Harrumphed

 

Totally exasperated, futzing with two sticks of dynamite and I can't get them to explode. So far nothing but a sputter that could have been a bump of overvoltage in my somewhat primitive incandescent barn lighting. It happens occasionally in rural life, the bulbs brighten briefly, a little spark across a condenser somewhere on the line. My imaginary sticks of story dynamite did nothing, didn't even get warm.

  

I hate being embarrassed. I stalked Frank Zappa for years, made a complete fool of myself. Shaking my head about antics in Hollywood, barging in on Al Ruddy twice, pitching idiotically dumb projects.

 

Maybe I need to climb K2, try slapping sticks of dynamite together at altitude. Do things explode from time to time in the Himalayas? Nepal tried a communist dictatorship, then attempted a constitutional republic, which was extremely bizarre because the Kathmandu School of Law quoted me as an authority on equity. It prohibits fishing with dynamite, among other things. Imagine how stupid I'd feel if I blew up a lakefront Nepalese tourist hotel experimenting with an explosive story twist.

 

I'm beginning to believe that novels should not twist.

 

THE NEXT DAY — Considering different men. I think I understand serenity, but I had considerably more experience as a desperado, a director, a stunned victim, an airhead dreamer, and a Vulcan engineer in my youth. Other men I've known were cynics, epicures, tragic comedians, minstrels, amused geniuses, dangerous criminals, empty husks incapable of asking questions, lonely artists, patrons, AIDS patients on their deathbeds, glib crooks, and hardened warriors. My friend Tom is a courageous and comical stoic. I don't want to consider women at the moment. The main character of Steam Punk is male.

 

Murkowski on the radio, contemplating the looming recession, quoted John Candy in "Stripes" to advise that men should become lean, mean fighting machines in business and personal life. Good investment strategy, if one wishes to succeed economically. I admit that money can buy happiness, although it risks tripping on landmines in divorce court, and the green eyeshade example of Lucas was not inspirational.

 

My friend Richard had everything against him, yet he enjoyed life, took it on the chin, suffered, and then bounced back a hundred times. It never darkened his soul. Some are indefatigably positive. Wife #3 said that I had "unsunny passions." Not an interesting quality in a main character. I covered moral collapse in Partners and multiple personal narratives. Shallow writers write about themselves.

 

In Solitaire, there are forks to probe and patterns to perceive. The game must be played well, but finally it's in the deal or it's not. Some hands cannot be played, a terrible shuffle of the cards. That's karma.

 

You know what's funny? My elderly teeth are so fragile that a sneeze can be dangerous. I always hated dentists, although I had some expert care in Harley Street and Hollywood. Everyone has a nemesis or an awkward handicap of some kind. Mine was sensitivity. Good quality for a writer, I suppose, but I need to keep it on a leash. It's a question of style. King Crimson was not sensitive. He was angry and regal.

 

It's tempting to make Larko angry and regal on page one.

 

Don't be impatient. Take your time. Let it mature. Forget how it opens. You need a third act, remember? That's how this experiment started, rubbing two sticks of dynamite together, didn't work. It's the story of a man's life. Careful about flashbacks, restrict it to revisiting George's basement workbench, and get him out of there in one piece, unchanged on the outside. Ratchet up a second inciting incident pronto, something that cracks his shell. I think the kid is important. I don't know why I forgot him — well, maybe I do. I stupidly attempted a dramatic twist, two sticks of crap dynamite, a cheap trick of pulp fiction.

 

So, the kid is important. Not a second act pivot as such. A role reversal in Larko's life, seeing himself in the same place as the kid. The kid needs a name. Let him be a black kid. Yuval Runch. A terrible name. Larko will elicit a secret name that the kid wants or dreams — Tyrone Fury. This is solid stuff. You're on the right track. Nowhere near the third act, however. Don't be impatient. Let it cook some more.

 

SLIGHT CHANGE OF TOPIC — I have to expiate guilt, specifically the misery of a salaried corporate staff writer, $68K and benefits, a job that I grew to hate in a matter of weeks, called into HR and fired. Just let it fade away, please. Some things need to be forgotten. I don't mind remembering prison or lost loves, inexcusably wild behavior. But it makes me shudder in horror that I went willingly into slavery on the top floor of a Houston office building, unable to smile when my work was mutilated or ignored. I cannot let Steam Punk fall into the hands of a literary agent or copy editor. It will have to be self published and die an obscure death on Amazon. Thinking about money is debilitating, a crowded highway to hell. Squeaky clean millionaire Metaxas concurred with a rich fake rabbi on national radio: "We are obliged to pray."

 

Horseshit. God told me he doesn't answer prayers.

 

“Sorry,” I said contritely. “Why am I here?”

God squirmed in a worn padded swivel chair and grumped. “I don't know. Randominy, a billion genetic dice rolls, favorable political history and penicillin. I wasn't paying much attention, to be honest.”

“Busy answering prayers?”

God gave a sharp glance of disdain. “Is there something wrong with your hearing? I just told you, I wasn't paying attention.”

I nodded in polite concordance. “Most people knew that. That's why Churchill didn't pray — or did he?”

God shook his head no. “I could check the records, but I doubt it.”

I smiled inside. “You helped them, didn't you?”

God wouldn't answer. He took a Havana Diplomat from its glass tube and cut the end with his cigar knife.

The chain of reasoning saddened me. “By saving England...”

“Don't even go there, kid,” God interrupted. “Here. Smoke a cigar and turn your brain off a couple minutes, so I can think straight. Please.”

 

I'm okay with God, his son Jake, and quite a lot of the celestial furniture, but I find it difficult to accept the existence of fairly good, peeled, diced, ripe canned peaches and pears loaded on 40-ft containers in Shanghai, cheaper than we can grow them in Georgia or Alabama. Makes me wonder about McDonald's, Burger King, and Denny's. The biggest U.S. bacon supplier is owned by China. Exactly how American are the institutional American cheese slices that are shipped in 30-lb cartons to schools, prisons, and chain restaurants? Even my new bottle of multivitamins was made in China — god!

 

“What?”

“Sorry, sir. I wasn't saying that to bother you.”

“What's the problem?”

I slumped and drooped, hung my head in defeat. “I'm very grateful to work again, no matter how hard it is,” I said honestly but without fire. I wished I was morally stronger.

“Let me give you a piece of advice,” God harrumphed. “I am the Lord Thy God — all powerful and complete unto myself. I can create worlds beyond worlds and history itself. Follow? Forget about what happened when Walt died. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. He's had to accept it, that everything he did was shredded by Iger. How do you think Victor Hugo feels? A masterpiece adapted by Murphy, for fuck's sake!”

“I know.”              

“So get a grip, unless you want me to punch your ticket for purg.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

God relented four notches, to give me a break. “Eat dinner. I'll send you an angel. You've earned it. Eternity is a long term proposition, son. Remember what your Mom said: Don't be so hard on yourself.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Over and out with sauerkraut.”

I snickered and grinned. God was great.

 

 

Cast of comedians in order of appearance: Narrator, a Talking Duck, Adele Flooney, Almighty God, Ayn Rand, Nick Narcourt, Gary Cooper, Kyle Marshall, Clare Wright, J. P. Morgan, Jake the Carpenter, Betsy, Pamela, and Alejandro Rey, plus a supporting cast of bit players like Annette Funicello, who belongs in any sane man's heaven, restored to youthful beauty and reunited with a loving and loyal husband. Heaven should have happy endings or there's no sense calling it heaven, right? Fantastic and heartbreaking, author Wolf DeVoon offers an adult tale of kinky sex, residential construction comedy, and heavenly sports that make grown men blush.