No Rest for the Wicked

Sometime recently, I think I remember talking about the gift of gab, and my appreciation for the art of persuasion and rhetoric. To me, it’s a valuable art form that has a whole web of connected associated skills – it can help form you into a greater conversationalist, listener, or storyteller, it forces you to reflect on what something you will say can or will affect who you’re saying it to and thus affect your deliberate decision making, and so much more.

Here’s a quick story about a time where that network of skills laid a total egg and got me nowhere.

It was summer time in 2019, and for the last week I’d been on my hands and knees redoing the floors in my mother’s house as part of its renovation, all by myself. My wrists were sore, my knees were sore, as were my back, my neck, my shoulders and my goddamn will to live, but I’d gotten it done. And now it was Saturday, and I’d gone to a casino one town over to sit my ass down, have a beer, and watch a UFC event at their sports bar.

Weird thing about me: I like getting carded. I think it started when I was maybe twenty-two at a grocery store, and the clerk doing the bagging called me “sir.” When I get called “sir” or give my ID at a bar, I feel like a high-ranking government agent giving my clearance code to a classified sector or something.

Overblown, but how I feel.

Now, I had never been carded before going onto the gambling floor at this particular casino, but this time as I approach to make my way to the sports bar that is my destination, security fella by the name of Brandon, as I would come to find out, welcomes us and asks for our ID’s.

Here’s the rub. My driver’s license had expired, like, a week before this. But with the aforementioned renovating and back-breaking floor work, I hadn’t had the time or emotional fortitude to make it to the DMV yet. I don’t think it matters, but I know how the world can be. And sure enough, Brandon sucks in air through his teeth as he looks my card over and goes, “Ah, hey. Your ID’s expired.”

I play it off pretty aloofly and explain my situation with the floors and the DMV and broken spirit and such, and the whole time he’s nodding, knowingly and smiling sympathetically.

“I get it, man. But it’s still expired, and technically I can’t let you on the floor without a valid government ID.”

I laugh, pretty warmly I think. “Hang on. So, two weeks ago, I’m certifiably twenty-six years old. But now, half a month later, we just don’t know if I’m of age?”

He laughs with me and holds his hands up. “I get it, but dude it’s my job. I can’t. I’m sorry.” He laughs again. “Like, really. I am. But they’re the rules.”

“They’re dumb ones,” I chuckle.

“I agree,” he nods.

“Tell you what, man, I don’t- I’m sorry, by the way, Evan.” I hold out my hand to shake like I’m finally introducing myself, which he does and tells me his name is Brandon. “Hey Brandon. Dude, my back is f***in’ mush. I’m not here to gamble, I’m not here to even drink, I just want to put my flat, tired ass in a chair to watch the fights. Here.” I dig my wallet out of my pocket and hold it out to him. “Brother, please even, hold onto this as collateral if you have to. My butt,” I point to it, “just wants that chair,” I point to one maybe six feet behind him, “for the next two, trouble-free hours. Can you level with this broke-ass, tired-ass, tryin’-to-be-a-good-son-to-his-mother-ass bitch and let me have a seat? You can hold onto my wallet and watch me, hands on the table the whole time. That cool?”

He smiles and laughs with me the whole time, and by the end of my diatribe- well, he hasn’t exactly been won over, but he does level with me.

“Listen,” he says, “I really can’t let you through. I really could lose my job.” He takes a big breath. “But what I will say is that I go on my break in about ten minutes, and I’ll be walking away from my place here. And, like, from there, whatever happens happens, y’know?”
“You a real cool motherf**ker, Brandon,” I tell him. “Thank you.”

Now, of course, it doesn’t work. Like, it sounds nice in a conspiratorial sort of way on paper, but naturally as soon as he walked away his replacement fills his place like clockwork without room for me to slip past. So, I shrug, and start trying to work my magic on this guy.

No dice. And I throw the whole book at him: “Helping my mom,” “Ow, my back,” “Certifiably twenty-six,” “Here, take my wallet.” Everything. But Brandon must have turned his radio on while I was talking with him or something, because this dude (David, I think) just laughs and shakes his head the whole time like it’s a story he’s heard before – which he probably has, to be fair.

Well, shit. If my plan for the evening isn’t going the way I’d hoped, I’m gonna make some lemonade out of these achy, sore-ass lemons.

“So, hypothetically,” I say to David eventually after a long pause and my book of tricks has long-since failed, “if I tried to just, like, run past you, you’d probably have to stop me, huh?”

He laughs pretty good at that one, but nods his head. “Yeah, probably would,” he says.

“Would you tackle me, or, like, would you be nice about it?”

“Depends, probably.”

“Easiest just to tackle, huh?”

“Kinda, yeah.”
“Shoot.” Another long pause stretches between us, and he checks some other peoples APPARENTLY VALID ID’s in the meantime. “What if I just took that chair,” I point to the one I did earlier with Brandon, “and brought it out here?”

“Nah. Can’t let you do that either.”

“Hmm. Against the rules too?”

“Yep.”

“Fire hazard or something?”

“Yep.”

“Mm, sure. Well…shit.”

Now, I feel like I should mention that at the top of this when I said Brandon “welcomes us and asked for our ID’s,” it’s because Amanda’s been next to me during ALL of these shenanigans. While I’ve been finding it amusing, she has rightly hated the whole wasted encounter. And believe me, I tried using her as a bargaining chip more than once, like if she could be my chaperon or if I could just use the validity of her ID in the same way spouses share an insurance plan.

Shockingly, neither of those worked either.

My last gambit was to just lean against the railing and watch the screens from afar, since I was tall enough to do so without technically having my feet over the line of the gambling floor. I’d even joked with David about what he’d do if I stepped over the line to lean less far, to which he said he’d have to stop me.

Well, I’ll tell you one thing, after jabbering his ear off for the better part of half an hour, I did inch a couple toes over the line the lean more comfortably and he didn’t say a damn thing.

Boom. That’s the power of persuasion.

“You Are Absolved, My Son.”

You know the phrase “you get more with honey than with vinegar”?

I’m willing to bet you do, but I recently did a workplace poll on who had or hadn’t heard the phrase “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” and was astounded by how many people hadn’t.

So, however extra (as The Kids are wont to say these days) it may be, it basically means that you’ll garner a more positive attitude and curry more favor with folks if you’re sweet and kind than if you’re kind of a mean, smarmy douche.

A few weeks ago, I accompanied Ms. Amanda (#fiance) to a colleague’s retirement party, and this thing was a bash. There were probably two hundred people at what was basically a hilltop mansion, enough food to feed a zoo, and a live band. Like I said, a bash. Maybe a bash and a half. And all of it for a retiring elementary school teacher.

This dude was be-love-ed.

Funnily enough, since I went to this thing expecting to obviously be a plus-one that was a fish woefully out of water (which is, uh, something you say when you feel out of place, #extra), I knew a number of people who were there. I guess if you live in a city long enough, the world can only really get so big. One of them was actually the host!

Here’s to you, Chuck. Helluva place you have, and it was good to see you.

Another was one of the band members. Standing tall and proud in his cowboy hat and blue button-up playing the stand-up bass was my old high school physics teacher, Mr. Davis. First, the wash of nostalgia and familiarity hit me, but second was the dawning realization that this was going to be a day of reckoning.

Back-story time.

See, the last time I saw Mr. Davis, I was a sixteen-year-old rapscallion and troublemaker. Like I said, he taught me physics in high school, and during the segment of the year we were studying sound waves, he comes into class with a shiny set of tuning forks – they’re the two-prong things you hit on something and they go “Biiiiiiiiinnnnng!” They have practical uses, but that was the extent of my interest in them: hit thing, go bing.

So at the end of class that day, I put one of them in my backpack. I nicked it. Absconded with it. Freakin’ stole it.

I’m ashamed of it now, but at the time I fancied myself some kind of cunning rogue.

At the beginning of class the next day, Mr. Davis comes into the class room, and you can tell he’s in a somber mood. Like, really sad. After the morning announcements over the PA, he addresses us:

“Hey guys. I, uh, I noticed that in the back there, some of my tuning forks are missing. (So I wasn’t the only one!!) And I, uh, y’know, the school didn’t pay for those, I did. With my own money, and I did it because I thought they would be a fun thing for us to get to use and learn with and- ah, anyway. Hey so, if I could just get those back, I’d appreciate it. Nobody’s in trouble or anything. I could even watch you put them back. I’m not gonna get mad or say anything, I’d just, ah, I’d like my things back because…well, anyway. Yeah. Please. Thank you. Ahem, anyway, today we’re going to cover…”

Y’all. I was heartbroken over what I’d done. I couldn’t possibly have focused that day. I was so wracked with shame at having stolen this man’s property. I was a dirt bag, and I remember (stupidly) telling a friend later that I’d have felt justified if only he’d come in with fire and brimstone. But he didn’t. He spoke softly, honestly, and sadly. Christ…

I put that tuning fork back in my backpack the second that I got home that day.

The next day, when I returned it, oooooo, the glares that I got from my classmates – and I deserved them. I did it while he was out of the room during announcements, but my peers did, and his plea had tugged at their heartstrings like it had mine.

And I carried around that guilt for thirteen years, until this retirement party.

I see that Mr. Davis is in the band, and eventually the musicians go on break to get some food. As they do, I get up from my seat and follow him, calling “Hey! Matt!” (I get to call him that because I’m an adult now.) He looks back at me with an eyebrow raised, but smiles too. We shake hands, he says he’s headed to the food tables, and I say I’ll join him. On our way he asks, sort of hesitantly, “So, um, how do I know you?”

I laugh and tell him that he taught me physics a lifetime ago, and we chit chat a couple of seconds over how life has gone and where it’s taken us, but them I tell him that, actually, I have a confession. And I tell him about how I stole one of his tuning forks, but what his plea did to my conscience, and how I returned it and all the rest.

No joke, in between scoops of potato salad, he stops, faces me, and performs the sign of the Cross over me saying, “You are absolved, my son,” and laughs.

I laugh with him, but then rightly tell him, “Hey man, this might have been a joke to you, but I legitimately feel lighter all of a sudden. I’ve been carrying that shit around with me for over thirteen years.”

And it was true! Like, there was a crick in my neck that’s gone now, I sit and stand a little taller with a straighter back now. I freakin’ feel like my conscience, at last, has been cleared.

By the end of the night we bumped into one another again, brought it back up, joked, and he friggin’ hugged me. It feels good, closing the loop on a thirteen-year quest for redemption you’re on for stealing from an honest man. 10/10, would recommend.

…

But….except- just, don’t steal.

#PSA

See you guys.

My First Hater (?)

I’m a nobody.

Not demeaning myself, either. The world’s just huge with a lot of people in it. But especially in internet terms, my little presence here is barely non-zero sum. But it is kind of cool to, on occasions when I feel the need to validate my existence through a search engine, google the title of one of my stories and – pop! – there it is with my name next to it.

Today was one of those days, but I found something new.

Now, I haven’t really written anything since about April. No major life events or distractions, I just straight up hit a wall, and after a pretty busy couple of months in the Spring, that silence has been kinda deafening. Normally, when I hit a block in the past, I’ll just try and hammer through it. I’ll sit down and just write a whole bunch of bullcrap with no direction or intention of it being any good ever, but just used to beat down the door of nothingness that was halting me.

This time, I decided to take a different tactic. I decided to take a break.

Revolutionary concept, maybe, but I made the choice to just chill out and take a break from writing for a minute, my story schedule be damned. But a look in the mirror told me that the burnout was very real, and a moment away to let the idea of my notepads and keyboard become fresh (and something that I wanted to do) again was a good move. Rather than beat my head against a wall, I would patiently take some time away and let inspiration come to me…

I posted recently about my one-sided rivalry with a successful author who probably couldn’t remember me if his life depended on it, and as a part of that shared an anecdote that I introduced with a complaint over not having any negativity in my writing life to harness for motivation.

Well’p, found some.

I googled an old story of mine that aired with the NoSleep Podcast a couple years ago, “The Bones of Lily Gordon”. It was a spiritual sequel to another, “The Scars of Eliza Gray”, that aired with The Nightlight Podcast a little bit before that. (Funny enough, I wrote it off of a recommendation that Nightlight’s showrunner Tonia Thompson gave me during my interview with her for my story’s episode.) It’s definitely nothing prolific, but still pretty good, I think. Ironically, though I’ve had a number of horror pieces get picked up, I’ve long said I’m more in camp Fantasy Nerd than I will ever be in tribe Horror Geek.

And “Bones” certainly isn’t a thrill-hopping ride of terror, but a slower, aesthetic horror story with soft worldbuilding and intentional vaguery.

Well, I guess it also has a reddit post dedicated to shitting on it.

I want to be clear that there exists much harsher criticism for art out in the world than was given to my poor story, and I’m sure other work of mine has been read by someone who then went, “Eeeh, not for me,” “Pfft, lame,” or “Jesus, that was stupid”, but I’ve never had to see or hear that before.

But the title of the post is “The Bones of Lily Gordon LOL or whatever”.

…

“Or whatever”??

And don’t you laugh out loud all dismissively at me, whoever you are. You…nerd.

The post addresses some of the vaguery in the story and postulates answers for some of the unexplained, shown-not-told elements, and certainly came away with vastly different answers than what I thought while putting it together. But cow tools are cow tools, and you’re not gonna please everybody.

On the plus side, I feel like a kid that just fell off of his bike for the first time, came away with a lightly skinned wrist, and got those first critic jitters behind me. It also makes me feel sorta bonafide. Like, the worst response you could hope for to your art is apathy (which…I mean, happens plenty, but that’s a separate thing entirely), so if someone thinks negatively of it (ie calls it sleep-inducing, nonsensical, and lame) I’m weirdly compelled to think of that as a compliment.

And it’s gotten me back at my desk and back at work to fill the world with more of my literary crap on this quest for glory and lame critics. So, thank you KF2015 or whatever, you total nerd from two years ago, for reigniting the creative fire in me that fuels my passion for this weird pursuit.

To the rest of you: You’re…you’re just the best.

Update: Truth be told, I wrote this about a week ago and have been meaning to find the time to post it. In the meantime, while looking up the URL’s for the links for this post, I actually found another one critiquing the same episode, that restored my faith in humanity some. Not saying that just because this one included some compliments for my story this time (among more critiques), but the critiques that were present were more fairly given. Also, in reading the first “mean” post back…it really was pretty dang tame. Just called my story “sleep-inducing”, pretty harmless, and I was frumpy about that.
But the praise did help. It always helps. lol
I’m a Leo.