Winter sun rises,
Morning haikus have returned,
Early meetings too.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Hard as Hell (not quite 5000)
When he landed in Fort Lauderdale International Airport, he realized he hadn't even called anyone to pick him up, and couldn't think of anyone that he could call, so he grabbed one of the taxis waiting outside the baggage claim doors and paid his way to the house. Rushing inside, he searched the fridge for something to eat, but there was hardly any food in there. He grabbed two apples and began ravenously eating them. Then he ran to the bedroom and snatched his box of money from under his bed and counted out another twenty thousand dollars, leaving less than ten thousand in the box. After rolling up the money into the smallest possible size, he shoved it down into the bottom of his front left pants pocket, and then locked up the apartment, jumped into his car, and raced to the hospital.
Parkview Hospital was the last place Mike wanted to visit his grandmother. The place had a reputation for being the "hood" hospital, where the emergency room was often flooded with gunshot victims and stabbings, where Mike had seen small children with bloody faces wait hours in the emergency room, while ambulance after ambulance brought in nearly dead patients, men and women who were casualties of street wars and domestic feuds. Worse than that, it was the place where he had seen both his mother and his father pronounced dead, each of them with bullet wounds in their chests.
When he pulled into the parking lot of he hospital, two ambulances were blocking his way, waiting in line at the rear entrance to the emergency room. He looked for a way around them, but with the two of them in the lane he couldn't even squeeze by. He knew his grandmother was on the third floor, and he craned his neck under the windshield to try to see if he could spot her window. Cursing the ambulances, he was just about to turn around and park the car at the Walgreens across the street when the first ambulance unloaded its patient and pulled around and out, clearing up the lane.
Mike slammed down the gas pedal and sped around the second ambulance, even as it was moving out of the way. The car screeched to a stop in the nearest spot available, right under a street light, and Mike jumped out and dashed across to the main entrance of the hospital, clicking the remote lock on the way.
Once inside, Mike steeled himself for the slow service he usually got at the front desk and security checkpoint, and was glad that at least nobody was the waiting ahead of him. There was only one door leading away from the lobby, and a large desk and a podium like at the bank. A woman in scrubs sat at the desk behind a computer, lazily watching the screen and moving the mouse, while a man in a navy blue security uniform stood behind the podium watching Mike enter without greeting him.
"I need to see Beverly Barnes," Mike said, already pulling out his wallet and identification, "she's in room 318."
Mike looked from the receptionist to the security guard for what seemed to I'm like more than a minute before either one of them answered.
Finally, the receptionist made one more click of the mouse and nodded her head agreeably, and then glanced in Mike's direction. "Sign in with security."
Only then did the guard make any sort of move towards Mike, by pushing a clipboard and pen across the level top of the podium in his direction. "Identification," the man said.
Mike slapped his drivers license down onto the top of the podium next to the clipboard. He tried to lock eyes with the guard, but he seemed to be watching something going on through the glass double doors at the entrance of the lobby. Mike looked over his shoulder in that direction and saw nothing interesting.
After the guard slowly copied his license number down on the clipboard form, and Mike had signed the adjoining box and snatched back his license, the receptionist gave him a sticker to wear and waved him along toward the heavy door leading farther into the hospital. The were offering colored lined along the center of the white tiled floor, orange, blue, and green. Without needing to read the sign with the legend on the wall, Mike knew to follow the orange line to the elevators, remembering the layout from having been here so many times, both as a patient and as a visitor.
By the time he got to the door, he was already cursing himself for not picking up some flowers or a card or something to give his grandmother. Even though he knew his grandmother had never been impressed by flowers, and would only say he was wasting his money on presents for sick people, he hated walking into the room with empty hands. Then just before he opened the door, he pulled the roll of money out of his pocket, peeled away two thousand dollars, rolled it up into a separate, smaller wad, and put them in different pockets. Shoving his hands in his pockets over the money, he used his shoulder to ease the door open and peek inside the room.
There were two beds in the room, but the one closer to the door was empty. Through a thin curtain between the two, Mike could see his grandmother alone in the room, lying in the bed closest to the window. Her eyes were closed, and she was very still, but Mike knew she wasn't sleeping by the way her hands folded so nicely over her stomach. She was only resting when she did that; when she slept, it was always on her side. As a little boy, Mike had sneaked into her bedroom on too many scared nights not to know that.
"Grandma?" Ike called, stepping into the room, his hands still in his pockets, his shoulders pulled together making a sunken curve of his chest.
The old woman in the hospital bed opened here eyes weakly, as if coming out of a daydream, looked his way for a moment, and then turned her head and shoulders towards the window and stared through it at the street outside and the cars passing by.
"Grandma, what happened?" Mike sat in the old green vinyl chair between the hospital bed and the window. There was a rolling tray over the bed, carrying a tray with a half-eaten sandwich and a cup of apple juice. He pushed the tray away and pulled the chair up closer to the bed, between his grandmother and the window.
Beverly rolled over onto her other shoulder and turned only slightly away from Mike, closing her eyes as if she were trying to sleep. "You would know if you had called at all."
Mike watched his grandmother's face, her eyes closed, her mouth pursed, but other than that, emotionless. He had seen this in her before, her heart filled with hurt, but too proud to say it, and without anyone to tell. He searched his ind for an apology, an excuse, a reason for his inattentiveness and neglect that would make it sound better than it was. Not one came to mind.
Mike steeled himself for what he had to say. He waited for the words to come, but they didn't, and he knew they wouldn't come on their own. He was so like his grandmother, he knew, slow to anger, quick to act, but hard to apologize. He gave himself the same ultimatum he gave whenever he had something that needed to be said, whether it was to a woman, a rival, or an authority figure. If you don't make your move in ten seconds, he shouted at himself in his mind like a drill sergeant, then you're a punk, a sissy. And then he started counting backwards. It took I'm all the way to two before he spoke.
"I'm sorry, grandma," he said, slowly and deliberately, but with his eyes on the floor and his hands back in his pockets again. "I wanted to call, but I've been so busy, and ..."
"I know how busy you've been," she said, easing into the bed on her back, glancing at Mike momentarily. "I've seen you on the television."
Mike stood up and moved towards the bed, taking his hands out of his pockets and pushing the rolling tray even farther away from the bed. Leaning over his grandmother until he was looking down into her face, he tried to catch her gaze, but she turned her head away from him again. This time, however, Mike could swear he saw her smile, or at least try not to.
"Grandma," Mike exclaimed, sitting on the bed next to her, "I didn't know you watched 106 and Park."
This time she did smile, but quickly turned it into a derisive look. Even so, Mike caught it and smiled back. "Wait," he said, "when did you get cable?"
"I didn't," she said, looking up at her grandson now with a hurt look on her face, "I don't watch the trash and foolishness. Mr. Jenkins next door let me come over and watch when you were on." She smoothed out the hospital sheet over her abdomen and legs, and looked up at the dark screen of the television. "His children seem to think you're quite good," she said, looking up at Mike on the last word.
Mike reached over to his grandmother's hand resting by her side over the sheet and stroked it. He cocked his head to the side and smiled in that way he had since he was six, the way he knew would get to her. "So what do you think?" he said slyly.
Beverly Barnes looked up into her grandson's face. Her hand was motionless under his. "You used to be different."
Mike moved his hand from hers, his brow twisted up and his eyes narrowed. "You mean you don't like it?" he said. "I've won every time I've been on."
Beverly softly moved her hand over his and squeezed his fingers together. "It's good," she said, "It's not that it's not good, but ..."
Mike waited for her to finish her thought, and then jumped in when she didn't. "I'm not cursing or anything, and I'm keeping it clean." He stood up and walked around to where he had pushed the food tray near the end of the bed.
The old woman tried to sit up in the bed, winced, and then lay back down. Grabbing the controller for the bed frustratedly, she pressed the button to raise the head of the bed, rolling her eyes as she slowly rose into a sitting position. Once the bed stopped moving and she was upright, she sighed noisily before speaking.
"Clean is one thing. I've heard you rap before, and I know I told you to keep it clean." she said. "But what I've heard you saying on the show lately is so ...," she looked away from Mike out through the window, "so dark."
Mike looked at her puzzled.
"I'm not even sure what I mean, Mike," she continued, "but it's different, darker, meaner. And you're different, too."
Mike picked up the apple juice from the rolling tray, smelled it, and then took a sip. He shrugged his shoulders and put it back down. "I don't know what you mean, Grandma," he said, walking around to the other side of her bed.
"Like I said," she muttered, half under her breath but loud enough for him to hear, "I don't either." She pulled on the hospital bed sheet until it covered not only her stomach and chest, but even came up to her neck. "Since that first call I got when you landed in New York, son, I haven't heard from you at all." She fidgeted some more with the end of he sheet. "I had a heart attack, in my own home, and I yelled across to the neighbor for help, and all I could think about was that maybe I wouldn't see you again, and how would you know what happened?" She shook her head back and forth as if fighting off some pest of a flying insect. "I knew you were all right, you always are, but it's been a tough couple of days for me."
Mike looked at his grandmother, and really saw her for the first time. Not the hardened woman of war with words, fists, and bullets all ready for action at the same time, but an old woman, with more failures than successes behind her, one who has lost her son, her daughter-in-law, and her peace of mind in the bargain. He felt rotten. It seemed to him that this woman deserved better than to lie on a carpet in pain and call out to strangers and bystanders for help. She had taken from him, but Mike knew She had given him much more in return. He resolved to be the son she deserved, even if she didn't get him, even if her true son had been a devil. He watched her turn away from him again, not angry, to seemed to him, but hurt. He watched her eyes close slowly, and noticed for the first time since he had entered the room that it was not sadness that closed them that way, but pain and fatigue. When her eyes were fully closed, he drew the smaller roll of bills out of his pocket and dropped it into her purse on the side table next to her.
Parkview Hospital was the last place Mike wanted to visit his grandmother. The place had a reputation for being the "hood" hospital, where the emergency room was often flooded with gunshot victims and stabbings, where Mike had seen small children with bloody faces wait hours in the emergency room, while ambulance after ambulance brought in nearly dead patients, men and women who were casualties of street wars and domestic feuds. Worse than that, it was the place where he had seen both his mother and his father pronounced dead, each of them with bullet wounds in their chests.
When he pulled into the parking lot of he hospital, two ambulances were blocking his way, waiting in line at the rear entrance to the emergency room. He looked for a way around them, but with the two of them in the lane he couldn't even squeeze by. He knew his grandmother was on the third floor, and he craned his neck under the windshield to try to see if he could spot her window. Cursing the ambulances, he was just about to turn around and park the car at the Walgreens across the street when the first ambulance unloaded its patient and pulled around and out, clearing up the lane.
Mike slammed down the gas pedal and sped around the second ambulance, even as it was moving out of the way. The car screeched to a stop in the nearest spot available, right under a street light, and Mike jumped out and dashed across to the main entrance of the hospital, clicking the remote lock on the way.
Once inside, Mike steeled himself for the slow service he usually got at the front desk and security checkpoint, and was glad that at least nobody was the waiting ahead of him. There was only one door leading away from the lobby, and a large desk and a podium like at the bank. A woman in scrubs sat at the desk behind a computer, lazily watching the screen and moving the mouse, while a man in a navy blue security uniform stood behind the podium watching Mike enter without greeting him.
"I need to see Beverly Barnes," Mike said, already pulling out his wallet and identification, "she's in room 318."
Mike looked from the receptionist to the security guard for what seemed to I'm like more than a minute before either one of them answered.
Finally, the receptionist made one more click of the mouse and nodded her head agreeably, and then glanced in Mike's direction. "Sign in with security."
Only then did the guard make any sort of move towards Mike, by pushing a clipboard and pen across the level top of the podium in his direction. "Identification," the man said.
Mike slapped his drivers license down onto the top of the podium next to the clipboard. He tried to lock eyes with the guard, but he seemed to be watching something going on through the glass double doors at the entrance of the lobby. Mike looked over his shoulder in that direction and saw nothing interesting.
After the guard slowly copied his license number down on the clipboard form, and Mike had signed the adjoining box and snatched back his license, the receptionist gave him a sticker to wear and waved him along toward the heavy door leading farther into the hospital. The were offering colored lined along the center of the white tiled floor, orange, blue, and green. Without needing to read the sign with the legend on the wall, Mike knew to follow the orange line to the elevators, remembering the layout from having been here so many times, both as a patient and as a visitor.
By the time he got to the door, he was already cursing himself for not picking up some flowers or a card or something to give his grandmother. Even though he knew his grandmother had never been impressed by flowers, and would only say he was wasting his money on presents for sick people, he hated walking into the room with empty hands. Then just before he opened the door, he pulled the roll of money out of his pocket, peeled away two thousand dollars, rolled it up into a separate, smaller wad, and put them in different pockets. Shoving his hands in his pockets over the money, he used his shoulder to ease the door open and peek inside the room.
There were two beds in the room, but the one closer to the door was empty. Through a thin curtain between the two, Mike could see his grandmother alone in the room, lying in the bed closest to the window. Her eyes were closed, and she was very still, but Mike knew she wasn't sleeping by the way her hands folded so nicely over her stomach. She was only resting when she did that; when she slept, it was always on her side. As a little boy, Mike had sneaked into her bedroom on too many scared nights not to know that.
"Grandma?" Ike called, stepping into the room, his hands still in his pockets, his shoulders pulled together making a sunken curve of his chest.
The old woman in the hospital bed opened here eyes weakly, as if coming out of a daydream, looked his way for a moment, and then turned her head and shoulders towards the window and stared through it at the street outside and the cars passing by.
"Grandma, what happened?" Mike sat in the old green vinyl chair between the hospital bed and the window. There was a rolling tray over the bed, carrying a tray with a half-eaten sandwich and a cup of apple juice. He pushed the tray away and pulled the chair up closer to the bed, between his grandmother and the window.
Beverly rolled over onto her other shoulder and turned only slightly away from Mike, closing her eyes as if she were trying to sleep. "You would know if you had called at all."
Mike watched his grandmother's face, her eyes closed, her mouth pursed, but other than that, emotionless. He had seen this in her before, her heart filled with hurt, but too proud to say it, and without anyone to tell. He searched his ind for an apology, an excuse, a reason for his inattentiveness and neglect that would make it sound better than it was. Not one came to mind.
Mike steeled himself for what he had to say. He waited for the words to come, but they didn't, and he knew they wouldn't come on their own. He was so like his grandmother, he knew, slow to anger, quick to act, but hard to apologize. He gave himself the same ultimatum he gave whenever he had something that needed to be said, whether it was to a woman, a rival, or an authority figure. If you don't make your move in ten seconds, he shouted at himself in his mind like a drill sergeant, then you're a punk, a sissy. And then he started counting backwards. It took I'm all the way to two before he spoke.
"I'm sorry, grandma," he said, slowly and deliberately, but with his eyes on the floor and his hands back in his pockets again. "I wanted to call, but I've been so busy, and ..."
"I know how busy you've been," she said, easing into the bed on her back, glancing at Mike momentarily. "I've seen you on the television."
Mike stood up and moved towards the bed, taking his hands out of his pockets and pushing the rolling tray even farther away from the bed. Leaning over his grandmother until he was looking down into her face, he tried to catch her gaze, but she turned her head away from him again. This time, however, Mike could swear he saw her smile, or at least try not to.
"Grandma," Mike exclaimed, sitting on the bed next to her, "I didn't know you watched 106 and Park."
This time she did smile, but quickly turned it into a derisive look. Even so, Mike caught it and smiled back. "Wait," he said, "when did you get cable?"
"I didn't," she said, looking up at her grandson now with a hurt look on her face, "I don't watch the trash and foolishness. Mr. Jenkins next door let me come over and watch when you were on." She smoothed out the hospital sheet over her abdomen and legs, and looked up at the dark screen of the television. "His children seem to think you're quite good," she said, looking up at Mike on the last word.
Mike reached over to his grandmother's hand resting by her side over the sheet and stroked it. He cocked his head to the side and smiled in that way he had since he was six, the way he knew would get to her. "So what do you think?" he said slyly.
Beverly Barnes looked up into her grandson's face. Her hand was motionless under his. "You used to be different."
Mike moved his hand from hers, his brow twisted up and his eyes narrowed. "You mean you don't like it?" he said. "I've won every time I've been on."
Beverly softly moved her hand over his and squeezed his fingers together. "It's good," she said, "It's not that it's not good, but ..."
Mike waited for her to finish her thought, and then jumped in when she didn't. "I'm not cursing or anything, and I'm keeping it clean." He stood up and walked around to where he had pushed the food tray near the end of the bed.
The old woman tried to sit up in the bed, winced, and then lay back down. Grabbing the controller for the bed frustratedly, she pressed the button to raise the head of the bed, rolling her eyes as she slowly rose into a sitting position. Once the bed stopped moving and she was upright, she sighed noisily before speaking.
"Clean is one thing. I've heard you rap before, and I know I told you to keep it clean." she said. "But what I've heard you saying on the show lately is so ...," she looked away from Mike out through the window, "so dark."
Mike looked at her puzzled.
"I'm not even sure what I mean, Mike," she continued, "but it's different, darker, meaner. And you're different, too."
Mike picked up the apple juice from the rolling tray, smelled it, and then took a sip. He shrugged his shoulders and put it back down. "I don't know what you mean, Grandma," he said, walking around to the other side of her bed.
"Like I said," she muttered, half under her breath but loud enough for him to hear, "I don't either." She pulled on the hospital bed sheet until it covered not only her stomach and chest, but even came up to her neck. "Since that first call I got when you landed in New York, son, I haven't heard from you at all." She fidgeted some more with the end of he sheet. "I had a heart attack, in my own home, and I yelled across to the neighbor for help, and all I could think about was that maybe I wouldn't see you again, and how would you know what happened?" She shook her head back and forth as if fighting off some pest of a flying insect. "I knew you were all right, you always are, but it's been a tough couple of days for me."
Mike looked at his grandmother, and really saw her for the first time. Not the hardened woman of war with words, fists, and bullets all ready for action at the same time, but an old woman, with more failures than successes behind her, one who has lost her son, her daughter-in-law, and her peace of mind in the bargain. He felt rotten. It seemed to him that this woman deserved better than to lie on a carpet in pain and call out to strangers and bystanders for help. She had taken from him, but Mike knew She had given him much more in return. He resolved to be the son she deserved, even if she didn't get him, even if her true son had been a devil. He watched her turn away from him again, not angry, to seemed to him, but hurt. He watched her eyes close slowly, and noticed for the first time since he had entered the room that it was not sadness that closed them that way, but pain and fatigue. When her eyes were fully closed, he drew the smaller roll of bills out of his pocket and dropped it into her purse on the side table next to her.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Things I Learned from Nanowrimo
This year's Nanowrimo challenge was a lot more fun than the last couple of years. I actually like the novel I'm working on, and I feel like I can complete it, unlike the last couple of years. In those instances, I felt like I had committed myself to a story that I didn't really understand or like, and didn't really want to follow through with. This year, however I really look forward to finishing the story. So, to that end, I'm going to keep posting updates to the story until it's over, whenever that is. The continuing saga of Mike Barnes will be updated every Saturday, with at least 5000 words each week. For now, I'd like to share some of the things I've learned from this year's challenge.
1) I can definitely make time for writing. The iPad helps with this, since I can just stop, clear my head, and write whenever I have some downtime and the energy to do so. Everyone seems shocked to hear that I type on the iPad, and I have noticed more grammatical errors due to the autocorrect, but it's still worthwhile if it generates more work.
2) Accountability makes me work harder. By making it public with the posts, I found myself compelled to write, picturing all the people who were following along, not wanting to disappoint them or seem like a slacker.
3) I really want to finish this. The thing that was pushing me forward most of all was the story itself. I did get stuck one time when I didn't know what was supposed to come next. The was a gap in my scene cards that I had to fill in to get the story from one place to another. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have just skipped ahead to another scene that I knew I wanted to write, but I feel the need to go linear with this one, and post the story as it should unfold. But after spending an hour or so writi new scene cards, rearranging scenes, and filling in the gaps, I was back in business.
So, keep looking for updates to the story, starting tomorrow, and thanks to all of my followers for reading along!
1) I can definitely make time for writing. The iPad helps with this, since I can just stop, clear my head, and write whenever I have some downtime and the energy to do so. Everyone seems shocked to hear that I type on the iPad, and I have noticed more grammatical errors due to the autocorrect, but it's still worthwhile if it generates more work.
2) Accountability makes me work harder. By making it public with the posts, I found myself compelled to write, picturing all the people who were following along, not wanting to disappoint them or seem like a slacker.
3) I really want to finish this. The thing that was pushing me forward most of all was the story itself. I did get stuck one time when I didn't know what was supposed to come next. The was a gap in my scene cards that I had to fill in to get the story from one place to another. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have just skipped ahead to another scene that I knew I wanted to write, but I feel the need to go linear with this one, and post the story as it should unfold. But after spending an hour or so writi new scene cards, rearranging scenes, and filling in the gaps, I was back in business.
So, keep looking for updates to the story, starting tomorrow, and thanks to all of my followers for reading along!
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