The Writing Relationship

Heading into August and just over half the year is already gone. The dog days of another Texas summer is in full blister mode and the schedule of writing three weeks a month on the historical novel, We’re for Smoke, and one week devoted to a short story has now become routine.

While I am proud not to have missed a month turning out a short story, I have fallen behind on my page output on the novel. Research has slowed me down a little and one of the short stories ate up more than its allotted week but the main reason is I simply got bogged down on one of the story lines in Smoke.

The best thing about writing historical fiction is the plot line is laid out for you. The worst thing about writing historical fiction is, yep, I’m going there, the plot line is laid out for you. Writing affects your personality; at least it affects my personality. Two months ago I tried my hand at writing hardboiled pulp fiction and researched the slang and lingo. I walked around for two weeks saying things like ‘eat a peach’ and ‘that’s Jake!’

The fiction world sometime drips into reality and sometimes that causes the checkout person at the grocery store to look at you sideways because weird words slip out of your mouth. Don’t get your beezer in a bunch when I’m just bumping gums, I say.  

Most of the storylines in Smoke involve death and some degree of violence. A few of the storylines involve a ton of violence. The past few months have been brutal. A lot of senseless, brutal, wanton death and destruction. It wore me down. It made me avoid the butt in the seat, words on paper, writing.

I think I have bulled my way through. Writing is a relationship. Sometimes you don’t always like the person you love, but you don’t give up on them. You work it out, sometimes you just work through it until you come out on the other side. 

Tom Lee was a black man in Fort Worth who snapped under the burdens of racism. He may have just become fed up. He most assuredly suffered from some severe mental illness. I found him to be sympathetic.  

Sons of Ham

Tom Lee

Tom Lee awoke with blood boiling. Most mornings Tom Lee awoke pissed at one thing or another, but today he aimed to do something about the anger. Today Tom Lee decided not to drink to forget the humiliation of being less than a man; today Tom Lee would drink to bolster the courage to be a man. A man of action.

Tom Lee spent six days a week, twelve to fourteen hours a day on his knees at the feet of Fort Worth’s elite, shining and polishing boots and shoes at the Congress Barber Shop. Tom Lee was, according to the Congress’s owner, S.I. Rodick, a ‘good nigger,’ which meant he did what he was told, when he was told to do it and acted happy about it all the time. There was, however, nothing about Tom Lee’s life that made him happy or proud.

He spent most evening in the Acre, drinking rotgut whiskey and gambling.  He drank to numb the humiliation and he gambled because sometimes he won. A man needs to win every once in a while.  Most times he lost but the maybe one time in ten that Tom Lee won, it made him feel whole, even a little human.

Last night Tom Lee joined a craps game in an alley behind McGar’s saloon. On this night Lee lost badly. He had been foolish to leave his brother’s house with his entire bankroll but he had and within an hour it was gone. He had rolled dice with Pete Soles and Walter Moore. Lee had shot pool with Moore on a few occasions but had never laid eyes on Soles. Lee knew Moore never played straight in pool and hustled drunks and young men, too inexperienced to know they were being taken. Lee offered that Moore and Soles had cheated him out of nearly $100 and he aimed to take it back in hide.

Tom Lee left the lean to in back of his brother’s house where he laid his head and crossed into his neighbor’s yard. He knocked softly on the back door. Mrs. Heath walked over to the screen and the two exchanged pleasantries. Lee was polite and jovial, there was no hint of his real mood. Every black man that lived past the age of thirty knew how to laugh, joke and act pleasant, no matter the true emotions roiling in the pit of their stomach.

“I’s going bird hunting, Mrs. Health or I would like to,” Lee said. “Do you think Jim would mind me borrowing his shotgun? I’ll gladly drop off two quail for dinner when I return it, if I’m lucky enough to shoot three or more.”

“Of course, Tom,” said Mrs. Heath. “I’m sure Jim won’t mind a bit.” She opened the screen door and Tom entered. A few minutes later he left out the front door with the 12 gauge, double barrel shotgun and turned towards town, his pockets, front and back, loaded with bird shot.

Tom Lee walked with a single purpose down East Eighth Street, he drew a few stares from the white men on the street as they looked uneasily at the black man carrying a shotgun down the center of the street. The few carriages and cars on the road gave him a fair berth. When he was dead center of McCampbell’s Barbeque he turned and eyed Pete Soles who was standing at the street side counter eating a plate of chicken, his back to the street.

Jack finally had a moment to step back the grill and wipe the sweat from his face. The lunch rush was easing up and he finally had a chance to step away from the heat of the grill and collected his thoughts and right now he was thinking he needed a long draw of water.

 “Would you look at the no account pig sloppin’ down on a plate of chicken,” Lee said to Soles.

Soles looked around and saw Lee addressing him. “Unless your carrying more money to lose shooting craps, take that shotgun, stick it up your ass and walk back home,” Soles responded with a smile across his lips.

Jack looked out from behind the counter and quickly sized up the situation. It was not good, he surmised. The man in the street toting the shotgun had a blank, cold stare, like he had already pulled the trigger and cared not of the consequences.