Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer, #131: Weak Stories with Strong Points: "The Phantom Hitchhiker"

An old song by the Rolling Stones begins, “I’ve had good times, I’ve had bad times”—very typical blues, but I think writers can identify with that statement. It could mean good times and bad times with publishing success or lack of it; but it could also mean good/bad times with stories. We have good stories and (if we’re honest we will admit) bad stories as well. Now, when I say“bad” I don’t mean they were a total loss or something we would not want to acknowledge. But some stories are weaker than other stories; some are not as well-crafted. The reason can be that we are just beginning to write (though, ironically, I’ve found a lot of my really early stuff is pretty good). They can be “bad” because they develop a weak idea or an overdone theme. One of these is a story I published called “The Phantom Hitchhiker.”

The phantom hitchhiker is an old urban legend. A guy picks up a girl who is hitchhiking. She tells him her car has broken down and she need a ride home. She is pretty. He is attracted to her. She says she is cold and asks if she can wear his sweater. But just before he gets to her house, she disappears. The young man is puzzled but goes to the house she indicated and knocks on the door. Her father answers and he asks if the girl was out tonight because he was giving her a ride, but somehow she got out of the car and disappeared. The father is, in different versions of the stories, defensive, hurt, bewildered, angry. He says that his daughter was killed in a car wreck on the way home a year ago to this day. The young man goes back to his car, wondering if it was all a hallucination or dream. As he drives home he passes a graveyard, sees something, and goes to investigate. He finds what he is saw is his sweater, draped over the gravestone of a young woman with the name she gave him and who, according to the dates on the stone, died one year ago on that day.

The story is so well-known there was a popular song called “Laurie (Strange Things Happen)” by Dickey Lee (1965). The story has been told and retold in various forms. I decided to write a story about the legend and wanted to give it a twist. This happened because some people in my writer’s group marveled that I had never heard of the “phantom hitchhiker.” When they told me the story I said that had heard it but had never heard it called that. I decided I would try my hand at a revision of the tale.

In my revision, an ongoing character, Sossity Chandler (about whom I published 27 stories) encounters the phantom hitchhiker. Sossity is a struggling blues/rock player who eventually makes it big, but in this phase of her career she is playing in bars and taverns. At intermission at a bar called One-Eyed Mick’s, she has a confrontation with two bikers who have designs on her. With the help of the manager, she rebuffs them. The manager tells her that she should not take the main road back into town because they might follow her. He suggests another road but jokingly tells her to watch out for Vanessa. She is a ghost, he says, that haunts that road.

When Sossity travels the road she sees a girl hitchhiking and picks her up. She rides with Sossity and asks to borrow jacket because she’s cold. The girl is mysterious and enigmatic and soon turns transparent and lets her host know she is a phantom. Sossity’s reaction, however, is not what the girl expects:

"So what's next in the script? I scream? Run the car off the road?"
Vanessa looked back in troubled puzzlement.
"And," Sossity continued, "let's see... oh, yes, you're supposed to ask for my sweater - or I guess my jacket, since I'm not wearing a sweater. I take you to One-Eyed Mick's, you disappear, I go to the graveyard, and there's my jacket on your grave. Right?"
"You're real funny," the girl said, her eyes dark with anger.
"You're even funnier. Did you think I'd be afraid of you because you're a ghost? I'm not afraid of ghosts."
"Stop the car and let me out!"
"Can't you just vanish like Laurie did in the song? You faded out pretty well just a minute ago."
The anger in her eyes intensified but then it drained away. She looked forlorn.
"I can't do that. I want to go now. Stop and let me out on the side of the road."

Sossity won’t let her out of the car. She hears Vanessa’s story. She was in an accident when riding on a motorcycle with her boyfriend, who is one of the bikers who harassed Sossity. Sossity tells her she needs to stop living up to his expectations for her. Even in death, she chides the girl, she is playing his game and letting him dictate her existence.

Sure enough, the biker shows up. He buzzes Sossity and tries to run her into a ditch. Finally, Vanessa acts. She has Sossity pull over, gets out of the car and stands in the road. When her ex-boyfriend sees her, he is horrified, swerves to miss her, and wrecks his bike. Sossity calls the police. Vanessa vanishes.

The boyfriend, it turns out, must have his leg amputated. Knowing the story, Sossity drives to the local graveyard and, sure to form, finds the jacket Vanessa borrowed from her draped over her grave. She drives off satisfied that the girl has at last found rest.

The story is strong and weak. I told it pretty well. I did a good revision of what happens in the tale. It is weak in that Sossity is too unafraid of Vanessa. I had written other stories where she encounters ghosts, so I knew she would not be frightened of a spirit being. But my readers did not know that and that part of the story—their encounter and argument in the car—comes across as a bit shallow and glib. Still, it was good enough to be published. A UK magazine, Fiction on the Web, accepted it and you can still read it.

Good times, bad times. Every writer has them in the form of a story. But we are harsh judges. Maybe the bad stories are not quite as bad as we think they are.

"The Phantom Hitchhiker" was published in Fiction on the Web, a British journal. Read it here.

I have a new novella up at Amazon, a vampire story. Get a copy here. 

Happy reading.

Dave’s Anatomy: My History As a Writer, #87: Art and Truth: “Just About Right.”

 

Sossity Chandler

“That’s Just About Right” is a postmodern song. It was written by Jeff Black, recorded in 1995 by the country group Blackhawk, and climbed to number seven on the American country charts. I would call the music neo-country. It does not sound like the music of Hank Williams or even Alan Jackson. Not traditional, with a very low “twang factor,” it could pass off as a pop song, though the mandolin and fiddle playing give it the country flavor. It is, like many of Mr. Black’s songs, subtle. It’s about a man who goes up in the mountains to paint “the truth” but can’t quite nail it and is frustrated by that. Finally he abandons the project. The song puts it this way:

           My old friend, came down from the mountain

           Without even looking, he found a little truth

           You can go through life with the greatest intentions

           But you do what you do what you just got to do.

The truth the man finds is that you cannot capture the truth, not in a painting or any other form. You can only say, as the chorus notes, “That’s just about right.”  I say it’s postmodern because postmodernism emphasizes the relativity and the constructed nature of all systems that claim ultimate and final truth.

And the song inspired a story.  

In the story I wrote in response to the song, my ongoing character Sossity Chandler meets artist Brionna Morgan at the art museum in her home city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Sossity, there to participate in the museum’s Sunday night concerts series, is enthralled by one of Brionna’s paintings. The two of them fall in together, talk about art and creativity. Sossity notices how much Brionna drinks. Before she leaves the woman gives her an invitation to visit if she is ever in Vermont. Sossity is informed by some of the people there that Brionna lost an adult child and subsequently went through a divorce. Her drinking is a result of that.

Two years later, Sossity, who has herself gone through a painful divorce, gives a concert in Hartford, Connecticut, remembers Brionna’s offer, calls her, and asks if the invitation is still open. She arrives at her house. She has done some research and found out her friend is a painter of some reputation with art in many top museums of the world. She is also shown a portrait of her son, who had was killed in an accident, Brionna has managed to stop drinking and put her life in better order. She shows Sossity a vista that she (like the artist in “Just About Right”) wants to paint but can never get exactly right.

The next few years, their friendship deepens. Brionna design the cover for one of Sossity’s CDs and does portraits of her and her children. Sossity buys several of her paintings. They visit whenever Sossity is in her area of the country. During one such visit, the two of them walk a section of Appalachian Trail. Toward the end, they come to a vista Brionna has always loved and wanted to paint. She takes out her sketchbook and draws. They walk on their final destination and check into a motel.

  

When Sossity goes to throw something away, she finds a painting, a simple watercolor, of the overlook lying beside the dumpster. Brionna looks through the window, notes what has happened, comes outside, and says she had not wanted Sossity to see the painting. It has not captured, she says, the nature of the place and is incomplete.The following exchange takes place:

“Why do you want to depict that?”

She did not answer but they both knew what she did not want to say. Sossity thought of Brionna’s son, whom she had never met. His portrait had expressed what lay beneath his physical appearance—soul, spirit, personhood. What stood behind nature would be the answer to why he had died.

“Some things you can represent. What impressed me about the portraits you did of my family is how you showed our personalities. People can see our souls by looking at our faces.”

“That’s what I want to do with this landscape. I can’t capture it.”

Sossity regarded the painting a moment. “Art is never complete,” she said. “We just agree we’ll leave it at some point.” She ran her eyes over the landscape. “I’d say this is just about right—as right as anyone could ever get it.”

Sossity’s words seem to strike home. Brionna nods and takes the painting back into their motel room. Art can express truth—but only to a certain extent. Even the portraits Brionna has done—those of her son and of Sossity and her children—can express the soul only to an extent. Truth, pure truth, the truth behind things, is eternally elusive. “Just about right” is usually the only way we can get it.

The story appeared in Motley Press, which is no longer in print. There are some websites with that title, but apparently none of them are the one that printed my story. This may be another story to resubmit. It seems that lots of journals close after only a short run.

For more good stories, novellas, and novellas, see my Writer's Page.

For your reading pleasure, get a  copy of After Happily Ever After. What happened after Cinderella married Prince Charming? After they met Snow White, were the Seven Dwarves ever the same? In my story, see what happened after Morgianna and Ali Baba got rid of the forty thieves--everything did not go smoothly for them.

I would love to hear your comments.

Have a Happy New Year!

Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer, #50: "Bambukos"

Nostalgia is everybody's oyster. We all love to open it up and taste it and will go to considerable expense to get it. We got to old places:  the school where so many memories lodge; the old neighborhood and the house in which we grew up; or, remembering an old girlfriend like the narrator of the song Del Shannon wrote for Peter and Gordon,"I go to places we used to go / But I know she'll never show." Nostalgia claims all of us, but being nostalgic has to do with being human. We remember and we compare the past with the future. We learn about ourselves by looking at what we were in a certain place at a certain time and comparing that with what we are now and how, in the same place once more, we fit or don't fit into what we were back then.

My story "Bambukos" is just about this. It was the first story about my ongoing character, Sossity Chandler, I had written in a long time, and it related to the experience of going back to where you had once been and reliving memories. Years earlier, when Sossity drove from town to town playing one night stands, barely making enough money to get by, despairing that success had eluded her for so many years, she pulls in a rust-belt town in Ohio to play a gig for $100.00 at a downtown bar called Bambukos.

Things are bad. The heartbreaking tragedy of the last decade of the Twentieth Century had affected the town:  industry had moved out, people had left, storefronts were boarded up, and the town seemed to be dying. Sossity pulls in and goes into the bar. She meets the owner, who gives her a free meal and tells her a little bit about how bad things are there. And he hits on her—a thing she is so used to that she doesn't get angry (it's all in a day's work, she thinks). When she goes out to start her car, it won't start. The owner of the bar, Howard Jodry calls a customer out who says it sounds like her alternator is gone and says it will probably cost her $200.00. Sossity almost cries. She can't afford a car repair payment. She has the money, on her but the expense will clean her out and she does not like to be without at least a little cash to fall back on.

She plays the show and, as often occurs, something magic happens. She wants to begin with a rousing number, but one look at the crowd tells her the people in the town are hurting because of the economic downturn. They seem weary and hopeless. Rather than her usual rollicking opening piece, she performs the old Dire Straits song, "Why Worry?" It hits home. People appreciate it. Couples hold hands and snuggle up. Some people weep. She goes on to gear the show to meet the emotional needs of the crowd. Even though they are strapped for money, they give tips and ask Jodry if Sossity can play another show tomorrow tonight. She agrees. Jodry also tells her that he has arranged for her car to be towed and fixed by a man who looked at it, who "drinks a bit" and owes him money. He offers to pay for the repairs. This exchange takes place: 

I don’t think I want to you do that, Howard. I’ve got the money. I’ll settle up.” 

"I’m throwing it in as bonus—part of your pay for playing. You really hit it with my   crowd—a lot of my regulars—and we’re looking for an even bigger crowd tonight. People stayed and they bought drinks and even more people will be here tomorrow. So I’m making money off of this.” 

“I think you know why I don’t want you doing me a lot of expensive favors.”

“You think I’ll expect you to return them?” 

"Something like that.” 

"That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

“Exactly? What do you have in mind?”

He tells her she is pretty and he would like to sleep with her, but assures her that is not part of the packet. Sossity plays the second show. The place is packed to capacity and the result is the same. People thank her and say her singing comforted them and gave them hope. She makes more tips. Her car is fixed. In the end, because he is open and attractive, she does end up staying with Jodry. Then she goes back on the road.

Sossity thinks about this twelve years later as she, now a superstar, prepares to play a gig in the city, which has recovered economically. She asks  if there is still a bar in town called Bambukos. There is,  but it's not a bar, it's one of the most exclusive nightclubs in the area. She goes to visit and finds a casino-like, opulent. building. And Howard Jodry still owns it. She also gets an email that a group of people who remember her performance from 12 years ago would like to see her at Bambukos.

Sossity Chandler

The people thank her and tell her she gave them hope and a gleam of happiness when they were so down and out. And they have had a guitar made for her. She enjoys talking and visiting with them. The only one who seemed uncomfortable is Jodry. She later finds out he is running for mayor and is afraid of her talking about their one-time liaison. He is also remarried and doesn't want his new wife find out he and Sossity were sexually intimate so many years ago. She smiles and agrees not to tell. And, for the assembled crowd, she once again does "Why Worry?"

The story touches on how the past shapes the present, but the present reinterprets and clarifies the past.  It also is about the magic music can give. People listen to music for entertainment, but also for hope, for comfort, for assurance there is beauty and justice—at least a little bit—in life and the music's charm it is an expression of this. And of magic.

"Bambukos: was published by Amarillo Bay and is still available on line. Read it here. I say this too much, but it is a very good story and worth the read. An early story, it still has the power of a new writer exploring.

Le Cafe de la Mort tells the story of Angela, who is the Angel of Death, anguished over her role as the one who killed the firstborn of Egypt. And she is in love with a mortal. When she is confined to Gehenna for violating angelic law only her mortal boyfriend can free her. It's formidable task. Get a copy for some great reading.

I would love to hear your comments.

For more titles, see my Writer's Page.