[stylist] holiday exercise, part 2: novel excerpt

[Barbara Hammel]

I like the story.  I think your descriptions are excellent.  I like how he 
doesn't hold it against the kids--in his actions--that their parents are 
annoying.
Barbara




Let every nation know whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay 
any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose 
any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.--John 
F. Kennedy
-----Original Message----- 
From: Chris Kuell
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2011 8:35 AM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: [stylist] holiday exercise, part 2: novel excerpt

The following is a chapter from a novel I'm working on, called 'Rub It In'.
As background, the narrator is Dan, a 42-year-old massage therapist who lost
his sight 10 years earlier from SJS, a rare allergic reaction to
antibiotics. At that time, he had just purchased a two family house with his
girlfriend, but she couldn't cope with Dan's blindness and hit the road. Dan
was able to keep his head above water financially when he had good tenants,
but the Bonds family-George, Violet, and their 3 kids, stopped paying rent
when George supposedly hurt his back at work and filed for disability. After
5 months and 2 postponements, Dan finally took them to court, but the judge
gave them 3 more months to pay what they owed before being evicted, since it
was winter and Violet was pregnant with another kid. With the downturn in
the economy, Dan has lost several clients and can't make his mortgage
payments. A wealthy client, Joel, knows of Dan's troubles and makes a deal
with him. If Dan will date and eventually marry his ex-wife, Marilyn, Joel
will pay Dan $500 per month, which is significantly less than his alimony.
Dan takes the deal, never intending to marry Marilyn. until he actually
falls in love with her.

Some other details are that Gary is Dan's best friend, and together they are
rebuilding a 1977 Camaro (Marilyn's first car) to give her on her birthday.
Amos, a yellow lab, is Dan's guide dog. Ingrid is Dan's older sister, and
she's bipolar and lives with their mother. Dan's father died of a heart
attack when he was 13.

As a generic disclaimer, everything I write is adult and real in nature. If
those things offend you, don't bother reading further. All comments,
criticisms, suggestions, etc. are welcomed.

   *   *   *   *   *

Rub It In

By Chris Kuell

Chapter 27


"Come on," Ingrid said, pushing a gift into my lap. "Open it."
I slouched on my mother's couch, a lumpy, plaid-green thing that had been on
this spot since 1982, a pile of gifts by my side, caught up in a haze of
nostalgia for Christmas' past. And stomach cramps. Mom made the traditional
breakfast of pancakes, sausage and scrambled eggs while Ingrid picked me up
at the bus station. We were all starved by the time we sat down to eat at
eleven, and I put away enough chow to feed a Marine. And then I drank a cup
of Ingrid's coffee, which I should have known from past experience to steer
clear of. If you don't have any Liquid Plumber, Ingrid's coffee will usually
do the trick. Same for killing ants and stripping paint. But she made it for
me, and it was Christmas, and I figured with the four pounds of food in my
gullet-what could it hurt? Dumbass.

"Awesome," I said, accepting the gift. It was rectangular, maybe the size of
two paperback novels. Less than a pound. I shook the box, something jiggled
inside, but I didn't get any kind of vibe from the motion. Covering my mouth
with the gift, I belched. Second-time breakfast-yum.

"Just open it," Ingrid said."And excuse you."

Half the fun in opening gifts with Ingrid was to tease her by not opening
them. "Hmmm, I'm thinking maybe it's an eight-track tape of Meatloaf's Bat
out of Hell."

"Right. Or Frampton Comes Alive. Just open it, Rooster."

Ingrid was the only person in the world who called me Rooster, or who I
would allow to call me Rooster, and she only did it when she wanted to get
to me. She gave me the name when I was two because in the Winnie-the-Pooh
videos, I always liked Roo best. A shrink would probably love to dissect
that little tid-bit. Somehow that character flaw earned me the label of
Rooster from my big sister.

Or. maybe a talking thermostat." I shook the box again. "Seems about the
right size."

"You're getting closer," Mom chimed in. She was sitting in a big leather
recliner Ingrid and I had pitched in together to buy about five Christmas's
back. I pictured her smiling, a crocheted afghan on her lap, happy to have
the family together on Christmas. Her kids in the same roles they've played
for the past forty-years.

"Mom!" Ingrid complained. "C'mon Rooster-enough with the guessing already."

Ingrid wasn't the best wrapper, fortunately, so I easily found a seam,
ripped the paper off the gift and wadded it in a ball. The garbage box was
from the gift I'd given Ingrid, a blue flannel nightie wrapped in an
intentionally overly-large Seagram's box I got from Don's Liquors. It was
over by Ingrid, to the right of the tree. I set in the free-throw position
and lobbed the wrapping paper ball with a high arc. A second later I heard
it hit the rim of the box and glance off to the side.

"Close," Mom said.

Marmaduke, who'd probably been sitting in Ingrid's lap, leapt into action
and started batting the paper ball around. Still a bit of kitten left in the
chubby critter.

Inside the box Ingrid had given me was a plastic item wrapped in a plastic
container. After some probing and swearing and a torn fingernail, I managed
to separate the device from the packing. It was hard plastic, technology of
some sort, with four small buttons and a big one the size of a dime. Light,
so probably needs batteries.

"Know what it is?" Ingrid asked.

"Nope."

"It's a talking, digital answering machine. It's also got talking caller
ID."

"Hey, that's awesome." I felt the device for a few seconds, thinking of the
land-line I got rid of two-and-a-half months ago.

"There's batteries in your stocking," Ingrid said. "I'll put them in and
show you how it works."

While Ingrid set up the answering machine I couldn't use, I took Amos out
for a walk. Movement was good, as was the fresh air. Only about eight inches
of snow were on the ground, most of it packed down by kids and others who
had traveled this way. The smell of wood smoke from fireplaces tinged the
air, and off in the distance I could hear excited kids playing with new
Christmas toys. We made our way to the pond. The edge was frozen, but it was
too early to go out more than a few feet. Amos agreed.

How many times had I been on this pond as a kid? A thousand, maybe? Not
including swimming in the summer. Skating, fishing, trying to get the
Pearson's Irish Setter Rusty to pull us while we wore cross-country skis.
Dumbassed Teddy Mcleary tossing an M-80 into a fishing hole, laughing like a
hyena on nitrous while the rest of us ran as fast as we could toward shore,
certain the explosion would shatter the ice beneath us. Kissing Sally
Fielding in the glow of a full moon, her wincing from my cold hands as they
groped under her sweater. A lifetime ago.

I brought in an armful of firewood to restock the pile in the house and
threw another piece in the wood stove, which was still very warm from the
morning. The smell of cooking turkey was in the air and Mom had put Miracle
on 34th Street into the DVD player. It was one of our favorites. I smile
every time I hear William Frawley say, "All right, you go back and tell them
that the New York State Supreme Court rules there's no Santa Claus!"
Ingrid and I had fun making wacky messages on the answering machine, and in
the late afternoon I curled up with Amos on the couch and took a nap.

After gorging myself for the second time that day, including a healthy slice
of blueberry pie with whipped cream, I did the dishes while Mom told me
about her new podiatrist, then I slipped upstairs for a shower and to give
Marilyn a call. She was at her daughter Maggie's in Tewksbury, but I figured
she wouldn't mind if we talked for just a minute.

"Merry Christmas, baby," I said in my best Elvis imitation when she
answered.

"Dan, is that you?"

"Yes, it's me," I said in my Dan voice. I'll have to talk with her another
time about the subtleties of King speak. "How's things at the North Pole?"

"Great," she said. "The kids are so much fun. And you?"

We debriefed quickly about our days, and then she apologized and said she
needed to get back with the family because they were watching a movie with
the little ones before bed.

"What are you watching?" I asked.

"Miracle on 34th Street. It's one of my favorites."

I smiled to myself and missed her terribly at that moment."Me too. Go enjoy
your family, and I'll see you tomorrow."

Back downstairs, I joined Ingrid on the couch as she clicked through the
television stations. She settled on a news story about a man in Camden who
had caught his house on fire while attempting to melt the icicles off his
gutter with a blowtorch. It struck me then that I didn't miss TV that much.

"Who you talking to?" Ingrid asked.

"Who?"I answered.

"That's what I asked," she said in that big sister tone. "Upstairs, on the
phone. I heard you talking to someone when I went to the bathroom."

And then it's like I was twelve and she was fifteen again. "A friend."

"Then why'd you talk in your old room, with the door closed?"

"Why were you spying on me while you were pretending to go to the bathroom?"

"I wasn't pretending-I had to pee!"

"Prove it," I said.

"Prove it? Prove what? You're the one with the big secret. C'mon-what's her
name?"

"Her name is Suzie, but most people just call her Thorn," I said. " Because
of the tattoo on her neck. She lives in Desmoine, she's got seven kids, and
we're thinking of getting married, depending on what happens next April."

"Married?" my mother gasped from her recliner.

"Why?" Ingrid asked, not quite as gullible as my mother. "What happens in
April?"

"That's when her husband gets out of jail," I said, bending to pet Amos and
hide my face.

"Husband? Jail?" Mom sounded horrified.

"He's lying," Ingrid pronounced. "I can see him smiling."

"Daniel, quit teasing your sister."

"Okay, okay," I said. The weathergirl on the television was predicting ten
to 18 inches of fresh snow tomorrow. "Her name is Marilyn. She's 44,
divorced, works as a librarian in Falmouth. We've been dating," I paused to
calculate how long we'd been 'dating'. I met her in September, on Halloween
she'd told me to stay away from her and get help with my mental health, and
then we'd had fantastic sex on Thanksgiving. ".about six weeks now."

"Rooster's got a girlfriend," Ingrid sang out.

"Forty-four is too old," Mom said.

"I'm forty-two," I said. "It's two years older than me."

"It's too old to have children," Mom declared. "And I want grandkids."

"Does she have any kids?" Ingrid asked. Ingrid was almost forty-six, so I
suppose Mom had given up on her.

I filled them in on Maggie in Tewksbury and Amanda in Namibia. Ingrid said
she'd watched a show on Discovery about how whites still hold most of the
power in Namibia, despite the country being 95% black. There are millions of
orphans, and kids don't go to school because they are too focused on
surviving. Mom asked how we'd met, a subject I successfully danced around,
and she forced me to promise to bring Marilyn over for dinner some night.
When the grilling subsided, I pleaded tiredness and headed upstairs to bed.

Aside from a sewing machine Mom had set up in my room after I'd moved out
twenty-years ago, the room had changed little. Here was my bureau, one side
still decorated with the Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Beatles stickers
of my youth. Above the mirror hung the Red Sox pennant Dad had bought me the
afternoon we'd gone to Fenway to see the Sox play the Orioles. Next to the
single bed was the window where I'd tried to shoot squirrels a thousand
times with my pump-action Crossman BB gun-without a single hit. I thought
about the Playboy magazine's I used to hide under my mattress and even
slipped a hand under to check, but that aspect of my teenage years had been
disposed of.

Mom had lent me a comforter for Amos, who curled up at the foot of the bed
and conked out in no time. I, on the other hand, laid in bed listening to
the wind rattling the windows, remembering how as a kid I would play with my
plastic dinosaurs long after Mom and Dad had put me to bed, falling asleep
on the toys so I'd wake up with a triceratops horn poking me in the ribs.
Thirty years ago I'd sat in this very bed going through my Keds box full of
baseball cards, segregated into rubber-banded bundles by teams, putting
together a dream All Star team. Carlton Fisk behind the plate, Don Sutton on
the mound, Jim Palmer in reserve. Pete Rose at third, Concepcion at short
and   Greg Luzinsky-the Bull--on first. Long before internet fantasy
baseball I'd played imaginary games in my head, my team always destroying
the opposition. So long ago.

The wind outside blew long and steady, a tree branch rattle the gutter, I
closed my useless eyes and was back in this bed in February 1979. After the
ambulances and the police and the excitement had gone, Mom sobbing in her
and Dad's room. After going to the hospital and having Mrs. Landsdale come
stay with us even though Ingrid was seventeen. Then that terrible look in
her face as she told me and Ingrid that Dad was gone and we'd never see or
talk or play or be reprimanded by him again. Never. No more ball games or
fart jokes. No more trips to the hardware store in Alfred or ice creams at
the Dairy Queen. No more helping me with math homework or letting me eat
pizza in the living room when Mom wasn't around.

Kids can't really appreciate death. When the family dog Sparky croaks, they
get sad, maybe even cry a little, but a week later they've already forgotten
if it was Sparky's front left, or right paw which was white. Sure, my own
sadness at Dad's death was great, but it must have paled in comparison to my
mother's. While I laid in this bed wondering who would take over as first
base coach of my baseball team, my mother was wondering how she might ever
fill the hole suddenly ripped from her heart. And sadly, she never has.

Eventually I drifted off into a dreamless slumber, interrupted sometime
later by a familiar whine and a morning dose of dog breath.

"Hey buddy," I said, rubbing my best friend's head. "Give me three minutes."

After a breakfast of muffins and tea, and much hugging and kissing and
promises to call more often, I had Ingrid take me to the bus station. Snow
was beginning to fall, and the bologna skins Ingrid called tires didn't give
me much confidence. I kissed her, thanked her for the gifts and told her to
go before the storm got worse. The 11:10 to Portland was already delayed,
and by the time Amos and I made it home there were four or five inches of
fresh snow on the ground. Of course, none of the squatters would ever pick
up a shovel, so we trudged through the white stuff until Amos got me to the
door. A box sat on the stoop by the door, about the size of a toaster oven.
I brought it in and dumped it along with my backpack on the kitchen table.

After changing into jeans and a sweatshirt, I grabbed my winter gloves and
made my way to the garage. I let Amos run free in the snow-filled backyard
while I began the process of clearing the drive and walkways. The day wasn't
too cold, and the snowflakes were large and heavy. I guess I wasn't feeling
very charitable, so I only cleared the first twenty feet of the driveway,
the porch and walkway. RV Larry's camper was quiet, the snow undisturbed,
which must mean he's inside toasty-warm with Violet and Georgie. Just then
the front door burst open and the rug rats came spilling outside.

"Merry Christmas, Dan." Hillary sounded chipper, probably longing for normal
human contact.

I tossed a shovelful of snow onto the growing bank. "Merry Christmas to you
too, Hillary."

"Ma-wee Twitmas," said a smaller voice.

"Was that Oscar?" I asked Hillary.

"Yup," she said. "He can talk now."

By this time Amos had joined us and all the kids were petting him. I heard
Ivan's snotty laugh as Amos licked his face.

"Uncle Larry told us to ask you where to go sledding," Hillary said.

"We got new sleds for Christmas," Ivan said with a sniffle.

"Twitmas," Oscar added his two cents.

"You did, did you?"

"Mine's red," Hillary said, taking control. "Ivan's is blue and Oscar's is
little and green."

"It looks like a fwog," Ivan added.

Ignoring the absurdity of using a hibernating amphibious species as the
basis for a winter sport, I told Hillary I used to see kids sledding over at
the high school, where there's a pretty good sized hill to the right of the
practice field. As I was speaking, I felt a small hand pressing snow into my
leg.
"Oscar-what're you doing?" The little squirt only giggled.

"He thinks he's throwing a snowball," Hillary said. "He can't throw, so 
that's
what he does instead."

I stuck the shovel into the snowbank and knelt down closer to the boy's
height."First, you gotta make a good snowball," I said, scooping a fistful
and squashing it down. I made it smaller and rounded it a bit with my gloves
before handing it to him. "Go ahead-throw it at me."

I waited, heard the scratch of a winter jacket moving, but nothing happened.

"Go ahead," I said.

"He did," Hillary said. "Somehow it went backwards."

"Here," I said, making another snowball. "Everybody has to learn how to
throw a snowball. Can you, Ivan?"

"Uh-hunh," Ivan said.

"No you can't," Hillary said like a bossy big sister.

"Can too."

"Yeah, but you throw like a retard."

"Okay-none of that," I said.

"Do not."

"Do too!"

"Shut up you two and come over here." I handed each of the kids a snowball,
then made one for myself. "You throw a snowball just like a baseball. You
cock your arm like this." I demonstrated for the kids. "Then you shift your
weight forward, throw that hand out as hard as you can and release." I threw
my snowball off in the distance somewhere. "See how I did that? Now, each of
you try."

No sooner had I spoken than I got hit in the chest with one. "Not at me," I
declared. "Find another target. How about the birch tree? It should be over
there," I pointed.

"Too far," Ivan said.

"Oh-kay." I said, thinking. An easy target that wasn't me or Amos. "Well,
how about your Dad's car?"

The car was only seven or eight feet away, was a large target and a good one
for the rookies in the group. I instructed the kids to practice by throwing
at least 20 snowballs at their father's car, then escaped back to my
apartment with Amos.

Inside, I fixed a cup of hot chocolate and called Marilyn to check on our
evening plans. "How's the snow by you?"

"White and plentiful. It's coming down pretty hard," she said. "I haven't
been outside, but there must be six inches. Channel five says we're going to
get ten to fifteen. Any better by you?"

Even though we only live about fifteen miles apart, the weather can vary.
"No, same here. I just shoveled, and by the time I'd finished there was
another inch down. You feeling adventurous, or should we act our age and do
the responsible thing?"It hurt to say that. We'd decided to celebrate
Christmas after she had gone to Tewksbury to see her family and I'd seen
mine. Draw out the holiday just a bit longer. I was looking forward to a
nice dinner, then going back to Marilyn's for our gift exchange and if I was
lucky, I'd get to unwrap the best gift of all.

"Define responsible," she said.

"Drinking a bottle of wine with you in the hot tub, then running outside to
make snow angels in our birthday suits."

"That sounds like fun, sort of, but responsible, I'd say not."

Her voice was playful, and I really wished I'd gone straight to her place.
We decided tonight probably wouldn't work, and postponed our dinner and gift
exchange until the following night.

As I washed out my mug and wondered what to do with my evening, I remembered
the box I'd brought in earlier. Buried inside the forty billion Styrofoam
peanuts were two brand new side mirrors, including rubber gaskets,  which 
I'd
bet my last dollar fit on a 77 Camaro. There wasn't a Braille note, of
course. I turned on my computer and scanner and used OCR software to read
the packing slip. The billing address was Mr. Brown, PO Box 7703, Portland
Maine-which was Gary's. Being somewhat of a conspiracy theorist, he'd taken
the PO Box under a fictitious name years ago. I'm not exactly sure why-after
all, couldn't The Man still track him by tracing who owns the PO Box? But 
I'm
no Columbo, and there's no talking sense to Gary sometimes.

I put on my jacket and gloves, told Amos to mind the fort, grabbed the box
with the mirrors and headed to the garage.

On the front porch I got the shock of my life. A harsh, grating sound hit my
ears. The sound of a snow shovel on frozen blacktop, coming from my
driveway.

Of course I'd heard the sound before-that wasn't it. It was that I'd always
been the one making the sound. In the almost three years the Clampetts had
lived here, not one had ever touched a shovel. Never. No, that was the
landlord's responsibility.

The walkway had at least 2 inches of fresh snow as I moved to the driveway.
Someone scraped, grunted and tossed.

"Shouldn't you be doing this?"

The sound of Georges voice went through me like shit through a goose. My
initial thought was to drop the box, make a snowball and plug his pie hole
the next time he flapped his gums. But then I thought-not now, he's
shoveling. Shoveling. The guy trying to get disability is shoveling.

Gary's voice came into my head. Take a picture. Use your cell phone and take
a picture.

But my cell phone was on my kitchen table, I had no idea how to use the
camera function, and in the end, where would it get me? No Closer to the
eight grand they now owed me.
"Merry Christmas, Georgie," I said before going to the garage to install my
new mirrors.





_______________________________________________
Writers Division web site:
http://www.nfb-writers-division.net <http://www.nfb-writers-division.org/>

stylist mailing list
stylist at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/stylist_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
stylist:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/stylist_nfbnet.org/poetlori8%40msn.com