, of a few Indie Author groups on Facebook.  At this point, I'm sure none of them know me at all.  I don't seem to know how to maintain connectivity in such forums.  Human interaction, for me, seems alien and weird.  I don't know how to do it.

Yet, I work with people every day.  I have co-workers that seem to like me.  I have regular customers that seem to like me.  Hell, even most of the one-offs off the highway seem to like me.  How do I do that every work day?  I can't explain it.

I have this fear that's hard to name, except it's not really all that difficult at all.  It just makes me feel silly, foolish, and stupid.  I'm afraid of people expecting more out of me than I'm comfortable giving.  All they'll expect is for me to finish writing my stories.  All they'll expect is for me to put my talents to good use.  Is that such a terrible thing for people to expect out of me?

I've made people's expectations a pet peeve of mine, but they don't need to be.  If people don't expect anything out of me, how will I know how far I can go?  When I don't expect anything out of myself, that's exactly what I get: nothing.

Abandoned Experiments

I decreed recently that I wouldn't charge anything for my fiction.  Flash fiction on the blog is nothing to give away.  Short stories?  A little less easy.  My novels?  It baffles me how I thought that was a good idea, yet I'm not giving up on it just yet.  I'm leaving my currently published works as free to download.  The problem has become, how and where will people be able to support me as an author if they want to do so?  Paypal's Donation button seemed an option, until I noticed that option's meant for non-profits, and I don't want to get myself entangled in something I'm not entirely sure I fit into.  I'm not an organization.  I don't have a cause outside supporting myself and my household, other than what I want to accomplish through my fiction, which is simply to entertain as well as open people's eyes.  I want people to see the world the way I see it, as full of people who all deserve a shot, no matter how hard it may feel to give them that shot when you meet them.  Hell, it's still hard for me to do that.

I thought, fleetingly, of turning this blog into a place where I would dump sections of my novel over the next several months.  Now, that just seems like it was a huge excuse to let myself keep working on it slowly, dragging out the process of finishing the first draft and getting into the editing phase.  I can't let myself keep doing that.

What Matters is the Writing

I'll figure the rest out eventually.  Probably.  Or I'll just keep making mistakes, but I can promise you one absolutely solid thing; I will never stop writing now.  No matter how long it takes, THE KILLERS CLUB will be published.  If it takes longer than the rest of this year, yeah, I'll probably be pretty frustrated and angry with myself, but that won't change the fact it will be finished.  I'd love it to be done before Doctor Who returns for its 50th anniversary special in November, because my 31st birthday falls roughly a week before that will air, and I don't want this novel to have taken an entire year of my life to complete.  If it does, though, so be it.

It intrigues me now that I'm working on short stories.  The flash fiction serial Slow Wreck Train was a fun experiment, which I'm now turning into an eBook.  I'm thinking about continuing to run flash fiction here on the blog.  That couldn't hurt anything.  I need to finish this first DEATH TO: story, though.  I really, really need to get it done and then try to WAIT a while before starting another, so my focus can more totally shift back to TKC.

Depression's Well

That's what I call this place in my head where I sort of seem to dwell most of the time, no matter where I am or what's going on.  It's this state of mind where I can recognize the real things around me, but I put them into paranoid, constructed contexts so that it's easier to make excuses for when I'm not writing anything.  It's all about distracting myself from writing.  It's all about sabotaging my own progress, as a writer and a person.  It's all about wasting my time, my energy, my resources, and my life.

Writing is my best anti-depressant.  I think that's why it scares me so much.  I love to write, but if I write enough, I'm afraid I'll become unrecognizable to myself.  I'm afraid of letting myself change so totally for the better.  Will it happen someday all on its own?  Nope.

I have to take the steps, every day, to make myself a better man.

I have to start sabotaging the saboteur that lives inside my own head and grips this beating heart inside my chest.

***

Live excellently.  Forgive freely.  Embrace weirdness.  Hate no one.

The Accidental Killer: Andrew, part 1

(This is the opening scene for my current novel, The Killers Club, which is in the first draft stage.)

It was a dirty fucking night.  We’re talking low-down, nitty-gritty, pants-around-your-ankles kind of dirty.  I’d had this skag a hundred times before, but she just had to have her fill again.  That’s probably how it all really started.  I should be mad at him, but no, if I’m being honest with y’all and myself I’d have to say I really blame her.  Stupid bitch.

What she looks like doesn’t matter to this count.  Never did to me when I was doing her.  Wouldn’t matter now if I could do her again.  Gotta say though, I don’t really miss the itch s’much as I thought I would.

We did our business.  She scurried off after like a scaredy little rat, and I just lit a cigarette like I always do.  Whether it was her or the lousy waitress or my no-good, slutty wife back home I was bedding, I always had to have my smoke after I was done.

Now I do miss that.  Not the smoking, but the feel of it in my hand, the smell of it in my nose, the taste of anything on my tongue.

I miss having hands.

She was gone no more’n five, six minutes.  I was just crushing out my cigarette.  Didn’t feel like moving from the spot I was standing, so I pulled my pack out of the pocket of my pants I’d flung over a trash can.  I was just wearing boxers and socks at this point.

Never strip naked for the skanks outside your house, I always say.  They can suck it just fine through the pee hole in your underwear.

No need a any of that anymore!

So I’m pulling a smoke outta my pack with one hand, reaching for the lighter in that pocket with the other, and this guy comes around the corner from the side of the bar.  He’s stumbling and staggering a bit, so I think I can ignore him.

I light my smoke and put everything else back in my pants.  I’m not embarrassed when he looks at me funny.  He doesn’t seem to mind the view, so I give him this real dirty look that usually scares off the queers.  He waved a hand at me and laughed, so I just shrugged.

“You want a smoke, buddy?”

I offered it to be friendly, dunno why I was bothering with being friendly, that was never really my thing.  Musta been that afterglow stupidity, where there’s no blood left in your brain.

Now I know I sound lucid and stuff now, but you gotta remember, I was standing pretty much naked behind a bar after fucking a skank.  Can you imagine how sober I wasn’t at that point?  I think I musta slurred every word I was saying, what few I got out.

“I said,” I put to him when he ignored me, my voice getting a little rougher around the edges ‘cause I was kinda pissed now, “do you want a smoke, buddy?”

He comes over to the trash can, not looking at me or anything anymore, and just sorta falls down on his ass.  He’s leaning back on my pants hanging over the side of the can, and something about that contact between his body and my clothes just makes me all the more madder.  He’s not naked or anything like I just about am, and he doesn’t seem like a homo, but I don’t want him touching my shit irregardless.

“Get the fuck up.”

“Leave me alone,” he sorta whines.

He’s got a white shirt and jeans on.  His hair’s kinda shaggy, almost like one a them emo kids but not exactly.  He isn’t wearing the eyeliner or any of that crap so I gotta hand it to him for not being that big a douche.  But still, he’s rubbing me the wrong way, ya know?

His hair’s down over his eyes a bit so I can’t tell if he is or isn’t looking at me.  I just sorta decide he’s refusing to look at me or acknowledge me, so I grab him by the shirt and haul him up onto his feet.  I smack his face a couple of times.  I expect him to react to that.

I expected it, mind you.  I got what I had coming to me, didn’t I?

He just goes crazy at this point.  He shoves me away from him.  He spins like a dancer or something and grabs up the trash can.  I’m watching my pants fall to the ground, my pack and lighter tumbling out of the pocket, and while he’s coming at me with this trash can raised up like we’re in a wrestling ring, all I’m worried about is that my smokes might get wet or dirty on the ground.  I sigh a little relieved when the pack hits the ground and doesn’t pop open.

The can smashes down on my idiot head and I go down like a sack of potatoes.  I look up a little dazed.  There’s blood in my eyes already.  I try to smile at him like, okay buddy, you got your steam off and I’m down so we can be cool now can’t we?, but he’s not having it.

He bashes the can down on me again and again.  I can hear stuff rattling around in it, like maybe there’s a full bag or two in there but it can’t be that stuffed because he doesn’t look so strong that wouldn’t slow him down at all, but still, damn it hurts.

He tosses the can away and he’s just holding the lid of it now.  He was pissed about something and I don’t wanna think it was just me.  That’s crazy that a guy’d go this crazy over some nothing like me standing naked behind the bar.  Did he know the skank?

I open my mouth and I wanna ask him if he knew her, but I didn’t even know her name so there was no way I could put that question to him without calling her one thing or another that’d just screw up his nerves even more if he did know her.

He doesn’t give me a chance to think, this guy.  He brings that can lid down on my face, two times, three or four, seventeen or a hundred I can’t really tell you anymore.

I never knew who this kid was, the guy who killed me.  I’d never seen him before in my life.  Maybe he’s a newbie to the bar scene, I think as I’m dropping out of consciousness.  As the blood’s spilling from my face and my forehead, who knows how many other places, I’m still not getting really mad at him.  I’ve seen it a hundred times, this drunk rage.

I’ve dealt it out a time or two, let me tell ya.  Just never to that extent.

I never killed nobody.  Never even put ’em in the hospital, just sent him home to Momma with their tail between their legs.  That’s how I like to end a good little brawl.

This kid didn’t have a clue what he was doing.  How can you hold a grudge against somebody like that?

I don’t, is all I’m saying.

Some time passes and he drops the dirty, dented silver lid.  I dunno if it was actually silver, but that’s the color of it.  That’s the last color I ever saw in my life.

The last smell in my life?  I think that was still her perfume lingering on me, and the scent of the sweat we made together.  That sweet sweat that kinda goes in your nose and when you lick it off her, it stays in your spit for a while and you don’t even wanna drink a beer right away ‘cause you want that taste to stay there forever even though you know that it can’t.

For me, smoking a couple a cigarettes didn’t even dull that.  It was awesome.

So we established that I went out seeing silver and smelling cheap perfume and sex sweat.

The kid?  You wanna know what he got to see?  Me, lying there on the ground looking pathetic and weak.  I was the dead one covered in blood from head to belly button, while he was standing on his feet, alive and with a whole bunch of tomorrows still in front of him.

I miss tomorrows.  I was gonna do so much with them.

He’s starting to come out of the drink stupor now, if you can picture it.  Imagine it’s you.  You’re standing there over this naked guy in his underwear with blood all over him, and there’s some blood splattered on your arms and the legs of your pants.  There’s blood on your hands, too, so you can’t deny for a fucking second you put this dead guy on the ground.

He could smell the blood.  He could almost taste it.

What can a kid do in this situation?  What else is he gonna do.

He pulls out his fucking cell phone.  If I coulda got up and moved my arms or any part a me at this point, I’d have knocked his ass flat for reaching for that instead of running in the bar and getting help there from somebody.  Anybody mighta seen what I see what I look back at him.  He’s just this scared, stupid kid who the drink got the better of.  That’s all.

Ain’t his fault he killed me.  You aren’t ever gonna convince me different of that.

So, we established he’s got his cell phone in his hand, but who’s he gonna call?  Mom and Dad are dead, that’s why he’s at the bar to begin with.  His sisters aren’t gonna know what to do about something like this except call the fucking cops.  He’s looking at his dial screen and wondering why he doesn’t just call the cops himself.

“No,” he says over and over, shaking a little bit but still standing on his feet.

Gotta give him credit for that.  He never went down, puked, or acted like a sissy about it.  He acted like a man.  If he was my kid or a friend’s kid, I’d have been really proud the way he behaved.  You don’t run and hide from what you did and just leave it there for somebody else to have to find and clean up.  

You clean up your own messes, and that’s just what he did.

He was gonna need some help, ‘cause he didn’t have a clue how to go about it.  He didn’t know anybody else who’d know that kinda thing, either.

Like a lightbulb over the head in a cartoon, his girlfriend’s name pops up.  He pulls her up in his contact list and punches the screen with a knuckle to call her.  He’s grinning and frowning at the little bright screen.  He hopes she doesn’t answer.

He hopes she answers, listens to about the first fifteen words out of his mouth, hangs up and calls the cops on his dumb ass.

“Hi!”

She answers in this annoying prissy well-to-do voice that makes you think of the spoiled daughters on the Cosby Show.  Her little boyfriend there shakes his head at me like I’m looking at him, like I could look at him or know what he’s thinking, ‘cause he’s happy as hell that he can rely on her being this consistently sarcastic.

She always answers in a too-chipper tone.  It’s a little test of anyone calling her.

“Bitch, this is not the time.  In all seriousness, and I’m sorry I called you a bitch.”

“Don’t be a bitch.  Maybe I’ll let you call me one later when I sneak you in my bedroom.”

“No, Claire.  We aren’t gonna have time for that tonight.  Might never get me in your bedroom again, if I go away for this.”

“Go away for what.”

She doesn’t inflect like it’s a question.  She sounds more interested, like maybe there’s something coming out in her boyfriend that she never expected she’d find there.  It’s something that maybe she thinks she’ll like.

“I was drinking.  I know I told you I wanted to deal with this all on my own and I’m sorry for that and blah blah blah whatever you know the score on that mess, but… I’m at a bar.  Behind it.”

“And,” she encourages a little impatiently when he pauses for more than two seconds.

“There’s this dead guy on the ground.”

“Great.  How is this our problem?”

“I killed him.”

***

Live excellently.  Forgive freely.  Embrace weirdness.  Hate no one.