Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer #52: "The Texas-Illinois Motel."

Sign for the Texas/Illinois Motel

Every story has its genesis, and the genesis of a story can be from some monumental, soul-shaking event or it can be a common mundane thing of little consequence. "The Texas/Illinois Motel," came from a childhood memory. My family came from Arkansas, a southern US state, and, when we would visit relatives there after we moved north to Indiana, we would pass the Texas/Illinois Motel, so named because it lay, supposedly, halfway between Texas and Illinois. Truck drivers on a trek north could bed down there halfway through their journey. And quite a few did, at least when I was very young. The place always seemed full. It sat on a stretch of road that ran from Little Rock up to the northern reaches of the states. Lots of trucks and cars would park there and in front of it stood a sign with the name of the place emblazoned and outlines of the two states. Then a new highway went through.

Abandoned motel, still standing

After the interstate highly bypassed it, travel on the road slowed. Pretty soon the Texas/Illinois closed. It decayed and stood a ruin. For some reason, no one tried to reopen it and no one demolished the site. It stands, a testimony to what had passed away around the Arkansas towns of Searcy, Bald Knob, and Judsonia, where my parents had grown up, where most of my relatives still live. It is a sad ruin and a sad testimony to the economic decline that put so many places out of business.

Deserted motels are creepy. You wonder if the ghosts of people who once stayed there might stop on whatever journeys ghosts might take. That gave me the idea for a story about Sossity Chandler. She has just achieved a level of success as a singer, has had one or two hits, is in the money and building her career—not a superstar yet, but has a good chance of becoming one if she plays her cards right. She is on tour, opening for a hard rock musician named Davis Clark. She does not like him and does not approve of his exploitation of groupie girls and other aspects of his life, but touring with him makes for good publicity.

Once she played the town in which they are staying and decides to take a sentimental journey that will recall her days of struggle. She eats an old restaurant she ate at back then and plans to drive over to the Texas/Illinois Motel, where she stayed during that time. A man in café tells her it's abandoned because a girl died there. A lot of people, he says, think it's haunted. Sossity drives there and sees a girl in a smock standing barefoot in the snow. Thinking she is homeless, maybe addicted, and lives in the abandoned site, she offers to drive her downtown to a shelter. "What if I'm a ghost?" The girl says. Sossity lets her in the car and, through things the girl tells her that only a supernatural creature would know, finds out she is telling the truth.

And more:  the girl, Joetta Holland, was a groupie of Davis Clark and claims he murdered her by deliberately giving her an overdose of heroin. She convinces Sossity, who buys her clothes and food and listened to her story (ghosts have bodies for a short while around midnight). She wants revenge and will not be able to go to her rest until she gets it. The two of them hatch a plot. She wants to haunt not Clark's house and not his car, but his music.

It's tricky, but Sossity manages to get Davis Clark to come to the motel. When he does, Joetta appears to him as he is playing his guitar. She hovers near him and then her phantom-like shape breaks apart. Clark is glad she has vanished and thinks she is gone. Sossity knows she has entered his music and will live in it, torment him every time he picks up his guitar and plays, ruin his career, and finally kill him.

 The Sixth Sense told us the old truth that ghosts want something. They are ghosts because some traumatic event has attached them to a site or a person and they cannot go on to their reward, to the afterlife, until they resolve the conflict that has anchored them to an earthly spot. Joetta has to deal with Clark's deception and revenge herself. Sossity is willing to join her in her plot because she wants to see justice done.

 The story appeared in a journal no longer being published but with an archive. Read  "The Texas/Illinois Motel" here.

Non-Western fantasy, martial arts,

wuxia are all found in my latest 

novella, The Sorceress of Time. 

For more titles, explore my Writer's Page.

 I would love to her your comments.

Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer, #51: Ethical Sorcery: "Avenging Earth"

The question of ethics is one that often takes odd directions. In C. S. Lewis' novel That Hideous Strength, he has a character he calls an "honest thief." This is a man who steals, knows stealing is wrong, does it, gets caught, and is ready to take the punishment for what he did; unfortunately, he is taken from jail to an organization that does not value human life, has no ethical base, and is willing to exploit and brutalize human beings (he is going to be used for medical experiments). Lewis is making the point that a thief who does something he senses is wrong but does it anyway to serve necessity or just because he decides to disregard the law, is better than an organization that has no sense of what is moral or ethical—that operates devoid of human decency and traditional ideas of right and wrong.

My story, "Avenging Earth" explores this same sort of question. It centers on two of my ongoing characters, Kathy Farisi and Alessia Bernini. The latter is a streg, a witch who practices "natural magic," magic that does not derive its power from evil but from nature and from traditions passed on from practitioner to practitioner from the Middle Ages on. Alessia and Kathy have become friends, though Kathy, recovering from an adulterous affair that broke up her best friend's marriage and damaged her life as well, is often censorious of Alessia and critical of her use of magic. At one point in this particular story, she castigates Alessia for using magic that caused a woman to suffer. Still, they maintain their sometimes shaky friendship.

Alessia Bernini, streg

Alessia finds Kathy at church. She has come to pray for a fifteen year-old girl named Alana, who has been blinded and has lost both her parents in a terrorist bombing. The terrorist is not a member of Al Qaeda or ISIS but is an eco-terrorist named Corey Allen. Allen bombed the home office of Paul Fusco's construction company because they were beginning to develop an area of land that Allen did not want to see developed. His wife and daughter happened to be visiting when the blast went off. Only the daughter survived but with the loss of her eyesight. While Kathy is praying, Alessia slides in beside her. They pray together and then Alessia says she needs Kathy's
help and wants to meet with her later in the day.

She finds out what her streg friend wants. Mr. Corsi, the head of the local Mafia, has paid Alessia a large sum of money to find Allen and to punish him for what he has done. (Fusco and Corsi were related, though Fusco was not involved in organized crime). Kathy has called together some of her friends to assist her in the ceremony she must go through to locate Allen, who knows no magic but who has power from his association with the earth and his innate grasp of its natural force. Kathy agrees. The ceremony frightens her and the other three friends. Alessia is battered by what she encounters but survives the ordeal, is able to locate Allen and give his location to the Mafia. Kathy asks if they will kill him. Alessia says he doesn't get off that easy.

Later, Alessia asks if Kathy will come with her as she does the spell that will be Allen's punishment. She agrees and watches with horror as Alessia casts her spell on him:

A transformation started at Allen's face and spread over his whole body, as if he had turned to dirt. For a second he looked ashy, like a mummy. Then his body broke apart and fell in a heap to the ground. Kathy gasped. Her heart felt as if it had stopped.

She heard a man’s scream.

The heap of dust into which Allen had collapsed resembled a human form. Suddenly the wind struck it, blow it into the air. Another scream rent the silence. She saw Corey Allen’s form, his face distinct in the swirling cloud of dust the wind blew violently into the water of the brook. After another pause, she saw a wave rise—a wave that bore Allen’s horrified, astonished likeness a second or two. She heard more screaming as the wave dissolved into the streambed.

Corsi says he is satisfied and asks if Allen will stay in this state of disembodiment and pain. Alessia tells him he will "as long as earth endures." Corsi is satisfied and goes his way. Alessia begins to sob. She has done justice. But to condemn a man to an earthly hell, where he will be transformed to elements and incessantly torn apart and assembled in other forms to be torn apart again, is something from Dante's Inferno. She asks Kathy to carry the suitcase full of money she has been paid for the job, and Kathy agrees. As they walk off to Alessia's car, they hear screaming from the wood. Alessia is crying. Kathy understands why her friend needs her, why she wanted her to come along. Doing what is right is sometimes wrong—or painful—or both at the same time.

The story appeared in a magazine called The Edge of Propinquity. It has an archive but says my story is missing, unfortunately.

A great story that is not missing is my novella Le Cafe de la Mort. You were astonished to find out your lover is the Angel of Death; more so when you find out she has been sent to Gehenna for violating angelic law; but even more when you are told you are the only one who can free her. 

 

For more titles, visit my Writer's Page.

 

I would love to hear your comments.

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.