Le Souffle d'un Cadavre

I don’t know. I kick around ideas sometimes and then they kind of disappear. But I keep coming back to this one. You know, it is the one that I was flapping around thinking it would be good for a good old fashioned noir-style press and the guy got right back to me and told me to suck a big fat fatty. But I don’t think he was right. It is fun from the get-go and really, I don’t know, how it starts and how it ends, the book, not the excerpt, I mean, tell me I am wrong. I didn’t send him this sample, but he didn’t bother to ask. There was no conversation. Not that that means anything, my only point is that I thought we were living in the good times of publishing and doesn’t that mean we should have some good times? Who can say no to such hilarious prose?

The writing:

[1]

The sun slapped the skyline like a dirty diaper falling onto the bathroom floor of the bus depot in the worst part of downtown Saint Louis. Even god himself couldn't tell what was dirtier, the floor or the diaper or the skyline. Shit, he probably would have just kicked the diaper under one of the stalls and let the junkies use it to nod off with, such was his benevolent nature. Who am I to judge? I could use a little nap myself, a change of diaper and a good old fashioned burping, if you can catch my drift, not that there is much drift to catch, I been hitting it pretty hard lately, between the Broad and the Dame and the Arch, I got my hands full, and you can't tell me I don't need a little break everynowandagain, because lord knows I deserve it, maybe he'll kick me a dirty diaper soon enough, give me the big nod once and for all, then maybe I can catch some sleep.

I don't get sentimental like this very often, in fact I can't remember the last time I felt this way, staring out over the Big Miss from Signal Hill, wondering where it all went wrong, and why I am the one to blame, because surely it had to be me, who else was there? If anything tied everything together it sure the shit aint the ghosts down there in the cemetery getting ready for bed. And, yes, the cemetery, my retirement plan, one day, you'll see, I'll just open this window and take a swan dive in to plot 412b, pin a note to my suit jacket that reads; Just shovel me in. But I aint there yet. I still got a few good ones left, that is if this one doesn't send me into an early retirement. For now, I suppose, I got something to live for, this bottle of Brawl's Inferno, this pack of unfiltered Jet Blacks and this horrible haircut I gave myself just two days ago when I thought I was heading to court, but a lot can happen in two days, right? Even Jesus was born in a day. Or was it, Jesus wasn’t built in a day? I forget my bible studies.

I'm feeling good though. Right now at least. I got nowhere to go and I am in no big hurry to get there. Lord knows I can't go home, Boy Slice did a number back there that even the insurance agent blushed at, told me to; Start looking around. We'll get back to you. Good luck and et cetera. And I don't know, maybe I was in the market for a new place to live before, I just didn't know it yet, Boy Slice was just helping me along. God bless his heart. I am hoping god blesses it with a lead kiss if you catch my drift, but I am in no position to make that happen, not now at least, I had my chance and I blew it, que sera or whatever it is they say when you get diddled up the rodeo and down the rope. I'm too old for thigh rashes, yet here I am, some dumb teenaged phys. ed. victim, too weak to climb the rope, but too stupid to not try and light the thing on fire. Oh, boy, would I love to light that thing on fire. Watch it burn. Burn the whole place down to the ground and snort the ashes. Then I could retire easy. No regrets.

I can't say I was minding my own business two days ago because I was not. Like any good American entrepreneur I had spent six months worth of work buying an ad in the Penny Pincher letting the town know I was open for business; You got ideas? I had said, I got ideas, I had said, Call Klondike 69, I had said, ask for Winkers, I had said. And because someone had ideas and had wanted somebody with ideas to help them, they called me. And because I was sitting at my desk, the same desk I am sitting at now, watching the sun slap the skyline like a dirty diaper, drinking Brawl's Inferno, smoking unfiltered Jet Blacks dipped in formaldehyde, I answered.

And then, guess what? Winkers gets into some trouble. All I am saying is that writing is funny business, and really, the best thing you can do as a writer, if you are a writer, is to pay attention to the stuff you like, and forget about the rest, because there are a billion of us out here, and we are all screaming for attention, but the second we get it, we run gun shy into the shadows to pretend it never happened. And then when the coast is clear, we wonder why nobody paid any attention. Writing is putting your shame on display. Hoping it is good enough to be part of the conversation, and then wishing it would just go away. Keith Ridgway put it best a few weeks ago when he wrote:

“Can’t somebody re-write my books for me?”

I mean, I am paraphrasing, but, yes. And no. That is your shame, buddy, yours and yours alone. Own it. It won’t get better with time. Publishing is like a hand grenade, you throw it out there and then duck for cover. The best you can hope for is somebody standing next to the debris with a notepad asking you why you threw the thing in the first place. And mostly, you are throwing missiles onto abandoned battlefields, the armies have moved on, and you are standing there, your ears ringing, your boots stuck in the mud, wondering where everyone went. Grateful to be alive, but wondering why the action is over there now. The fear of missing out. But do you really want to chase the action? You tell me.