"Ah God, You're Killing Me!"

Today’s blog takes us to the fictional location of Mount Bloom Fire Station, where I’m interviewing a handful of my central characters. It occurs to me, belatedly, that these folks often take a backseat to my narcs, Rush and Bobby, so I’m hoping today to rectify that, and to provide my readers with a fuller glimpse of this crew – essentially, who they are and what they do.

            “Most memorable call?” Chief Cotton lounges in the doorway with a coffee mug cradled in his big hand, brown curls on end and a sardonic smile quirking his lips. “Hey guys, c’mere! The nice writer lady wants to know about our most memorable call.”

            “The five kids in the rollover.” Jess Cantwell offers in his unabashed fashion. He is the baby of this bunch, at twenty-two, and the only guy with an earring – big gaudy diamond in his left earlobe. His sandy hair is buzzed short, but he lets a stripe down the middle grow to an inch and a half Mohawk.

            Cotton is frowning at him. “Ugly call,” he says briefly. “Entrapment, sleet, Life Flight couldn’t get to us. We did what we could do.”

            It takes a moment for me to understand there will be no further embellishment, and in that time, Cantwell has moved off to the doorway, where he lights a Marlboro and lets the smoke drift up around his face.

“Downtown fire,” Allen Burwell speaks into the quiet. “Coupla’ kids lit up the old Laundromat. Connected roofs downtown, shared basements, hard wind out of the north.”

“Ten freakin’ degrees below zero,” Cotton elaborates. “Pump froze up, street was a skating rink. Quill broke his ankle.”

“We were frozen in our gear,” Cantwell says. “Like icemen. We couldn’t unbuckle. The newspaper man took pictures of us.”  He holds his arms out stiffly and laughs. “I frostbit two fingers.”

“We lost three buildings.” Burwell runs a hand over the bald dome of his head. “Finally brought a bulldozer in and took out the fourth. Stopped it right there.”

“My ex lived in the upstairs of the building we took out,” Cotton chuckles. “Which pretty much put a cap on the whole mess.”

Nic Thomas wanders in from living quarters with a coffee and a bag of Oreos clutched to her chest. Mount Bloom ’s only female, she is short, and blonde and sturdy in the way of a small athlete. “What about the time me and Jess dropped Albert Logan?”

“Criminy, Thomas, confidentiality.” Cotton pokes her with an index finger, snatches the cookies and scowls at me. “You didn’t hear that name.”

Nic is undaunted. “Grouchiest patient ever,” she says around a mouthful of cream filling. “Frequent flier. He could never talk to us, not one word. Hated the hell out of us. The wife always called, and we’d load him up, not knowing if it was chest pain, stomach, whatever. All the way to Sorrows, we get nothing, not a word.”

“So one day,” Cantwell picks up the thread. “We get a call just like all the others, but when we pull the cot out of the rig at the hospital, it gives. Just freakin’ collapses, and Albert’s on the ground. Thumped the piss out of him.”

“He spoke!” Nic is laughing now. “He said, ‘Ah God, you’re killing me!’ That was it. Never heard him speak again.”

“Dead now anyhow,” Burwell says, and his bright eyes settle on Nic for a moment.

       “I cried when I heard,” she sighs. “I don’t know why. I didn’t like him.” 

      “Her and Quill had a good call last week,” Cotton rallies. “Big guy, full arrest. I’ll never know how they got him into the rig, must’ve weighed four-fifty. He’s still alive. Got him in ICU, but he’s not gone yet.”       

      “It was a nice save,” Burwell acknowledges, and Nic grins.

     “The little boy who fell through the ice,” Cantwell pitches his cigarette outside, and the group grimaces as one.

“Jesus, enough gloom and doom,” Cotton says. “That’s it. We gotta’ do rig checks.”

They are gone – trailing laughter and Folgers scent behind them into the bay - while Cotton’s order is still resonating. 
 I love these guys. 

~Get to know Cotton, Cantwell, Thomas, Burwell and Quill in Lucy's first full length novel, Sugar Man's Daughter.  Available at Amazon.com. ~

The Speed of the World

 The circumference of the Earth at the equator is 25,000 miles. The Earth rotates in about 24 hours. Therefore, if you were to hang above the surface of the Earth at the equator without moving, you would see 25,000 miles pass by in 24 hours, at a speed of 25000/24 or just over 1000 miles per hour.

  

"A Helping Hand" by Juli Cady Ryan

Lol, yes! This is exactly how we feel most days, barely hanging on while the world whizzes around. As though we are on a speed track, moving in ever-increasing fast-forward with each new morning. Never enough time for anything!

Okay, but specifically, where are we going and why so fast?

I think it’s a national problem, but we are so close to it, we fail to see it. Fast food, quick reads, instant messaging. We need it all now - or not at all - and the result is . . .  well, something less than pretty. We are exhausted and obese. We are depressed. And the list of what we don’t have time for is endless. Religion. Family. Aimless chatter. A good book.

And conversely – adding insult to injury - this very deprivation has resulted in the wretched propagation of “me time.”  People, it is everywhere. Our souls are seeped in it. How to make “me time”, what to do with it, how to utilize it, hug it close and keep it keep it keep it to ourselves. We are told continuously that we need to exercise, soul search, beautify ourselves.

Okay, we do, there’s no denying this. But the answer is probably not found in the mirror. The advocacy of “me time” has resulted in an indifferent nation. Coupled with a hurried attitude, it’s disastrous.

Small thought, but, I hope, important. Could we not feed our souls, and indeed, better ourselves, by, first, slowing down, and then, perhaps . . . looking outside ourselves?

What if, somewhere in our sixty to seventy-two hour work week, we made time to shovel the neighbor’s drive? Do homework with our kids instead of telling ourselves that they are better served by learning to do it themselves? What if, at the end of the day, we talked to our spouses? Could we gain more satisfaction than what we find at the bottom of the “me” barrel?  We need more empathy, more humor, more philanthropy.

We need more time, but we also need to recognize the gift in each day.

Ah God, is this preachy? I try to avoid that. But I’m in the same boat as everyone I know. I’m TIRED. I’m dieting. Sometimes at the end of the day I am just angry that I didn’t have time to sit down and read even for half an hour.

So, no wizard here, and I’m afraid, no real answers. But I think when I get off work tonight – whether on time or even into overtime – I’m going to actually look at and  talk to the people I love.

            It’s a start!     

Anatomy of a Bad Man

 “You gonna cut down a tree that size, you better be sure you bring a very big saw.” 

 He tips his head to one side and pins the camera with an emotionless stare, eyes like a cobra's fixed on a bunny. His voice? Pitch perfect, mellow as butterscotch schnapps. He has the smooth inflection of a Baptist preacher, utterly mesmerizing. A cruel mouth and a chilling intensity running just beneath the surface of his cool.

I give you Boyd Crowder. Whether he’s preaching the Good News or elbow deep in his latest massacre, we love him.

           

 

Who watches “Justified”? If you don’t, and you have even the teeniest creative bone in your body, I urge you to tune in. Just for Boyd. Here is a bad man the likes of which we haven’t seen since Bruce Dern gunned down John Wayne in front of God and everyone on the Sunday night movies. Except we hated Bruce. It was clear that we should – after all, he was The Bad Man.

            Boyd Crowder smudges those lines, and as a writer I find this feat most intriguing - not to mention well nigh impossible. Boyd came to us, of course, through the impeccable writing skills of the late Elmore Leonard, and has only been enhanced by the talents of Walton Goggins, who brings him to life on the screen - six feet of rangy height and hair-on-end.  Is that insanity in those cold eyes? Most likely.

            What’s to like? It may just be the voice. I am a sucker for a beautiful accent, and Boyd’s lovely southern tenor is to die for. But I think it’s more than that. The writers have taken great care to keep us, the viewers, invested in the life of this character. This is to say that they have gone to a good deal of trouble to make him a full-fledged, three-dimensional human being.

            Nobody did that for Bruce Dern, and I’m sure it makes all the difference.

             We have trailed Boyd now through four seasons, marking his progression from white supremacist to Born Again and finally to all out bad-ass. We’ve watched him gain and lose fortunes, find and discard religion and maybe even fall in love. Through it all, we have come to know him - and yes, even to like him – and I have come to believe that a shared humanity is the best possible feature a writer can bestow upon a bad man. The lesson, I think, is to make The Bad Man a Real Person. And real people suffer all sorts of real woes, from financial ruin to failed love; these tragedies allow us to bond with The Bad Man and even to sympathize with him.

            Not to mention, of course, if you make your Bad Man as cool as Boyd, everybody across the board is going to love him.

Even if he is rotten to the core.

~*~*~

Related Post and Video:  Tips on Character Development (video featuring clips from "To Kill a Mockingbird")

Murder, Romance, and Mystery: The Bare Bones of "Maypops"

Here’s What’s Coming! The tangible reward for all these long, long winter days spent indoors with nothing but time on my hands. What is it? Hmmm . . . A mastery of P90X and the resultant ten pound weight loss? Pursuit of online continuing education hours in my chosen profession? A Cleaver house complete with tidy cupboards?

These flowers are Maypops - aren't they the brightest, 

most bizarre flower you've ever seen? Also known as 

Passion Flower, and crucial to my story,

but that's all I'm saying for now!

Alas, none of the above. (Lol! How well do you know me?)  But rest assured, dear reader, December and January (and ahem, the previous year and a half) have not been wasted. And so, without further adieu, I give you . . . The Sequel.

Okay, this announcement may be somewhat premature, trapped as I am about two thirds of the way through. But I’ve become a firm believer in early promotions and so - well in advance - I want to set forth the bare bones of Novel Two.

I loved my people so much I couldn’t leave them! And, in fact, I hoarded them all away from "Sugar Man" and stuffed them into “Maypops in September.” (Don't worry, they fit.) Rush is classically cool as ever, tattooed and grungy and totally hot. And Benny is absolutely incandescent beneath her own spotlight, putting her “gift” to use in all sorts of dubious ways. Bobby has a much stronger role, and although I hadn’t intended for him to fall in love (he’s way too smart-ass and oh-so-jaded) when Sophie walked into the Valley Booze, he fell - as he would say - like a hammered sheep. There was no saving him, and very quickly I decided I didn’t want to; this side of Bobby has been so much fun to work with.

What else? Murders, of course. Plural. Romance – the sort of sexy, gritty, streetwise love that my characters seem to excel at. More EMS and fire! My crew got tired of not having enough to do, so they’re featured a couple of times in this novel, in some pretty major ways. I love these guys, such big heroes; Nic is up for lieutenant, so exciting!

Mystery, undercover narcing, and oh yes, Delilah. Johnny’s daughter has every bit of his smarts and cool, plus a heavy dose of angst and a lovely flair for dramatics. Fatherhood isn’t a role that Johnny has dabbled in as much as he should have, so he’s more or less on a learning curve.

Big crime, although I haven’t quite solved it yet.

But I will! “Maypops in September” should be reaching completion by summertime, and I’m so looking forward to dressing it up with a gorgeous cover and tossing it out there.  Get ready people, here it comes!

To Believe in Miracles

So, how many of us practice the Law of Attraction? Some of us do unwittingly, I think – certainly those a generation or two ahead of me, for whom positive thinking was more a natural thing. They had learned it, I think, through hardship.

For others of us, this frame of mind takes a conscious effort.

Positive thoughts! Ah God, we need them now in January, when our blood is chilled as last July’s margaritas, our car batteries dead, and our bellies cramped with flu-like symptoms.

No! This is not how you do this! (I’m learning about this through my awesome oldest child, who – along with her brothers - was given to me as much for my own enrichment as hers) Okay – rephrase. Positive thoughts are good in January, even though we already have an abundance of lovely, sparkling snow to look at by the light of a full Cold Moon. Even though we already have safe transportation to get to work and we’re not hitching up horse and buggy like our great grandparents. Even though we’re still eating enough left over Christmas candy to give us – yes, flu like symptoms.

Lol! Well, maybe tongue-in-cheek, but better, right?

The law of attraction teaches us that we can manifest anything into our lives just by believing it will come to us. By having continuous, positive thoughts about our needs and desires. Like Santa Claus? Well, I don’t know if you can ask for a pony or not.

But why not? How badly do you want it?

I’m Catholic, and this is one of the self-truths that I hold most closely. Because it allows me to believe in miracles (we believe, after all, in Christ’s presence on the altar every day) and not only that, but to name the miracles. The return of my beloved de-clawed kitty when he’d been wandering lost for days amongst the coyotes and stray dogs. What about the patient who lived when he had no business doing so? The reading glasses that miraculously appeared on the coffee table when I know I had already looked there twice?

Well, maybe I couldn’t see them, right? Tee-hee-hee!

But isn’t it better to believe? To have something to hang onto?

Wallowing in negativity is not only a soul-eater, it is an exercise in futility. It’s impossible to move forward when your mind is spinning with the anxieties of possible bad outcomes, past failures and gloomgloomgloom. At some point, you have to turn the page, and in doing so, you have to discover why it is that you are here, what is your purpose, and what tools you need to fulfill said purpose.

Which is all really deep, I know.

But start simply  - good thoughts to replace bad, gratitude for what you already have. A conscious effort to rearrange your thought patterns, turning the dark ones oh-so-slowly towards the light.

Maybe play “Here Comes the Sun” and dance in the kitchen with your baby.

Maybe name your Law of Attraction “God” and acknowledge that what you’re doing is one part hope and nine parts prayer, and He’s listening.

Maybe start eating jelly bellies waaaaayy before Easter; pick a different color every day.

Or maybe . . . okay beautiful people, close your eyes, manifest . . . Spring! 

It will be here sooner than we think.  

 *Art by Amy Roemer

Life in the Spin Cycle

My laundry has, in the past few months, gone almost entirely to darks. Which, okay, doesn’t sound significant, except to say I’ve been working some very long hours and my uniform is, of course, the traditional navy blue. Cargoes, sweatshirts, polos, socks - all blue.

Does anyone else out there gauge their life status in terms of laundry?

Twenty-one and single meant laundry was a once-a-week thing. At Mom’s.

And as a newly-wed, I ironed my husband’s work shirts – can you imagine? Just so, with a crease down the sleeve. Of course, I didn’t get it right – ever – and I finally tossed the laundry basket across the room ( maybe out the window, but it was open, I swear) and that was the end of husband laundry, for a time.

Baby laundry. Itty bitty onesies and blankets and bibs.

“Mommy’s jeans, Rachel’s shirts, Philip’s socks.” My youngest liked to sit on top of the dryer and instruct. Towhead in footie pajamas, chocolate chip mess on his chin.

(Sometimes I still see a trace of the toddler’s smile on the adult’s face.)

Store clerk uniform, art smock, baseball jerseys.

Detasseler’s clothes, some of the worst – mud caked on jean cuffs and ground into knees, athletic socks forever gray.

            Football gear – odor like none other, except for – okay, maybe – whatever we wore to the last house fire.  

The dress clothes my daughter needed for her hostess job. Lay flat to dry, good grief. Wash with like colors. Don’t leave them in the hamper with the football clothes, ugh.

Cigarette smell on tee-shirts, cologne scent in summer dresses, five dollar bills rinsed smooth and pocket knives tossed in the spin cycle. Kids growing up in record time, a blink, a heartbeat, done.

So. Nowadays, my job is colored navy blue, but I still get the occasional flannel shirt or fuzzy pajama bottoms emerging from the chaos in my laundry basket  - remnants of children semi (okay, mostly) grown. And I have the new addition of husband shirts again – these are pocket tees, no creases!  Life is hurtling forward – morphing and changing and moving moving moving. Hurry up – sort and fold!

Capturing 2013

It feels odd to take a year and try to pare it the way a chef would an orange – good slices and bad, delicious and unpalatable. I think because time, to me, always has a fluency about it – this rapid forward motion that makes it almost impossible to corral, or to section off in any way. Months have a tendency to overlap, years to blend together, and only much later do they stand apart in any fashion. And then only through the largest of events – a birth, a death, blizzard or house fire or baptism.

And so, I’m capturing 2013, now, on the very edge of it's demise. Before it begins to fade and blend

This was the year of the book! The little girl inside me – who wrote her first full length novel at age fourteen – was, and still is, thrilled beyond measure to hold the finished work in her hands. Joy, joy!

Another bright thread in the weave looks like this – a patient winking at me, just once, from his hospital bed, breaking my heart in an instant, so that I can barely catch my breath. Such a sweet, crystalline sorrow. I know I won’t see him again.

(And how could elation and heartbreak have much the same effect? Chest tightened, soul squeezed, sudden awareness of the heart beating. Maybe these emotions aren’t so far apart as we believe them to be?  Thought for another day.)

In between the pinnacles – my first anniversary; I love him! Our last high school graduation, Johnny grown up! – lies the middle ground of life. And that looks a little like this – my kids and I at midnight Mass. We hold hands during the Our Father, and while I know the brothers are squeezing the blood flow from each other’s fingers, I am still absurdly grateful for this moment. The four of us together, happy and healthy. 

Or this – my bedroom by lamplight, long shadows on the cream-colored walls. Here is a refuge; I am safe and warm and loved.

My daughter, home on summer break and pedaling ahead of me down the bike path with the sun on her hair and the wind carrying her laughter.    

My parent’s house – home – on Sunday, with the fantastic noise of siblings, nieces and nephews, Mom and Dad. Another year gone by, and this thread is still strong and vital.

My partner and I after a particularly rotten call. The helicopter noise has faded into the distance and we are going about the business of red-bagging our bloodied equipment, and he manages a joke. I don’t remember the joke now, it isn’t important. What matters is the effort, taut smile held bright against the blackness of that day. We’re here for each other, and that means everything. 

Or maybe 2013 could be summed up in the simple image of our cat asleep on the couch. Little fat black kitty, so content, he must know more than the rest of us.