A Writer's Tale (9 page)

Will come along And dig it with love like me.

Patience
(1967)

Some of us are Waiting to walk Along a beach at dusk And stumble Not on a sea weed, Sea bone, driftwood, But on Skulls

Of Some Of us Are

Waiting (patiently)

For things to get Rather sticky red With us

Before things get Too dry to drink.

Assassin’s Meditation
(1967)

Today I could have lost My lotus down the chest Of president or king, Died petal after petal Down the warehouse wall Into a siren asphalt fire. I could have knelt

At Tower Hill To die with More Or grown black wings With Latimer. Today I could have slanted My thighs through the sky Grey doom of death’s belly, Slid down a cliff of shadow Into the slated, shouting sea…  Taken my blood By the bone of its hand And led it, trembling, Into the alter of tomb.

An Early Story

Note: “Beast” was published in
Jason,
the literary magazine of Willamette University, and won second place in the Willamette writing contest. The year was 1966. The kid was a sophomore. The tale is a sign of things to come.

Beast

“I’LL NOT ALLOW ANY SUCH BEAST IN THIS HOUSE! RICHY CAN RANT AND rave till Doomsday, but I’ll not allow a dog in this house. Scratching up the furniture, tearing the curtains…  ”

“It’s cats that tear curtains,” corrected the father.

“Dogs too. And they smell.
And they
bite. They carry disease.”

“So do children.”

“But I’m not allergic to children! Besides, why should he want a dog anyway? He’s got everything else a boy could ever want. We don’t want to spoil him.”

“He doesn’t have many friends,” his father said.

Rich watched the wind float a yellow leaf downward onto the lawn. I’ll rake them all up Saturday, he thought. For Dad. A sad ache of tenderness swept through him. He rolled off the bed and walked to his desk, beside which sat a wooden box. He had made the box.

One board of the side facing him was too long, its rough edge steepling above the top.

The boards of the other side had come out even. Rich felt proud of the box. Especially of the way the screws went in so straight to hold the hinges on. The latch would also have met success except for a shortage of screws that left one side of the holes empty. Light brown wood showed where the slotted screw head should have been. The rest of the box was white.

A
padlock sealed it. Rich reached inside his shirt for the key but his mother’s voice came
again.
“There’s Jimmy and Allen. He spends a lot of time with them. He seems to like them well enough.”

“I hope not!”

“Charles!”

“Hell, honey, those kids are creeps. Just like their parents.”

“Allen has a dog.”

“Hallelujah!” he sang.

“Don’t act like a child.”

“My only son associates with creeps so he can pet a dog! And I’m not supposed to act like a child?”

“Don’t yell! Rich’ll hear you.”

Rich chuckled. He had left the white box and returned to his bed.

“He’s undoubtedly heard everything we’ve said since I came in the door. Have a nice day, Rich?”

“Awright,” he called.

“That’s good.” To his wife, “See?”

“Richy, time to get washed up for dinner.”

“Awright.”

He sat down at the table with its three plates white-gleaming empty, one glass of milk, and two thin-stemmed frosted glasses 3/4 filled with Chablis. It looked to Rich like weak apple cider, but he knew that it wasn’t. He had tasted it once in secret and had gotten sick.

His mother brought spaghetti to the table. He stuffed a chunk of French bread into his mouth.

“Rich,” said his father, “how many times do I have to tell you not to eat before grace is said?” His mother sat down. “Will you say grace now?”

“God is great, God is good, let us thank him for this food. Amen.”

“You should have combed your hair before dinner,” his mother said.

“I guess,” he said.

“What have you done today,” his father changed the subject.

“Nothing.”

“He’s been pouting. That’s what he’s been doing. Pouting about not having a dog.”

“Why do you want a dog?”

“I don’t know, I just do.”

***

Rich pulled on his jacket and ran outside. The air was peaceful with the smell of burning leaves. That was his favorite thing about autumn. Better than bright leaves against the blue sky, better than the first football games, better than the strange excitement of starting school. The smoke odor was his favorite thing about autumn.

He ambled up the street with his hands stuffed in his bluejean pockets. Gary Cooper. He wished there was a straw around to suck on. Only asphalt and grass and elm and red brick. Grass wouldn’t do. He would say “Yup” instead. The ambling and the “Yup” would do it. He ambled up to the front door of Allen’s house.

Rich touched the doorbell. It had a hair-trigger. Only chimes and a high-pitched howl answered the touch, no footsteps or voice. He touched the button again. Again the chimes and howl, but this time came a voice. From the backyard. So Rich cut across the front lawn and down the side of the house to the back.

“Hi Rich!” yelled Allen. “Come here.”

“Yeah, come here,” Jimmy echoed.

Both boys were crouched above a special patch of grass. Rich joined them. “Howdy!

What’s goin’ on?”

“A mouse,” answered Allen.

Rich knelt beside the other two boys. “Yeah,” he said with
amazement.
It was a live hump of greyness half-hidden in the grass.

“It’s shaking.”

“Cold.”

“Winter’ll be here pretty soon.”

“And nighttime,” Rich added. He hesitated to say anything.

He knew almost nothing about mice. Allen probably knew a lot about mice. Allen knew a lot about most things. His father used to be a professor of history.

“I think we oughta warm it up,” stated Allen.

“How?”

“Bring it along over to the patio.”

Jimmy lifted the quivering mouse out of the grass.

Rich stroked its back with his forefinger. “It sure
is
cold,” he said. “That shivering under the fur is awful.”

“You telling me?” Jimmy stared, vaguely repulsed, at the furry animal that stood passive and shivering in his hand.

“Come on,” cried Allen. “Ya gonna bring it over?”

Jimmy followed orders. Within the charcoal broiler, the mouse continued to crouch, motionless except for the quiver.

Rich wished that it would move. He had never seen a mouse from so close and wanted to see it run.

“Go in the garage and get the gas,” Allen commanded Jimmy.

“You. I don’t know where it is.”

“It’s on the lowest shelf and it’s in a red can.”

“You get it.”

“If you get the gas, I’ll light the match.”

Jimmy went for the gas.

Rich stared at the mouse. “You know,” he drawled, “I don’t think we oughta do it.”

“It’s cold, ain’t it?” Allen laughed. The parted lips were very red and Rich had once almost asked if it was lipstick. But he hadn’t.

“I don’t know,” Rich muttered, forgetting his Gary Cooper drawl.

“Are ya yellow?”

“Nah.”

Jimmy brought the red gasoline can. He unscrewed the larger of the two lids and reversed it so that the flexible spout pointed upward. “You wanna pour?”

“Nah, you can.”

Jimmy handed it to Allen and stepped back. Allen poured.

The gas looked like strong cider. Its fumes killed the autumn odour. And the mouse began to run, feet ticking against the metal floor.

Allen stood above the arena with a cardboard match in his hand, its red tip poised against the striking surface of the pack. “I can’t do it!” he cried. “I can’t!” Then his red lips thinned. He struck the match and dropped it into the broiler. The gas burst aflame with a quick, hollow wind sound. The ticking speeded as the mouse scampered in circles squeaking. It didn’t squeak loudly. The squeak was as soft and steady as the ticking of its feet against the flaming metal. The fire sound almost smothered both. Then both stopped.

The mouse lay on its side.

Rich expected Allen to remark about the effectiveness of the warming process, for the grey animal no longer shivered. But Allen said nothing. The trio stood in a circle around the charcoal burner and stared at the corpse.

Then Jimmy said, “It doesn’t even look burnt.”

“Look how its fur is all stuck together,” Allen said. “Like it’s been in a river.”

“Yeah, it just looks wet,” Rich said.

“But it
is
dead.”

“Must’ve been the smell of gas. Maybe it got exfixiated.”

“Funny it isn’t burnt.”

“Yeah.”

Allen lifted it with two sticks and carried it to the edge of his lot and dropped it in the alley. “I gotta go in now.”

“Me too,” Jimmy said.

Rich walked home as fast as he could.

Leaves whispered through the open window. He sat up in bed and leaned against the sill to look out. The leaves did not seem to move. Then a tiny patch of blackness floated downward. He saw it against the lighter darkness of the street and it disappeared when the street no longer lay behind it.

Rich rose slowly, careful not to let the squeaking bed springs make too much noise. Then he tiptoed around the bed to the box. It looked white, though hidden in the shadow of Rich’s bed. He knelt beside it, opened his pajama shirt and touched the key. It was cool against his chest. He bent low over the box so that the key would reach the padlock without being removed from around his neck. He fitted it into the slot. He pushed it inward slowly, so that the sound would come as individual clicks, not as a quick loud rachet. With a hollow clack, the lock fell open. Rich removed the lock and opened the box and took something out and tiptoed to the window. There, in the dim moonlight, he stared at the picture. Darkness shadowed most of the detail. But Rich could see the man because of his white robe. He could also see white-coated sheep huddled around the man. He could not see the single sheep that the man held close because it was white like the robe.

He wondered about the softness of the wool and about the warmth beneath the wool. A sheep is better than a dog, he thought.

The breeze became a wind, a cold wind that knocked leaves out of the nearby treetops and sent them spinning sideways so that they flew a long distance before landing. They slipped from the trees in fleets. Few would be left by morning. Maybe it’ll snow, Rich thought. Then his face contorted. Maybe it’ll snow.

He tiptoed toward his closet.

“Time to rise and shine,” called Rich’s father. The boy blinked open his eyes. He stared at the white ceiling, not wanting to move because of the peace. Then he breathed in deeply to awaken his chest. Sitting up, he turned his head toward the closed window. Cloudy.

Probably cold too. But there was no snow and a few leaves still hung from the high elm limbs.

Rich swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. He pulled on his plaid robe.

Bending low so that his head felt sleepy again, he picked up a silver chain from the rug beside the locked box and slipped it over his hair.

With one step, he was standing over the waste basket peering in. One plastic corner showed. A wadded sheet of paper quickly covered it. Now nobody would know. He went to breakfast.

“Good morning, Richy,” his mother said.

“Mornin’.”

“What are you going to do today?” his father asked. “That is, after you finish sweeping the garage?”

“Rake leaves?”

“What do you have up your sleeve now?” the mother inquired.

“Nothin’.”

“We’ve had our final say about the dog,” she warned.

“Martha! Let’s not start that again. It’s very nice, Rich, that you want to rake the leaves.

That’ll be a big help.”

Rich drank his orange juice. When he had finished breakfast, he hurried to his bedroom, shut the door and went to the box. The key pushed in, the lock fell open, and he tossed the two together onto his bed. His white hands threw open the door of the box.

“Time to rise an’ shine,” he whispered. The stiff mouse didn’t stir. Rich lifted it from the box and tickled its belly with his forefinger.

The Pink Tea and Me

WITH THE SALE OF MY FIRST STORY IN 1970, I BECAME A “PRO” AND therefore eligible to join the Mystery Writers of America. I found the MWA’s address in
The Writer’s Market,
wrote a letter, paid my dues, and joined.

In those days, the Los Angeles chapter held a meeting in the Sportsman’s Lodge on the last Friday of every month. We all got together, listened to a guest speaker, and spent a lot of time standing around afterward, drinking and chatting.

Robert Bloch was at the first meeting I attended. I worked up enough nerve to approach him, introduce myself, and tell him what a huge influence he’d been on me. (To which he responded with a quip.)

I really didn’t know anybody there, so I hung out with an elderly fellow named Bill Clark who seemed to be a bibliographer. Bill introduced me around to several of the members.

One of them, Warner Law (an Edgar award winning short story writer) took me under his wing and introduced me to Clayton Matthews (who would later become rich and famous collaborating with his wife, Patricia, in writing numerous historical romances). It so happened that Matt (Clayton) would be hosting the next meeting of their writers’ group, called the Pink Tea. Encouraged by Warner, he invited me to attend it.

At the time, I had no idea what an honor it was to be invited. The Pink Tea was a small, informal group of real pros, including the people who had started the Los Angeles chapter of MWA and who were its early leaders. Such men as Clayton Matthews, Warner Law, Arthur Moore and Jack Matcha formed the heart of the chapter in those days and for several years to come.