[stylist] Re sending to Chris, FW: holiday exercise, part 2: novel excerpt

[Donna Hill]

Chris, I'm forwarding to the list and cc-ing you. All this testing, I
thought I'd get a piece of the fun. *grin*
Donna


-----Original Message-----
From: Donna Hill [mailto:penatwork at epix.net] 
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2011 11:54 AM
To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
Subject: RE: [stylist] holiday exercise, part 2: novel excerpt

Chris,
Excellent job as usual. I am drawn to the introspectiveness at the lake and
the descriptions of things like the pictures on the bureau. Great use of
dialog and so many intricacies so seamlessly woven into the story.
Donna

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Chris Kuell
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2011 9:35 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.





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