for those about to rock

i have a lot of growing up to do, or at least i did

a couple of years ago, i did some creative fiction for my good friend mike's web page. i revisited it this morning, following a link he recently posted on myspace.

his site had a fun, out-there vibe and self-aware whimsy to it, particularly when it came to the section i ended up contributing to. at the time mike asked me if i wanted to put something together for it, i was in between freelance assignments and jonesing for an outlet to try my hand at the kind of writing that i wasn't completely comfortable with, and this prospect was perfect for that, as it afforded me the room to experiment and go a little crazy (blogging has since then given me that luxury, for better or worse).

my approach was to conceive the kind of ridiculous premise that would be at home in the id of an overactive nine-year-old male and use that as the jump-off point for a deadly serious narrative that belied the silliness of its subject, striving in that way for a surreal comic effect.

the process ended up being a good exercise in maintaining a consistent voice and pace, and in structuring a largish chunk of prose cohesively -- skills that are essential to both fiction and long-form journalism.

looking back at this now, i like how i wrote brian dennehy as a conniving prick and george kennedy as an effeminate, blubbering sycophant (taking my cue entirely from his dragline character from the movie "cool hand luke"). the dialogue's ok, but nowhere is it great, and in some places it's plain clumsy. i think some of the details are well-thought out, but i also think some of the details are a little forced and do more harm than good in the way they hinder the narrative. in the same vein, some of the action is glossed over too quickly, while some of it is indulged to a greater extent than necessary.

anyhow, enough from me. here's more of me, circa 2004:

"Call."

Clouds of cigar smoke hung thick, clinging to the damp basement air. Three portly, sandy blonde/white-haired men sat around a table in the center of the floor playing cards. Each man had a different bottle of whiskey, and each man used a 40 oz. bottle of Hamm's for chasing. Surrounding them were all kinds of barroom paraphernalia: neon beer signs, autographed photos of different entertainers -- mostly faded stars like Bob Denver and Buddy Hackett, and more obscure figures like Scatman Cruthers and Ronald Glass -- lots of vintage sports fliers and pennants and some oddball items like a poster from the movie FX and a spittoon that sat on the cellar floor by the bar in the corner.

The dim buzz of the neons hummed loud in the moment's silence.

"Alright," sighed George Kennedy, laying out his hand on the game table's lacquered surface. "Pair a Jacks."

He let the 's' trail off like a popped tire expelling its last air, then folded his hands behind the cards and kept his eyes on the table, careful not to concede any further disappointment to his opponents.

"Gotcha beat," said Ned Beatty, placing his cards out in the middle by the stacks of blue and gold chips that made up the pot. "Straight, King High."

He nodded as he said this and then looked over at Brian Dennehy, who had just filled his glass with Ezra Brooks bourbon, clinking home one last drop with a tap of the bottleneck against the rim.

"Whatdaya say, Boss?" said Beatty, settling into his chair, staring intently at Dennehy.

Dennehy took a little sip from his drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and smacked his lips.

"Well," he said, twisting his girth in his seat and shifting forward so that his doughy face hovered above his cards, "that sure beats a Two Pair." He frowned as he peered down at his hand.

"Heh heh! Yessir, its about time!" chortled Ned Beatty. He leaned forward and began to sweep the chip stacks towards him, his broad grin displaying two ghastly rows of impacted teeth.

"Uh-uh uhhhhh!" admonished Dennehy. The neon Budweiser sign that hung over Beattys head cast a pale blue glow over Dennehys countenance, and for one freakish moment, his irises seemed consumed with the electric sheen. He laid out a pair of eights and a pair of fours face up on the table, then extended his arm out and held the last card inches from Beatty's nose, as though the card possessed some secret power to freeze him in his tracks.

"That sure beats a Two Pair," he repeated, then flipped the card around and smiled. "But not a Full House."

He tossed the third eight on top of the rest of his cards, picked up the lit Optimo Palma from the ashtray in front of him and clenched the stub in between his teeth.

"Shit!" bellowed Beatty.

"Tough luck, pal," said Dennehy, talking around the stogie, reaching across the table to collect the chips that Beatty had just raked into his own pile of earnings.

"I can't believe this."

"Sorry."

"Yeah, sure," scoffed Beatty. "This has gotta be the sixth or seventh big hand you won in a row. You sure you aint hidin' anything up those sleeves of yours?"

Dennehy stood up and spread his arms out wide. "Search me, fellas."

"I'll be damned," whispered Kennedy. He gulped his remaining Early Times straight from the bottle, slugged down some Hamms to chase the bourbon and then rose from the table with an awkward wobble. "I'm gonna fix me up a Long Island Iced Tea. You guys want anything from the bar?"

Dennehy sat back down. "Nah, you go ahead and make yourself a little girly drink," he said. He looked over at Beatty and smiled. "Me and Neddy here'll stick with the strong stuff. Ain't that right, buddy?"

Kennedy remained where he stood, unsure if he should take the insult to heart or shake it off as just Brian being Brian.

"Said like a real man's man, Brian," said Beatty. He stared at the discard pile that still awaited reshuffling in the middle of the table, and then took a long sip from his glass of Old Granddad, eyeing Dennehy over the rim.

Dennehy blew out a steady stream of smoke, his lips curled into a kind of satisfied pucker.

"Yeah, a real man of honor," continued Beatty, putting down his glass. "You must know a thing or two about honor, right Brian? I mean, you were in the Marines and all, am I right or am I right?"

"One of the few and the proud, sure," said Dennehy as he arranged his chips into neat stacks.

"Yeah yeah, that's right. And man, those stories you used to tell, whooee. I mean, actual combat!"

"Ah, c'mon Ned. We've all got our own war stories, huh? You fellas have told me yours, and I've told you a few of mine."

"Nah, nah. Sure, there's the story about how me and Burt spent the night at a Lebanese whorehouse and I woke up wearing his hairpiece. And George over here," Beatty motioned to Kennedy, who remained standing by the table, his brow knitted with confusion, "he likes to talk about the time he spent the day at China Dynasty, drank 14 scorpion bowls and closed out both their lunch and dinner buffets. But being stuck plum in the heat of battle? Staring down the barrel of a gun, looking death and destruction right in the eye? Those are some stories. Where was it you said you got shot? Wasn't it the shoulder?"

Dennehy smiled and patted his left shoulder. "Right here. Just barely nicked the bone." He took a puff from his cigar. "To this day, I still get the slightest tingle when the weather turns cold."

Beatty nodded and looked down at his drink. "Yeah, uh-uh." He then raised his head and looked Dennehy straight in the eye. "But you forgot one thing that I didn't forget, chum."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"The last time you told us your little war story, you said you were shot in the leg."

"Now wait just a minute."

But before he could finish his protest, Beatty shot up from his chair, gripped the table from underneath and heaved it over, sending Dennehy and all the bottles of booze and poker cards and chips to the hard cellar floor with a terrible crash. Dennehy managed to squirm out from under the table, but Beatty was on him instantly, pinning him to the ground under his foot.

"Yeah, a real man of honor we got here, George!" he hollered. "You know, I did some reading up on our big war hero on IMDB.com, and I found out that all these stories of bravery and valor were dreamt up by his PR people!"

Dennehy whimpered, "No, no, no, that's not true!"

Beatty bent down and belted him across the face. "Shaddup!" He rose up and continued, "You know, I've learned to ignore all your tough talk over the years, and I could've ignored it again tonight."

He reached down and picked up a card that lay next to Dennehy's head, looked at the back, then lowered it in front of Dennehy's face and pointed to show him something on the card.

"But of all the lowlife, phony tricks you could pull, inviting us into your home just so you could cheat us in a friendly little game of poker has got to be the worst."

"No, no, c'mon, Ned."

"Brian," said Beatty, "I want you to squeal like the pig you are."

Dennehy whimpered.

He reached down and belted him once more. "C'mon, dammit! I said squeal like a pig!"

Dennehy whimpered louder.

"Not good enough!"

He stepped back, turned his face up towards the heavens and let out a God-awful wheeze that sounded like a clogged vacuum cleaner, only amplified to an earsplitting degree. And then his belly began to grow. And grow. The buttons on his shirt popped off in succession, one of them nailing the spittoon and rattling loudly around the insides. Threads sprang up as they broke from the seams, the sleeves coming apart in tatters. Kennedy fell backwards against the bar and looked on in horror as Beattys stomach expanded to the size of a huge oil drum.

Dennehy got to his feet and shook his head to recover his senses. He looked up and directly into the blood red eyes of a giant Beatty head.

The giant Beatty head smiled. Then it opened its mouth, revealing a gaping black hole the size of a bass drum, surrounded by crooked tombstone teeth. Beatty made the dreadful broken vacuum cleaner sound once again, and sucked Dennehy with violent force into his mouth.

The wheezing paused, then started up again as Beatty deflated and shrank back to normal Beatty size.

He looked over at Kennedy. "In case you're wondering, my Granddaddy taught me that little trick."

Kennedy stood speechless, mouth agape.

"And as for Brian? Well, he's a part of me now. So he shrank down, too."

Kennedy nodded and looked away. "Oh."

Beatty picked up a few cards from the floor, then walked over next to Kennedy and leaned against the bar. He patted him on his shoulder. "Relax, I'm not gonna hurt you. You're a real friend, big fella. I mean it."

Kennedy looked up, saw that he meant it, and blushed.

"Now look here." He pointed to a tiny red speck on the back of the card, right next to spokes on the Bicycle man. "See, he marked the backs all the cards with different colors according to suit. And along with the location on the back where he placed the mark, well, that told him exactly what cards we had without him having to look at em from the front." Beatty flipped through the rest of the cards he held to show him.

Kennedy's eyes widened. "Wow! How'd you know to look for that?"

"I seen it on the TV one time. Come to think of it, I'll bet Dennehy got it from the same program."

Kennedy nodded, then frowned. "What are we gonna do now?"

"I figure all we gotta do is pick up a little around here, straighten things up nice and neat." He saw that Kennedy's face was still troubled. "C'mon. All the evidence is safe with me for now, right here." He patted his belly and belched. "That is, until I go and see a man about a horse a little later!" He let loose with a hearty laugh.

Kennedy thought for a second, putting it together then shook his head and chuckled. "You know, I just cain't believe he woulda taken us for a couple a suckers. And to think he went to all that trouble just to cheat us out a few bucks."

"Man of honor my keister. That fat fuck had to be the biggest phony I ever met in my life."

Beatty waved his hand dismissively, then went around the counter and began pulling out mixers from the cabinets underneath the bar. "Whadaya say we fix ourselves up a couple a drinks before we get outta here?"

"Well, I think we oughta scoot before his wife gets back and smells somethin' fishy," said Kennedy. He smiled, then leaned in over the counter and lowered his voice, as if he was sharing a secret. "But I sure do like them Long Island Iced Teas."

posted by jomilkman @ 6:55 AM