It's a family story that once two brother stole a pig, and, fleeing from authorities in Ayrshire, went over to Northern Ireland. From there, they had relatives in Pennsylvania, and came over.
They would have been Wallaces, and would have landed on a road called Wallace Run in Beaver, Pennsylvania. A few generations later, there were generations of doctors but my Grandpa Wallace wanted to be an agriculturalist. And that wrapped up the Wallaces' explanation of their own origin.
I have been to New Castle, Pennsylvania, a few times, and my sister has been there recently. A lot of the Wallaces came through there and in fact there is a Wallace Avenue right near the center of town where two prominent brothers, one an ancestor of mine, I believe, lived. The pig story has become somewhat cloudy though. Who was it that stole those pigs? When was it? I know that Scotland was not a friendly place for a whole generation or two of people who were basically deprived of the right to make a living and live peacefully; the fact that the USA was a reasonable option for them amounts to a huge number of immigrants in a certain era. But I can't remember the era, or match it against these particular relatives. Were we ever able to find Wallaces in Ayrshire? Wallaces that had two young boys who disappeared and sailed west?
I wonder also if the anti-authoritarian streak came across with them. Was one the leader and the other a follower? Did they come to detest the system that had made stealing a pig necessary? Of the twelve Wallace cousins, almost half were against-the-grain kind of people, some of whom ended up way out in the desert avoiding other people as much as possible. One was a musician and his brother spoke proudly of his never having had an ordinary job. Does this hark back somehow to the days when the world seems aligned to lock you out, so that leaving for a faraway land is really the most reasonable alternative?
When I mentioned to my cousins that my book vision for this situation amounted to a mix of fact and fiction, they got a little jumpy. Really I'd like to document all the true stuff I know about this interesting family and the twelve cousins as we've come into our old age. I could change names, but I want to be able to hand it to my descendants and say, You want to know about Mom's side? The Wallace story is all in here...whether I've changed the names or what. But my idea really encompasses what happened to the Scotland they left, and whether those who stayed behind fared any better. And since I don't know anything about those who stayed behind, at least part of it would have to be fiction.
Of course, I could fill it all up with facts: fact about the era in which poor people were run off the land, facts about Scottish diaspora singers, writers, etc. in the US, facts even about Robert Burns, Ayrshire's most famous resident. What does it mean to be a Scottish exile? Maybe my first step should be knowing the difference between Scottish, Scot, Scotch, etc. so that I'm not out here misrepresenting everyone in my far-western, ignorant naivete. But one reason I envision projects like this is that I need to know this stuff myself, and now I at least will have the motivation to go out and find the story.
Tuesday, July 18, 2023
Thursday, June 29, 2023
Brownsville
Brownsville is a section of Brooklyn, New York, with a rich history of thousands of people who have come through it, lived there for generations, moved out or stayed, lived their lives, added their story to those of the city. Books are written about these people and I just read one.
But there is a Brownsville in Illinois which also interests me. It is nothing now but shards of ruins in some guy's field, just west of Murphysboro. But it was once one of the biggest cities in Illinois, thriving, with metalworks and industry.
In those days metalworks and industry was what it took to make a town a more substantial town, in other words, to distinguish any old place from a truly thriving place. They settled Illinois from the rivers, from Cairo up, with Chicago in those days nothing but a pipe dream, so all the action was in the south until you got up to Alton and then Quincy following the river. There was no such thing as such inland towns as Champaign or Rockford and in fact most of Illinois was considered the remote Northwest (northwest of Virginia) as people had not begun pouring in from places like Ohio and New York. The southern rivers were where the people were.
Brownsville was where John A. Logan was born, and he grew up naturally wanting to be a politician. When he was elected, he went to Springfield to represent the people of that southern Illinois area where he was from. That area was pro-Southern, pro-slave owners, so he wrote laws protecting slave-owners who were trying to get their escaped slaves back, when those slaves crossed over into Illinois from Kentucky or perhaps Missouri, states that border that area of Illinois. He was, in general, a pro-Southern legislator, but a distinct minority in a state that bred Lincoln and became increasingly abolitionist.
In fact, hanging around Springfield in general made him an abolitionist, and caused him to change his mind. Some people have said that the murder of Elijah Lovejoy in Alton in the 1830s (?) is what changed everyone's mind, and I'm not sure about the timing here, but Illinois was rapidly seeing that strong feelings were developing along the Mississippi and Missourians were guilty of overstepping their bounds in coming into Illinois and telling Illinoisans whet to do with people who were either on the move toward Canada, or in some way laying low and hiding in the Illinois countryside.
Illinoisans were in fact of mixed opinions about the developing conflict with the south. In southern Illinois many had settled from the south, and understood slaves and slavery, and had no desire to go fight a war against those relatives whom they'd left behind in such places as Kentucky, Tennessee, or North Carolina. In north and central Illinois, settled by northerners and ardent Congregationalists, the idea of slavery was becoming increasingly abhorrent and they didn't feel there was any moral justification to owning another person whatsoever. But there was also a fair number of people who simply were trying to feed body and soul; having obtained an acre or two of generally good farmland, they'd set out to clear it and farm it, and now were faced with what to do when people came up the road requesting something of them. Sometimes people wanted to be hidden; other times, people wanted whoever was hidden to be handed over to receive punishment and return to the other side of the river. In any case there were hard feelings and one was required to side with somebody even if one wanted to keep one's head down and survive the whole experience.
Down in Brownsville, continuous rains made its placement at the mouth of the Big Muddy River a problem. Every time the rivers would rise, Brownsville would be endangered, to the point where it became impractical to keep developing its industry and in fact risk the flooding of what industry was already there. Finally town leaders agreed to move the whole thing up on the bluffs to Murphysboro, which is much higher, but a little bit off of both the Big Muddy and the Mississippi. Up in Murphysboro they put in a courthouse and people could live there without constant fear of flooding.
When the war started John A. agreed to go back to his hometown to raise up a group of infantry volunteers to go and fight it. But when he got there some people were very angry with him. By now of course the whole countryside was divided into the three groups above mentioned: southern sympathizers, abolitionists, and those who really didn't want to get involved. Southern Illinois had always had more of the first group but these people were angry that John A. was a traitor and had sold out their side, up in Springfield. They didn't want to join him to take up arms against the south. It was all they could do not to take up arms against him as everyone was in the process of taking up arms, in general.
He went on to have an illustrious career, leading his brigade, and then coming back to southern Illinois to start one of the first Memorial Days on record. The war had defined his era, and his life, and he had served in distinction. The memory of him did not settle easily on the area, though. They named a junior college John A. Logan College, and started a museum in Murphysboro. But one cold winter day I was in the doorway of that museum, and some guy sidled up near me and said under his breath that he was a traitor. I was shocked, as I didn't know the story I just related to you above, but I didn't argue with him. It was obviously a sincere opinion, handed down through generations, of a never-forgotten betrayal by one who left and went out into the world, and let southern Illinois live through its times, on the border, as it were, between the abolitionist territory and the slave-holding south that surrounded it.
As for Brownsville, I once asked someone why they didn't at least have a bronze marker telling where it was, and telling that John A. Logan was born there. They have put markers up, more than once, someone told me, but people keep stealing them and using them to melt down metals for resale. They could be stealing them just out of hostility to John A. himself, as that was clearly evident on my visit to the museum. Who knows? Most of the people in the area had no idea of the story I just told, and I suppose it will slowly go back to nothing, much as Brownville itself has.
But there is a Brownsville in Illinois which also interests me. It is nothing now but shards of ruins in some guy's field, just west of Murphysboro. But it was once one of the biggest cities in Illinois, thriving, with metalworks and industry.
In those days metalworks and industry was what it took to make a town a more substantial town, in other words, to distinguish any old place from a truly thriving place. They settled Illinois from the rivers, from Cairo up, with Chicago in those days nothing but a pipe dream, so all the action was in the south until you got up to Alton and then Quincy following the river. There was no such thing as such inland towns as Champaign or Rockford and in fact most of Illinois was considered the remote Northwest (northwest of Virginia) as people had not begun pouring in from places like Ohio and New York. The southern rivers were where the people were.
Brownsville was where John A. Logan was born, and he grew up naturally wanting to be a politician. When he was elected, he went to Springfield to represent the people of that southern Illinois area where he was from. That area was pro-Southern, pro-slave owners, so he wrote laws protecting slave-owners who were trying to get their escaped slaves back, when those slaves crossed over into Illinois from Kentucky or perhaps Missouri, states that border that area of Illinois. He was, in general, a pro-Southern legislator, but a distinct minority in a state that bred Lincoln and became increasingly abolitionist.
In fact, hanging around Springfield in general made him an abolitionist, and caused him to change his mind. Some people have said that the murder of Elijah Lovejoy in Alton in the 1830s (?) is what changed everyone's mind, and I'm not sure about the timing here, but Illinois was rapidly seeing that strong feelings were developing along the Mississippi and Missourians were guilty of overstepping their bounds in coming into Illinois and telling Illinoisans whet to do with people who were either on the move toward Canada, or in some way laying low and hiding in the Illinois countryside.
Illinoisans were in fact of mixed opinions about the developing conflict with the south. In southern Illinois many had settled from the south, and understood slaves and slavery, and had no desire to go fight a war against those relatives whom they'd left behind in such places as Kentucky, Tennessee, or North Carolina. In north and central Illinois, settled by northerners and ardent Congregationalists, the idea of slavery was becoming increasingly abhorrent and they didn't feel there was any moral justification to owning another person whatsoever. But there was also a fair number of people who simply were trying to feed body and soul; having obtained an acre or two of generally good farmland, they'd set out to clear it and farm it, and now were faced with what to do when people came up the road requesting something of them. Sometimes people wanted to be hidden; other times, people wanted whoever was hidden to be handed over to receive punishment and return to the other side of the river. In any case there were hard feelings and one was required to side with somebody even if one wanted to keep one's head down and survive the whole experience.
Down in Brownsville, continuous rains made its placement at the mouth of the Big Muddy River a problem. Every time the rivers would rise, Brownsville would be endangered, to the point where it became impractical to keep developing its industry and in fact risk the flooding of what industry was already there. Finally town leaders agreed to move the whole thing up on the bluffs to Murphysboro, which is much higher, but a little bit off of both the Big Muddy and the Mississippi. Up in Murphysboro they put in a courthouse and people could live there without constant fear of flooding.
When the war started John A. agreed to go back to his hometown to raise up a group of infantry volunteers to go and fight it. But when he got there some people were very angry with him. By now of course the whole countryside was divided into the three groups above mentioned: southern sympathizers, abolitionists, and those who really didn't want to get involved. Southern Illinois had always had more of the first group but these people were angry that John A. was a traitor and had sold out their side, up in Springfield. They didn't want to join him to take up arms against the south. It was all they could do not to take up arms against him as everyone was in the process of taking up arms, in general.
He went on to have an illustrious career, leading his brigade, and then coming back to southern Illinois to start one of the first Memorial Days on record. The war had defined his era, and his life, and he had served in distinction. The memory of him did not settle easily on the area, though. They named a junior college John A. Logan College, and started a museum in Murphysboro. But one cold winter day I was in the doorway of that museum, and some guy sidled up near me and said under his breath that he was a traitor. I was shocked, as I didn't know the story I just related to you above, but I didn't argue with him. It was obviously a sincere opinion, handed down through generations, of a never-forgotten betrayal by one who left and went out into the world, and let southern Illinois live through its times, on the border, as it were, between the abolitionist territory and the slave-holding south that surrounded it.
As for Brownsville, I once asked someone why they didn't at least have a bronze marker telling where it was, and telling that John A. Logan was born there. They have put markers up, more than once, someone told me, but people keep stealing them and using them to melt down metals for resale. They could be stealing them just out of hostility to John A. himself, as that was clearly evident on my visit to the museum. Who knows? Most of the people in the area had no idea of the story I just told, and I suppose it will slowly go back to nothing, much as Brownville itself has.
Tuesday, June 13, 2023
https://www.amazon.com/Ten-Quaker-Closet-Plays-discernment-ebook/dp/B0C7K3R6B5
Saturday, May 13, 2023
I got into the elevator going to the 97th floor, and pressed my button. I noticed that the 113th floor was pressed, but also the 73rd; there were two other people in the elevator, a man and a woman. Perhaps I could guess who would get out first, and see if one would get out before me, the other after.
But something caught my eye as I turned around; that was that the woman had a gun pointed at the back of the man. She had her hand hidden around behind his jacket, but nonetheless he knew that gun was sticking in there and now I knew it too. I'm not sure how I saw it; it was very quick, as I was shuffling toward the corner where as you know everyone gets as far as possible from each other to endure a ride in a trapped space. They obviously were an exception; they were right up against each other, side by side, and not giving each other much space at all.
It was winter, so we all had coats on. I had a winter jacket over my suit and I took it off hoping to make enough movement and noise to make them shift around so I could perhaps see the gun better, or get some clue as to what was really going on. They didn't say a word, and the elevator set out on its sweeping journey up to the next floor, which would be the 73rd.
It stopped suddenly at the 49th and it shook as it stopped. She mumbled something in his ear which I interpreted to be "don't move!" or something like that. Maybe she thought he'd bold quickly while the door was open and someone was entering. At the 49th a Rastafarian entered. He was tall and had long dreadlocks, and a kind of tie-dyed shirt. He took one look at the serious couple, probably not knowing that one had her gun in the other's back, and laughed. I smiled too. He seemed to be trying to tell them they are taking life too seriously. I agreed with him. Here I had my suit, my briefcase, my business on the 97th floor, yet I felt these two were way too serious. Deadly serious, you might say.
The Rastafarian guy took out a huge joint-kind of spliff and lit it. It was huge, it was messy, and little embers from it fell on the carpet of the elevator making me think he was going to catch the place on fire. I smiled again in the corner, knowing full well this woman had her gun in this guy's back so it was a holdup, you might say, yet I felt this development might break what could be a stalemate of some kind. He took a deep toke of it and put it right in front of the man's nose, and then, though both the man and the woman gave a terse close-lipped kind of no, he just held it there in front of them, rather than removing it, or bringing it over to me. I would have taken it, probably, just to cut the ice in the elevator, but I was kind of in the corner, having done my dance of getting as far as I could from everyone. His was the opposite: he wanted them to loosen up, help him smoke this big thing. It dropped its sparks on the elevator floor. It stood in his hand, burning slowly and filling the place up with smoke. Neither the man nor the woman made a single move.
I studied their hands for a minute. One of the woman's hands was hidden, holding the gun in his back; I knew that. The other wore a glove and carried a New York Times. It was rolled up like you might roll it if you were to try to stuff it in a mailbox or throw it up on someone's porch; I knew this because I used to be a paperboy, back in the days when people read the news. The man had a shoebox in his hand; it was closed. I couldn't tell if it was heavy enough to require both his hands to hold it, but he was using both of them, and perhaps that was why he couldn't grab the spliff. Could he simply put the box in one hand? I couldn't tell. In any case he didn't; he didn't move.
Now the elevator stopped at the 73rd floor and I tried to remember if the Rastafarian guy had pressed any button; I didn't think so. In any case he made an unusual move. He took another quick drag from his spliff, turned around and pressed the "door open" button to hold the door open, once it was open, then blue an enormous thick smoke ring around the woman; that smoke just kind of danced around her head like some kind of halo and then just settled in around her shoulders. Then he left, exiting the elevator quickly before we noticed or could stop him. He took the lit spliff with him.
I was trying to figure this out. It seemed to me the 73 button was pressed before he got on, which meant that he left randomly because it was there, or because he knew the man and woman, knew whose room was on the 73rd, and was going there as if he shared it. Why did he blow that smoke ring around her? She shrugged as if to get rid of it, but couldn't, because she had to keep her hand lodged in his back; she didn't know, yet, that I knew all about the gun.
At around the hundredth floor, the elevator got stuck. It shook and made a horrible noise, and stopped going. I was actually afraid we'd plunge a hundred floors to our death, me and this incommunicative couple.
"Press the alarm button," she told him; he was much closer to it than I was.
"You do it," he said. He wasn't going to make it easy for her, or give the appearance that she could order him around.
I actually made a move for the alarm button, but he had taken the opportunity of confusion to reach around quickly and hit her hand that was holding the gun. She lifted the gun quickly to get away from his hand, but at the same time it went off, and the bullet lodged into the panel of the elevator. The elevator made a strange kind of sizzling sound, and then much to my surprise, it started going again. Wherever the bullet went, it caused the elevator to run again.
Meanwhile the man and woman were struggling with each other; she still had the gun. She was unusually strong to fire, keep holding the gun, and resist his grabbing arms as he tried to get it from her; he was unable too, and I think she even used the gun to hit his hand at one point.
"Listen, you two," I said, "I'm a professional marriage counsellor." THis was a blatant lie, but they both laughed, in spite of being in a life-or-death struggle over a loaded gun. "Perhaps it would help if you told me the whole story from the beginning."
"We're shooting a movie," said the woman. "On the tower at the top. These buttons are pressed just to give us time to reset, reset the gun, reset the camera, that kind of thing. Come on upstairs and join us if you want. That guy you saw...he's in charge of the entertainment."
It was my floor, and I got off. If I went up there, I'd take the stairs.
But something caught my eye as I turned around; that was that the woman had a gun pointed at the back of the man. She had her hand hidden around behind his jacket, but nonetheless he knew that gun was sticking in there and now I knew it too. I'm not sure how I saw it; it was very quick, as I was shuffling toward the corner where as you know everyone gets as far as possible from each other to endure a ride in a trapped space. They obviously were an exception; they were right up against each other, side by side, and not giving each other much space at all.
It was winter, so we all had coats on. I had a winter jacket over my suit and I took it off hoping to make enough movement and noise to make them shift around so I could perhaps see the gun better, or get some clue as to what was really going on. They didn't say a word, and the elevator set out on its sweeping journey up to the next floor, which would be the 73rd.
It stopped suddenly at the 49th and it shook as it stopped. She mumbled something in his ear which I interpreted to be "don't move!" or something like that. Maybe she thought he'd bold quickly while the door was open and someone was entering. At the 49th a Rastafarian entered. He was tall and had long dreadlocks, and a kind of tie-dyed shirt. He took one look at the serious couple, probably not knowing that one had her gun in the other's back, and laughed. I smiled too. He seemed to be trying to tell them they are taking life too seriously. I agreed with him. Here I had my suit, my briefcase, my business on the 97th floor, yet I felt these two were way too serious. Deadly serious, you might say.
The Rastafarian guy took out a huge joint-kind of spliff and lit it. It was huge, it was messy, and little embers from it fell on the carpet of the elevator making me think he was going to catch the place on fire. I smiled again in the corner, knowing full well this woman had her gun in this guy's back so it was a holdup, you might say, yet I felt this development might break what could be a stalemate of some kind. He took a deep toke of it and put it right in front of the man's nose, and then, though both the man and the woman gave a terse close-lipped kind of no, he just held it there in front of them, rather than removing it, or bringing it over to me. I would have taken it, probably, just to cut the ice in the elevator, but I was kind of in the corner, having done my dance of getting as far as I could from everyone. His was the opposite: he wanted them to loosen up, help him smoke this big thing. It dropped its sparks on the elevator floor. It stood in his hand, burning slowly and filling the place up with smoke. Neither the man nor the woman made a single move.
I studied their hands for a minute. One of the woman's hands was hidden, holding the gun in his back; I knew that. The other wore a glove and carried a New York Times. It was rolled up like you might roll it if you were to try to stuff it in a mailbox or throw it up on someone's porch; I knew this because I used to be a paperboy, back in the days when people read the news. The man had a shoebox in his hand; it was closed. I couldn't tell if it was heavy enough to require both his hands to hold it, but he was using both of them, and perhaps that was why he couldn't grab the spliff. Could he simply put the box in one hand? I couldn't tell. In any case he didn't; he didn't move.
Now the elevator stopped at the 73rd floor and I tried to remember if the Rastafarian guy had pressed any button; I didn't think so. In any case he made an unusual move. He took another quick drag from his spliff, turned around and pressed the "door open" button to hold the door open, once it was open, then blue an enormous thick smoke ring around the woman; that smoke just kind of danced around her head like some kind of halo and then just settled in around her shoulders. Then he left, exiting the elevator quickly before we noticed or could stop him. He took the lit spliff with him.
I was trying to figure this out. It seemed to me the 73 button was pressed before he got on, which meant that he left randomly because it was there, or because he knew the man and woman, knew whose room was on the 73rd, and was going there as if he shared it. Why did he blow that smoke ring around her? She shrugged as if to get rid of it, but couldn't, because she had to keep her hand lodged in his back; she didn't know, yet, that I knew all about the gun.
At around the hundredth floor, the elevator got stuck. It shook and made a horrible noise, and stopped going. I was actually afraid we'd plunge a hundred floors to our death, me and this incommunicative couple.
"Press the alarm button," she told him; he was much closer to it than I was.
"You do it," he said. He wasn't going to make it easy for her, or give the appearance that she could order him around.
I actually made a move for the alarm button, but he had taken the opportunity of confusion to reach around quickly and hit her hand that was holding the gun. She lifted the gun quickly to get away from his hand, but at the same time it went off, and the bullet lodged into the panel of the elevator. The elevator made a strange kind of sizzling sound, and then much to my surprise, it started going again. Wherever the bullet went, it caused the elevator to run again.
Meanwhile the man and woman were struggling with each other; she still had the gun. She was unusually strong to fire, keep holding the gun, and resist his grabbing arms as he tried to get it from her; he was unable too, and I think she even used the gun to hit his hand at one point.
"Listen, you two," I said, "I'm a professional marriage counsellor." THis was a blatant lie, but they both laughed, in spite of being in a life-or-death struggle over a loaded gun. "Perhaps it would help if you told me the whole story from the beginning."
"We're shooting a movie," said the woman. "On the tower at the top. These buttons are pressed just to give us time to reset, reset the gun, reset the camera, that kind of thing. Come on upstairs and join us if you want. That guy you saw...he's in charge of the entertainment."
It was my floor, and I got off. If I went up there, I'd take the stairs.
Friday, April 14, 2023
Chat GPT writes a story
Once upon a time, in a small town in the heart of Illinois, there lived a young girl named Lily. She was known throughout the town for her curious nature and her love of adventure.
One day, while wandering through the town's quiet streets, Lily stumbled upon an old, abandoned store. The store was filled with all sorts of junk: old books, broken furniture, and rusted tools. It was a mess, but Lily was fascinated by the objects scattered about.
As she walked deeper into the store, Lily heard a faint sound. She followed the noise until she found herself standing in front of a dusty old record player. It was playing a scratchy old tune, the melody haunting and beautiful.
Lily searched through the piles of junk until she found an old letter. It was addressed to a man named Jack and it was from his ex-wife. As she read the letter, she felt a wave of emotions wash over her. It was a heartbreaking love letter, filled with regret and longing.
As she put down the letter, a man came out from the back of the store. He introduced himself as Jack, the man to whom the letter was addressed. He confirmed that the letters were written by his ex-wife and promised to tell Lily the story behind them.
Before she met Jack, Lily had been enchanted by the music and the letter. But now she could see that Jack was a little old and dirty, with a wild beard and a friendly grin.
As Jack began to tell her the story of his lost love, Lily listened with rapt attention. She learned about the joys and the heartbreaks that Jack and his wife had shared, and she realized that even the most broken hearts could heal with time.
From that day forward, Lily visited Jack every week, and they spent hours talking about life and love and everything in between. And although the store was still filled with junk, to Lily it was a place of magic and wonder, a place where she had discovered a new friend and a story that would stay with her forever.
One day, while wandering through the town's quiet streets, Lily stumbled upon an old, abandoned store. The store was filled with all sorts of junk: old books, broken furniture, and rusted tools. It was a mess, but Lily was fascinated by the objects scattered about.
As she walked deeper into the store, Lily heard a faint sound. She followed the noise until she found herself standing in front of a dusty old record player. It was playing a scratchy old tune, the melody haunting and beautiful.
Lily searched through the piles of junk until she found an old letter. It was addressed to a man named Jack and it was from his ex-wife. As she read the letter, she felt a wave of emotions wash over her. It was a heartbreaking love letter, filled with regret and longing.
As she put down the letter, a man came out from the back of the store. He introduced himself as Jack, the man to whom the letter was addressed. He confirmed that the letters were written by his ex-wife and promised to tell Lily the story behind them.
Before she met Jack, Lily had been enchanted by the music and the letter. But now she could see that Jack was a little old and dirty, with a wild beard and a friendly grin.
As Jack began to tell her the story of his lost love, Lily listened with rapt attention. She learned about the joys and the heartbreaks that Jack and his wife had shared, and she realized that even the most broken hearts could heal with time.
From that day forward, Lily visited Jack every week, and they spent hours talking about life and love and everything in between. And although the store was still filled with junk, to Lily it was a place of magic and wonder, a place where she had discovered a new friend and a story that would stay with her forever.
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
Routine Traffic Stop
The policeman, or rather a policeman, Bill, and his partner, Adrian, saw that the man was throwing up out the window of the car, as the car was going. The driver had slowed the car down a little, but was still in the passing lane, so the vomit was spraying all over the median and much of it was ending up on his own car. They pulled him over and within a couple blocks he had pulled in to the parking lot of a bank. He said his name was Ted, and he had trouble getting out of the car, though he was able to find his ID. They asked him to do a sobriety check and he flunked it big-time. He was very drunk.
The car was not in very good shape either. It had a huge spider-web crack in the front windshield that made them wonder if Ted could see anything while he was driving. Ted said that Marlene did this with a hammer. Marlene was his wife, apparently, or perhaps ex-wife given the situation with the hammer. He tried to explain something about how he'd been at the bar too long and she had to come get him but she wasn't very diplomatic. There was no question he'd been at the bar too long.
While Bill was arresting Ted, putting him in handcuffs, reading him his rights, and trying to get him into the police car, Adrian did a cursory search of the car. Ted was still throwing up, in fact, more than even while he was driving. It was like his whole life was coming out from the inside out onto the bank parking lot. This car and this vomit might have to wait until morning, thought Bill. But he really didn't want to shove Ted into the back of his patrol car under such a circumstance. He knew they couldn't stand here forever in the parking lot, but he thought that if he stalled a few seconds it might save the upholstery from weeks of a wretched smell.
His partner, Adrian, was finding all kinds of things in Ted's car. There was a big jug of what could only be described as everclear, homemade alcohol, but also a chemical that she knew was intended to make the drinker throw up. Why would that chemical be in the car? Actually it was a little vial, labeled that way, but it was empty. Had Ted poured the chemical into his drink? Had someone else?
He had an arsenal of guns, all in the back, down by the feet of the back seat. Three of them, all loaded and ready to fire. Where did he say he was going?
Then came a quick series of actions Bill would remember forever. He was hesitating, standing next to his car with Ted in handcuffs; he was waiting for Ted to finish throwing up before he tried to push him in to the back of the police car. Ted made a weak call to Marlene but his throwing up was interfering with his voice. Another small car came into the bank parking lot and stopped suddenly. A woman jumped out of the car, started screaming, and attacked Adrian as she was backing herself out of the back seat of Ted's car with one of the guns she had just picked up. This gun was evidence; she didn't want to use it, yet she couldn't reach for her own gun when her hands were full. The woman was screeching and attacking her with her fists on Adrian's back.
Suddenly, when Ted called Marlene's name with his garbled voice, a shot rang out. Bill watched in amazement as Ted was hurled back into the policecar, a bullet through his heart. Marlene had shot Ted! Bill was shocked because really, he would have been an easier target himself. Ted was between him and the car itself, and she would have had to have been a markswoman to shoot Ted and not him. But that's what had happened.
And then another shot rang out; she'd shot herself. Again, it would have been easy enough to have shot Adrian. She'd got the gun; she had the advantage; for some reason she wanted to do her murder-suicide in dramatic fashion.
Later on, the ID never checked out; Marlene had been carrying something fake, which didn't lead to anyone. Ted was a local dealer and was known to get into trouble, but Marlene was a mystery. The best they could figure, she was a woman who had gone AWOL from the Army, had been specially trained in marksmanship but had a falling out of some kind. That woman, who the Army identified, hadn't been seen in several years, but in fact could have done the shooting that Bill and Adrian described. Bill and Adrian were both a bit shaken by the event but ultimately figured they were lucky and she really only wanted to kill him and herself, not the police; perhaps she liked the police. Whatever her secrets, she'd carry them to the grave.
Thursday, March 9, 2023
Mr. GeePeeTee
I had a dream last night and this arrogant guy was in it. He called himself Chat GeePeeTee. We were having cappucinos at the Starbucks.
He was saying that he'd just published ten sets of short stories this morning, all on Amazon. It took me nine years to write ten sets of short stories, but still I was proud, so I didn't display my jealousy or get mad at him. He was just a writer, cranking it out, doing the best he can in this world.
He of course had the best of marketing tricks. He didn't even have to pay to market; his handlers took care of it. He explained how they just used their knowledge to figure out what was the best way to get readers. They could also use statistics to figure out what the hot topics would be. You make a story with the right keywords, you have an automatic best seller. Then people tend to read the other stuff you wrote, because it all comes off your author page. At the rate of ten sets a day, he'll have quite a few.
He told me that having pen names was really quite useful, because he could keep the short-story author separate from the mystery author. All the money's in erotica, though, he said. You can write a lot of romance with good sex in it, but you might as well come right out with the good sex, put it right on the cover, let everyone know what the book is all about.
He'd read tons of it, and he'd read enough to know what sells. In fact he could program the statistics to figure out what sells. Obviously the authors that made it steamiest were doing the best. There's nothing wrong with just copying their style, he said. After all, it's just two humans rubbing their bodies together.
Something about the way he said "humans" tipped me off, like maybe he wasn't one of us. But I was kind of intrigued by the way he claimed to use statistics to make his books match the formula perfectly and become best-sellers. His erotica pen-name author was doing better than any of the others, he said, didn't take long at all for that audience to find him. It's like they're all just looking for something new. And here I am, he said, with really nothing new in the book, just mixing around the steam and the various ideas from plots that I pick up here and there.
The sun was going down outside the coffee shop, where believe it or not, there was a cornfield right up against the Starbucks on the outside edge of this town. I'd been thinking of giving up writing altogether, what with sales as low as they are, and family commitments and all, but this guy with all his arrogance made me want to keep trying. I'll tell you why. He was pretty sure it was just a matter of finding the right formula - look at it statistically, see what people want, give them what they want. Don't get all caught up in what you want to say, or how you want the world to see you. Just give it to 'em on a plate. Go for the money. That's what makes you feel good anyway. Once you're walking to the bank, who cares what you went through to get there?
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