Rolling along...so HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Did more on APoS though mostly reworking sections I'd already written to have them better match what I've got. And i saw some repetition that may be removed...or may not; it sort of makes sense, at the moment. But we'll see.

Here's a bit from immediately after the attack on the People's Democracy march at Burntollet Bridge, just after New Years 1969. Eamonn is still in the hospital from it. This is eight months prior to the Battle of Bogside; the protestant Royal Ulster Constabulary has decided to reassert its dominance in the Catholic area using brute violence...

------------

Our side of Nailor’s Row and Walker’s Place were hit hard, I think because we were slated for demolition and redevelopment once housing was available, so there would be little condemnation for the destruction. Perhaps they even thought they’d be applauded for saving the Corporation a bit of scratch. But they also poured through Butchers Gate and up from Waterloo, and it was clear from the start they were out to prove they were lord and master of us all in the harshest way possible. Uniforms. Batons. The howling matched with wild faces of animals let loose. Windows smashed. Homes rousted. People beaten for standing there letting them do it. And not a care that reporters and photographers were catching it all. Every last moment, like they had but three months earlier.

Ma was still at Altnagelvin with Eamonn, so Mairead and I grabbed coats and put them on the wains as we heard the crashing getting closer and hurried them into our back yard to hide in the hutch. Then I helped Rhuari over the back wall and he tossed back stones for me to use.

We heard them burst in and begin wrecking anything they could. Glass. Ma’s bit of china. Chairs and tables. Curtains ripped. Growing closer and closer to the back door.

Pots and pans clattering. Dishes smashing. Our table splintering. Each sound closer and closer.

Mairead kept Maeve and Kieran quiet with soft words and bites of hard candy, earmuffs on each of them to muffle the noise. A smile on her, steady and sure.

I closed the door to the hutch and waited as I heard the chaos grow nearer. I quaked within. I coughed but managed to keep it soft. Still I waited, fair-sized stones in each hand, another pile next to me. Rhuari kept tossing over all he could find and I was letting them build behind me.

Then the back window was smashed from within and one bastard stuck his head out and saw me and I shied a stone straight into his head. Caught him in the eye. He howled like a hurt dog and fell back.

Another kicked at the door before deciding to open it from within, and the moment it was wide enough I shied stone after stone at them, hitting some, most missing but causing them to back away in shock. I didn’t let up. Made it seem like there were more than one of me...but my pile of stones was dwindling fast.

Another fat bastard tried to come at me but I hit his knee with a brick and he crumbled, screaming like a child. The man behind him looked at me in horror, and behind him I could see two of them with blood on them, so I sent more stones and bricks and rocks their way and they roared like unfed beasts...but backed away from me. I’d have laughed if I had any breath left in me from it all.

I yanked open the hutch door and said, “Get over the wall, fast. I’ll drop the wains to yous.”

I must have had some look on my face for Mairead didn’t even try to argue. Over the wall she went then I lifted Maeve and Kieran over to her.

She held up her arms to help me, last, saying, “C’mon, Bren.”

I shook my head. “Go. I’m gonna have fun with these bastards.”

Her eyes went wide with horror. “No, you can’t -- “

But I heard them storming back into the house and dropped down to sit on a stone and put on the most innocent face I could as they burst from within, ready to face a horror of men against them. They skidded to a halt upon seeing just little old me.

“Are you done, yet, so I can get to cleaning up before me Ma gets home? She’ll toss a fit at the mess you’ve made.”

One ugly bastard snarled up to me. “Where’s the rest of ‘em?”

“Rest of who?” I shot back. “It’s only me here.”

He yanked open the hutch, saw it was empty, then looked over the wall. He was growling as he hopped back down. I learned later Maeve and the wains had scurried around the corner instead of down the hill, so were out of sight. The ugly bastard grabbed my shirt and gave me the back of his hand. I felt my nose bleeding, again.

“So you shied those rocks at my men?”

I didn’t try to wipe the blood, just glared at him and said, “I did! I’m in me yard and suddenly there’s smashing and breaking in my home and I’m here by meself and some bastard breaks the glass so yes, I shied a rock at him. Shied more till I saw it’s the peelers. Bunch of bloody cowards trying to -- “

He slapped me, again.

“You assaulted a copper,” he said, grinning ear to ear. “We’re takin’ you down to Strand Road and -- “

One of his mates come up and said, “Sir, there’s reporters in front. Photographers. He looks what -- nine, ten years old and he’s got blood on him? I heard over the radio -- BBC’s already called the Executive asking what’s going on. My girl at Malone’s said reporters have already been calling in stories about this and weeping about the poor little Taigs. You want a photo of him, for them?”

The ugly bastard straightened up then slapped me, twice more, and slung me to the ground.

“I got my eye on you, you little cunt,” he snarled.

I just looked at him. Blood smearing my face.

They stormed out, breaking the last of what wasn’t broken as they went.

I sat up, my ears still ringing, and step by step rose to my feet to go inside. Everything was shattered -- from tables and chairs to doors on cabinets to Ma’s little Dresden figurine. I picked it up and saw it wasn’t beyond mending so found a cloth to put the bits into and held them. I could handle that, tomorrow.

I ran water from the tap and cleaned my face. My nose had slowed its bleeding so I pushed a torn bit of cloth up into it and sat on a half-broken stool and just looked around. I had no idea what to do or where to begin.

I must have sat there for an hour before Mairead returned.

“Brendan?” I hear her calling, her voice shaking.

“Aye,” I said, not really thinking about it.

“Oh, good,” she said, getting closer. “I was afraid they’d snatched you.”

I realized I was sitting in a shaft of soft moonlight whispering in through the broken window. And it was cold, but I didn’t care. She picked her way into the kitchen and saw me, and her face grew very still. The moonlight made everything else seem dark so I couldn’t tell the expression on her, but her voice went gentle. “It’s quite the mess.”

I shrugged and held up the cloth with the broken figurine. “I think I can mend this well enough.”

She nodded, came over, pulled a dishcloth from beside the tap and wetted it. Then she squatted beside me and put it to the side of my face. Christ it was cold, but felt so good I wondered at not thinking of doing that, myself.

“Did they hurt you much?”

I shrugged. “No more’n Da ever did.”

“We’re down at Mrs. O’Canainn’s. She has a phone so I rang Ma and she said we’re to stay there till the place is livable, again.”

“Did they go upstairs? The peelers?”

“I haven’t been up but I don’t think so. Looks like they started but...”

I smiled. “Then we’ll be fine. I got twenty-two quid.”

She blinked then nodded. “I’ll talk with Terry. We should be able to get a decent table and chairs, second hand. Or third. Some plates and such. I’ll also ask about repairing the settee. It doesn’t look so bad.”

“We...we’ll need glass for windows.” My voice was beginning to break. “I can put them in if Terry’ll lend me a cutter.”

“I’m sure you can and he will.”

I nodded. I dared not say anything more.

She checked my nose, murmuring, “I think it’s stopped. So let’s go down and have our tea. We can face this in the morning, once we’re fresh.”

I nodded and rose with her.

We walked out into a street filled with the remains of the chaos. Neighbors milled about, snarling curses on the peelers, every one of them. Their voices went soft as they saw me pass with Mairead.

One little girl -- I think it was Jenny Dougherty but can’t be sure; I wasn’t paying her any mind -- rushed up and said, “Bren, is it true you beat the peelers back?”

I know I looked at her, and she gasped and ran back to her mother. And then we were at the O’Canainn’s and going inside. And I was sat at the table and given a bowl of the finest stew ever made on the face of the earth. It didn’t seem so long since I’d have Mai’s fish fingers, but I found I was starving and the smell of it killed any hesitation on my part. Of course, I had to eat careful but I finished every bit...though all I could eat of the bread was the inner part; the crust was harsh and hurt to chew. And as I ate, Mrs. O’Canainn set a glass before me and poured a dark ale into it, saying, “I think you earned this, tonight.”

I know I smiled my thanks. I know tears were in my eyes but I didn’t let them fall. I know I sipped it and it went well with the stew. And I know afterwards I washed and slept on her settee till after morning’s light.

And when I woke, it took me half an hour to recall that it had not been a dream.

Progress...

I did a first pass on the Battle of Bogside as well. This starts as the Protestant Marchers are contemptuously parading through Derry on August 14th, 1969 to commemorate their victory over the Catholics...and Brendan winds up caught in the back and forth on Waterloo Place, by the Derry Walls.
________

So the jeers began, from both sides, and I felt the hair on my neck rise because I could sense the fury building around me. It fed into me, and you could see the constables who were there sensed it, as well. Scuffles broke out as the black uniformed bastards jolted over to beat any Catholic who dared use too forceful of language to breach this public insult against human order. And some swung their batons for no reason than to hit other lads, and the crowd surged and swore horrible things at them and stones flew across at their ranks, and I’m not ashamed to say that some of them came from my hand.

And I mean it as truth -- I’d never thought to join in truly striking back against the bloody Proddies before this; but suddenly I was grabbing for bricks like it’s a part of my nature. This one fat bastard struck a older man across the back a few times with his baton so I lugged half a brick at him. Hit him in his fat arse, meaning for sure I didn’t hurt him, but he swung around and roared like a bull that’s about to have a run at you and I danced back. Others in the crowd backed up, too. And that’s when I looked about and saw the RUC was charging the crowd, sticks waving in the air, and I was reminded of when they crashed into our old home on Nailors.

It’s like we flowed up Waterloo back to the Bogside, grabbing stones and anything else we could find to toss. The so-called redevelopment left us plenty to work with and we made full use of it. Older lads raced to the front of me and let fly with a thunderstorm of stones, and I caught a glimpse of Eamonn with them. I called out to him but the clattering of the bricks and rocks and clumps of metal raining down drowned out my voice.

Another lad grabbed me and said, “Stay to the back of us. Build up piles of stones for us to use.”

I roared back, “I can throw as well as -- ”

“You can’t throw as far as us. You’re too small! But we need ammunition to help us keep ‘em out of the Bogside! And we’re bloody keeping them out, this time!”

He was right, so I yanked off my coat and ran to a nearby lot and piled as many stones and bricks and bits of metal as I could carry in it then ran it back to where other lads were making piles, and saw Eammon and Paidrig running up from another direction with more.

“Hey, me Chinas!” I cried to them. They looked around, grinning like madmen. “Are Danny and Colm about?”

“Tossing stones off William Street,” Paidrig yelled back.

That was perfect. Both had the best arm of anyone in the Bogside and it was good the anger in Danny was being put to use.

People were running about, now. Some came to help. Some scurried home. Some dragged off their young wains to be out of harm’s way. I thought about our flat, but if we could keep the bloody RUC out, there was no need for special protection of it. And I knew Ma and Mairead were with Rhuari, Maeve and Kieran so had no fear of that for them. So I stayed where I was and kept piling up anything I could find to shie at the constables.

But the rushing about seemed like chaos -- or it must have seemed so to the constables since they came roaring in, again, arrogant in the certainty they were dealing with cowards and fools simply because they were chasing a few lads...only to find themselves met by yet another hail of stones and bricks from some of our side. The bastards finally realized they’d been led into an ambush.

During this phase, I tossed a few, myself, and we were answered with constables suddenly scurrying back and helping mates away who’d been hurt and acting like sheep caught in a storm even as they began tossing some of the stones right back at us, calling all of God’s curses down on us as they did.

Then whispering over my head from behind me came a firebomb blazing in a milk bottle. It smashed to the ground a few feet from the nearest constable and he scrambled back with a scream and I noticed his pants leg was ablaze. His mates quickly put it out and he ran back down William, his burned trousers flapping about his ankles.

More firebombs flew from our side and I laughed at the sight of it, because it meant for once the bloody bastards were outgunned! They were bloody outgunned! And a thrill ran down me from head to toe and every moving part of my body as I screamed to heaven with joy. We were making them run! For the first time, we were making them run and not the other way around.

It went like this for hours -- back and forth and back and forth. The RUC would flow up and then be forced back out, like waves on the beach. Again and again.

Then came canisters of gas flying over us, trailing their evil smoke behind them. Smoke that set your eyes to screaming and tore into your lungs and made your stomach heave. They thought this would show us, and it did take us by surprise...but some of the lads wrapped handkerchiefs over their nose and mouth and grabbed the spitting canisters and slung them back! And on top the Rossville Flats came more firebombs and stones and various other objects to crash down on the black-suited bastards, and try as they might their smoke bombs couldn’t be shot that high.

But it could waft into homes and choke people on the ground, whether they were part of the fray or not. The sounds of coughing and crying mingled in with our shouts of fury as those at home closed their windows and stuffed rags under their doors to keep the smoke out. The air filled with it, like a vile fog drifting past, trails of more canisters coming at us and more canisters being slung back so the trails criss-crossed and smoke from our firebombs combined in it all to make it denser and more hideous.

I put a wet cloth over my nose and that helped my lungs and belly, but Eammon was caught up in a sharp asthma attack so I shoved him away from it to be held by some women wetting more rags and raced up the Flats for his inhaler. Why he never had it on him made no sense. His mother was in hysterics asking where he was but I had no time for that; I bolted into his room, grabbed it and raced back down to him just as he was beginning to turn a soft shade of blue and the women around him were beginning to panic. He shot in a puff and began to grow better, so when he had some color back I guided him away from the worst of it, back into the clear clean air.

I had to get him all the way to Demesne to do that, but I saw Mairead waving to me from Terry’s folks' place, Maeve and Rhuari with her, so up we went and I left him with them. He was doing better but not by much, and Maeve was not looking well, either. Ma was at an upstairs window watching it all, Kieran in her arms. I looked around and could see down the hill to where the smoke was rising from the Rossville Flats and drifting this way.

Mairead saw it, too. “There’s a report on the radio the Irish Army’s setting up a hospital camp across the border. If it comes to be, Ma and I’ll take all of the wains over to be checked. Does Eammon’s mother know where he is?”

I shook my head.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

I huffed. “I’m well enough. I’ll put a mask on when I’m back. I heard one soaked in vinegar is good against it.”

“It’s CS gas; that won’t work.”

“Better’n nothing.” Then I hurried down the hill back into the fray.

It kept on like this for days. More CS gas. Rubber bullets fired. Charges by the RUC, who were looking more and more ragged and weary. Into the night and into the day. Again and again. There was talk of reinforcements coming for the RUC from Antrim and Belfast. B Specials were thought to be massing down by Guildhall. One set of constables thought to use the walls to get better leverage at firing onto the roof of the Flats and found that only opened them to greater attack. Same for Protestants thinking they could score some fun craic off us by slinging stones at us from the walls only to find the roofs of Nailors Row were taller and had lads atop them to fire back. That sent them scampering. It was the chaos of a true battle. Civil war begun in earnest. And while we might not be winning by keeping those bastards out, we sure as hell weren’t losing.

Several people showed up to help strategize the resistance, the only one I recognized being Bernadette Devlin because she was an MP and had been in all the papers. They pulled together proper barricades and spread information about how best to combat the CS gas and saw to it the elderly and young were taken away from it all, to better protect their frail health. By the end of the third day we were better set up than the RUC, who’d taken only to slinging our rocks back at us as if they were out of ammunition and gas canisters.

I’d been able to get home despite the chaos and pull what I had in my stash and give it over to the organizers for more petrol. Then I showed Danny and Paidrig how best to build firebombs as more and more bottles appeared for us to use.

Rumors continued to race about that the B Specials had massed for a full assault with backing from the UVF. I doubted that; there were riots in Belfast that would keep them busier. As for breathless reports of backing from the IRA, no one knew anything about help from them or the Irish Republic. The latter had set up a hospital camp and when I saw Terry he told me Ma, Mairead and the wains were over there with Eammon. I let Eammon’s mother know and she slapped me for keeping it from her then stormed out with her purse, leaving her door open. I shut it for her.

Stories began to circulate that Westminster was sending troops. Sending the bloody army. Soon verified by radio and reports on the telly. None of us liked the sound of that. Not a one. We didn’t really believe they were being sent to keep the peace.

Then on the fourth day, everything went quiet.

Still.

Too much so.

The smoke cleared and I could see all the way to Waterloo, and it looked like a country gravel pit there were so many rocks and stones across it. Stores were ablaze. The air stank from the gas and burning tires. I couldn’t speak and found even the thought of food made my stomach quiver in refusal. My fingers were torn and bloody, and I realized I’d not changed clothes since the beginning so my trousers were rags and my shirt and coat were ruined. And I was bloody exhausted, having got only bits of sleep here and there, between battles. I thought for a moment maybe, just maybe, I could go home and wash and get in clean clothes for the next engagement.

But I dared not leave. It was like the calm before a storm, the sudden terrifying silence. Not a word from the Prods or RUC. Not even calls from lads on our side. Not a whisper.

Until late in the day when we heard the rumble of lorries and marching feet...and the Army strode in, proud and sure...and they set up a perimeter between us and the RUC...and stayed there, keeping us apart.

I couldn’t believe it. Some were howling for joy. Some were weeping from relief. I couldn’t move. I just stood where I was and stared at them for I don’t know how long, letting it settle slowly into my brain that I could finally take a good long wash and have a decent sleep.

For by all the saints that are holy, we had won.

"A Single Man"

I took a break from APoS because I was losing the timeline as I worked and needed some space to regain clarity. So I watched A Single Man by Tom Ford, to clear my brain. I wanted to make certain it's not too much like Dair's Window, which has a somewhat similar plot -- a man's lover dies and he's contemplating suicide during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

This was back when it was still illegal for two men to be with each other, even in California; that state didn't decriminalize gay sex until 1975 (Texas still hasn't; sodomy laws remain on the books even though they've been nullified by the Supreme Court, they just don't enforce them...though they have threatened to do so when the cops felt like it).

Well...I haven't read the Christopher Isherwood book and now I won't...because I fucking hate this movie. And if it really follows Isherwood's plot, I will throw the fucking book across the room. So if you intend to see this thing, stop here because coming up is a spoiler.

Oh, it's a pretty film and well-acted...if a bit languorous, at times...and normally I like the more introspective type of story. And while there were moments I thought Tom Ford got a bit carried away with what he thought he was saying it was directed well-enough. Julianne Moore's fag-hag was a bit much and her London accent faded in and out. Plus the appearance of a feminine-looking college kid to rekindle the gay man's interest in life was on the obvious side. But halfway through I had a feeling this was going to be another sad dead faggot movie...and goddammit, it was.

I hate those. With a passion. Poor little gay guy not worthy of happiness. Best if he dies at the end. And that fucking pisses me off. All the times I've read it in books and seen it in movies...I want to spit. I think that's why even in my most vicious books I give the protagonist a bit of hope and something to look forward to at the end instead of just killing himself or dying of AIDS or some such shit.

Granted, in Bobby Carapisi one character commits suicide, but I'm very clear that it's brought about by society's brutal, animalistic treatment of a man who's been raped. Who's given no outlet to discuss his pain and confusion. Who finally just gives it up and jumps off a tall building to his death. And while there are hints the one rapist who did wind up in jail brings about his own murder out of guilt over what happened, that's justice being served when the legal system really refused to do so.

I think that's why I arranged for Dair's lover, Adam, to not only die in an avalanche but do so while saving two of his skiing pupils. I want him to be seen as a hero and what happens afterwards as a travesty, not merely a tragedy. Adam's not a perfect man -- he's a thief and something of a user, but he also completes Dair and, like a dog that's been abused, comes to trust the one who treats him right...which Dair does. He brings Dair out of his artistic shell and Dair gives him the safety he longed for in order to become a decent man. And Dair finds new love...all-be-it not where he expected...

I hate this shit where we need to be pitied or felt sorry for or disparaged as a danger to the world by not only religious zealots but legislators and straight assholes fearful of their own attraction and society in general just looking for another scapegoat to beat up on. There are still people out there saying we should be executed for being gay...and are, in some countries, including some of America's allies.

Fuck that -- I ain't being nice about this shit, anymore.

Long day...

Not in the mood to discuss, so here's part of APoS -- the People's March from Belfast to Derry beginning January 1, 1969. Brendan's older brother, Eamonn, is with the marchers. The Fountain is a Protestant enclave in the Bogside, pressed up against the Derry Walls.

-------

On New Year’s Day, word came the march had begun.

We followed it on Radio Eire, and to my fears, there was more than taunting along the way. And much more than occasional attacks. And the RUC did nothing about it but keep making the marchers change course -- including sending them into a group of Proddies waiting to attack, once -- while the Paisleyites swore to stop us at all costs -- and tried to in Antrim. Some fellow claiming to speak for Sinn Fein said it was ill-advised, this march; that pushing Westminster for improvements in the lot of all working men in The North would help Protestants as well as Catholics and it was necessary to educate those fighting us to show them they were being used by the landed gentry and fools on the councils and on and on and on. And Stormount’s attitude was that nothing much too serious was happening.

I’d pop over to Colm’s to watch the telly, since it was on the BBC, as well. And during one broadcast I caught sight of Eamonn walking close beside this pretty girl, and it looked like his arm was about her shoulders. She seemed upset and Eamonn was angry, but the newscaster would say only they’d been refused access to Knockloughrim en route to Maghera, which added some miles to their trek. Ma’s blanket was around the girl and I was glad he’d brought it for it was horrible cold out. But I also hoped Mrs. McKittrick wasn’t watching, that night, for Eamonn seemed more than friendly with that girl.

The coverage was fair intense as each day it documented more of the Loyalist’s obstructions and taunts and sneaking attacks. Those around the Bogside who’d been unsure of the correctness of the march grew more and more to be on our side with every push by the scum along the way. But progress was being made despite the RUC’s and Proddy’s best efforts. They were greeted well, here and there, and no one could say they’d done anything to provoke any sort of reprisal. Of course, they’d still have to cross the Foyle, but I’d slipped over to the Craigavon Bridge a few times to see if anyone was preparing for a fight, there, and saw nothing in the way of stones being laid up for tossing, so I began to feel I’d been overwrought.

Then on the third, I fixed a lamp for Mrs. Clark, in The Fountain. I’d done work for her, before, and she’d always treated me fair and given me cookies and tea along with a half-crown for my work, but this time she gave me no invite. Instead, she yanked open her door, took the lamp, shoved a full crown in my palm and barely gave me a “Thank you” before she’d closed the door. It took me aback. I glanced around to see if someone was watching and saw a couple of curtains move, slightly. Then I realized The Fountain was fair quiet. That’s when I knew something was up.

I slipped the crown in my pocket and walked away, trying to seem normal but shaking within. The moment I rounded the corner I raced over to the Craigavon -- but still there was nothing to see on our side. No RUC checkpoints. No stones or garbage piled up. No one waiting to have a go at some foolish University kids who still had dreams of peace in their hearts. Nothing.

I ran back to The Fountain and this time stopped at Billy’s home. I knocked and knocked, and I could see shadows moving inside, but his Ma never answered the door. I cried out, “Billy, Billy, you home, mate? Billy?!” But there came no response. I scrambled around to Bishop’s and onto the Derry Walls to run back and look into his garden -- and both his and his uncle’s bikes were gone.

It’s funny, but I wasn’t cold till that moment, and suddenly I shivering like I was ice. Billy wouldn’t join with his uncle on a tear against my brother? He couldn’t.

Throughout, I had heard noises coming from Guildhall Square, angry, dangerous shouts made the more nerve-wracking by the distance of them. I remembered hearing of Paisley maybe coming to town to speak at the Guildhall so ran down to check out the Square, and even before I got there I knew it was no small crowd of angry folk. Sure enough, the Square was filled with people, men and women both, milling about, angry and calling curses at the tops of their voices. I recognized many of them and realized there was nothing but Catholics about. And a line of nervous constables were placed between the hall’s doors and the swirling mob. Lights were on in the Guildhall but some from the Derry Housing Council were still occupying an office, as I understood. But this -- it stunned me. Had the Orangemen come en masse to wreak havoc on Eamonn’s march? Had I been so lost in fixing Mrs. Clark’s lamp I’d missed a call to arms?

I searched for Father Jack but could see him nowhere. I did see a neighbor lady and called down, “Mrs. McCory, up here -- it’s Brendan!”

She looked around and waved, actually smiling. “This is some show, wouldn’t ya say?”

“Smashing!” I took a wild leap and motioned to the Guildhall. “So how many Proddy bastards’re in there you think?”

“I’m hearin’ near five-hundred. And there’s more than a few would gladly burn the damned hall around them.”

“Have you seen Father Jack?”

Then we heard a man calling for the crowd to disperse, and she turned back to the crush. He told people that the whole purpose of the march was to show non-violence and if they did attack the Orangemen in the hall, they’d only prove the liars in Stormount right -- that Catholics were out to do Protestants harm. He wasn’t the first trying to restore control but he was the loudest and most eloquent. Some still circled the hall, calling out insults, but others began to back off. I could see smoke rising from the car park and the Christmas tree was waving oddly, like someone was climbing it, but the animal danger was gone.

Maybe half the crowd had melted away before I saw Mairead, Terry Dolan with her. Then I remembered Ma hadn’t known I was off to Mrs. Clark’s -- in fact, the house had been quiet, with not a noise from the kitchen or in Ma’s garden. Not a sound from Rhuari, Maeve or Kieran. Had Ma even been home? If not, I’d left the place open, and she’d be vexed with me for that.

Work intrudes...

Today was taken up with nonsense at work regarding a shipment from the UK that's refusing to be settled. We've been trying to pick it up since last Friday but things keep happening -- clearance was late, wrong papers sent, shipment wasn't transferred to the right truck and on and on. So much of today was trying to find a way to get it finished. Didn't work. I'll be back on it, tomorrow.

A lot of the trouble stems from simple refusal to communicate. The airline says the shipment's on its way...but exactly; we had no room so removed it and will have it on its way, tomorrow, but won't bother updating our system to let you know until the flight you think it's on arrives and it's not there. It takes a phone call to ask about only to be given a shrug and a half-hearted Sorry.

The customs broker won't even try to do a wheels-up clearance (where soon as the plane takes off clearance is begun) until they can verify the freight is on the plane...but then even after it has arrived in the US and is being transferred to the proper facility, they don't check so don't start the clearance until it's nearly 4pm on a Friday before a holiday weekend.

Then the trucker says they didn't send over the Customs release which tells them who can pick up the freight, which they were sent, but because the company picking up the freight doesn't have a copy with them it doesn't matter...and then, after hours of back and forth, they say it's the wrong form, anyway. After the broker is closed. So you're stuck another day.

And this is not unusual, lately. Not the first time it's happened, even in December. It's like everyone's regressing from what they used to know about this crap and having to relearn everything from scratch. I'm not the sharpest guy in the world when it comes to import/export, but even I know to take the right paperwork with me and call if there's an issue the moment it happens, not 2 days later. It's insane.

So little got done on APoS. Just working through a list of the names involved...and assigning last names to some people who only had first ones...and honing the outline a bit with new information. Didn't even get any reading done. I did take a walk to the grocery store and back, and picked up a salad en route.

So healthy of me.

Leisurely Christmas Day...

I didn't leave my apartment. I spent much of the day in bed reading. Finished Home to Derry and figured out it's set between 1939 and 1945, though the war in Europe barely impacts the family...except as regards the American Naval base on the River Foyle. All nice and easy. Not even a mention of the time a German bomb hit part of Derry, killing fifteen people, in a spot not that far from where he grew up. Still a very nice informative read.

I started to do a bit of cleaning up on my laptop and somehow damn near erased everything on it. At least, everything I'd done in the last six months. Still not sure how I managed that, but fortunately it wound up in the trash and I was able to recover it. However, it's no longer sorted like I wanted...but that only matters regarding files I'd worked on in the last couple weeks. I'm anal and had saved everything on my laptop to an external hard drive back in mid-December.

Another good thing is, I had part 3 of A Place of Safety open in Word so that didn't vanish. I'd made some changes as I read through it that I did not want to lose. So now all I need to do is update a few files on my laptop and things will be back to where they were.

I've begun posting some of my art on Deviant Art, again. Just the faces I like to do and the covers of my books, but it's a nice replacement for Tumblr. They're still being freaks about adult content on their site -- flagging images that they agree, upon review, are actually NOT adult -- so I've logged off and am now pretty much ignoring them. I may open an Instagram account next, just to see what happens...but still thinking on that.

So that's been my day -- low-key (except for one moment of near heart-failure) and loving it.

APoS is back in mind...

I've been working on it, today. Here's some. This is when Brendan's returned to Derry after 8 years in Houston. He was grabbed by members of the RUC and brutally interrogated but escaped them. The only reason he hasn't been arrested is, Bobby Sands died on his hunger strike and the whole of Northern Ireland is now caught up in rioting and murder. So he's snuck over to Grianan Aileach, the circle fort in the Republic, to meet Colm, a childhood friend who's now high up in PIRA. He's waiting there, now.

------------

I caught the shine of a car’s headlights and leaned atop the wall to watch them peek around the hillocks and shrubs as the vehicle approached. Then the lights were gone but I could still hear the car’s engine...and it was a car, not a truck -- or lorry, if you prefer. It stopped down the lane that led from the road to the fort and I heard a car door slam -- and then just barely heard another close.

Colm was not alone.

It made no difference. I expected he’d be careful about me and thought the better of him for it. I took my hands from my pockets and slipped them into my coat and under my arms, to warm them better. I’d not have him greet me and me having icy fingers, whether he wore gloves or not. Then I saw him stride up the path, and even in his parka he looked trim and casual.

I waved to show him I was here. He returned it and slipped out of sight under the fort. Moments later, he was climbing up to me.

“Bren,” he said, offering his hand, no glove.

I took it like old friends do and smiled. “Colm, thanks for coming.”

He put his glove back on his hand as he looked about. “Glad to. I haven’t been up here in years -- not since I found the pack of yous parlitic on pot and whiskey. God, the memories. Good times.”

I nodded, recalling me lying flat on the ground laughing at the stars and Danny having the last smile I ever saw on him.

Colm waited for me to speak, but it took me a moment to return to now, for suddenly I had nothing to say just then.

He finally took in a deep breath and said, “I’ve heard -- the story is, you were interrogated.”

Still I said nothing, just looked out over the silvery daggers of the distant lough.

“In a hidden place,” he continued.

Memories screamed into my mind’s eye. I shook them away and bolted around to walk the top tier. Around I went, hands back under my arms, my eyes solely on the uneven rocks packed into the wall. I strode fast and didn’t stop till I neared Colm, again. I did not look at him; didn’t need to.

“What did they want to know?”

My voice was a whisper. “Who was helping Danny -- that day.”

“What’d you tell them?”

“Don’t you already know?”

“The stories I hear are conflicting.”

I turned my eyes on the daggers of the lough and whispered, “I told them I was there -- but all I could see was -- was -- ”

The flames danced, danced up to Joanna and she struggled to escape them but they laughed at her and whispered closer and closer and her golden hair whipped about in the smoke and fire and someone was screaming and --
I must have spoken some of the memory because Colm’s voice shook a bit. “Christ, Bren, I didn’t realize you saw so much. We just thought the bomb had sent you off your head and -- ”

My voice had no emotion. “There was a child’s leg in front of me. Still had its shoe and sock on. I think it was a girl’s, but it might have been a boy. I really don’t remember noticing one way or the other.”

Colm was silent for a respectable moment. “So did you know who else was there?”

I finally looked straight at him, and you’d have thought I hit him, the breath he let out.

“I said nothing about you," I muttered. "I told them -- all I could see was -- was -- ”

The leg flew through the air and whipped blood against me as it landed on the pavement and then the smoke parted and --
Colm gripped my shoulder and I realized I was close to toppling over. I hadn’t been so raw since those first days at Aunt Mari’s.

His voice was back to strong. “I’m hearing the RUC knows who was there but they’re being cagey with it. But their actions suggest they’re lying. They aren’t seeking me. None of our grasses have heard question one about me. They just keep saying they know. Hoping to stampede our side into making a stupid move.”

“Colm -- they don’t know. Even Billy thought I was telling the truth.”

“Bill Corrie?” I nodded. “He helped them torture you!?”

“He never laid a finger on me. It was one named Max -- ”

“Harris. Yeah, he’s a right bastard.”

“Maeve should’ve let me end him.” My words snapped out like angry flashes of a whip.

“You’d never have got near him. Still...”

I looked at him, confused. “Still? What d’you mean?”

He pulled off his parka’s hood and looked straight at me, and his eyes were black as coal. “If you’d died, the autopsy would have revealed what happened to you. And we could have used that, now, against the bloody bastard. Add it to the lads dying in Long Kesh and Thatcher’s stupid commentaries and the one shot dead by a plastic bullet, the world would have joined us in condemning the Brits and the Prods and -- ”

I laughed at him, startling him into silence. “You think the world fuckin’ cares? You think anybody gives a tinker’s damn what happens to a group of Paddies in a place nobody knows? Fuckin’ shite, Colm, I give you more credit than that!”

“Haven’t you been listening to the world screaming -- ?”

“Words! Nothing but words! What have they DONE about it? Not one fuckin’ thing! The Brits under Thatcher think they’ll win, despite their history of losing over and over and over and making a muck of it every time. The Americans’re too busy rewriting their history to minimize their own stupidity in Viet Nam to really care. And the rest of the world, oh they say the right things but ask them to back it up with action and you get nothing but more words. Even the bloody Republic wants nothing to do with us.”

“Bren, as a friend I warn you -- don’t say things like that around here. Some’ll think you a traitor to the cause and -- ”

“Aw, Christ -- you sound like somebody from Madison Avenue who honestly thinks selling Cheerios’ to kids means he’s promoting a healthy breakfast and not merely adding to their sugar intake.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” 

I leaned on the wall and looked at Colm, cock-eyed, probably an idiot’s grin on my face.

“Colm, my Uncle Sean has a bar in Houston. A fine Irish pub with live music on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights with an open mike on Sundays, and I went there a few times. People come from all over to drink his fine selection of beer and listen and sing and dance, many of them Irish, but not all by any means. And they sit about on St. Patrick’s Day and get drunk and listen to the lads weave glorious tales of Mother Ireland’s history and ruin, and how grand it’d be were she whole, again, and make vicious smears against the Brits and repeat lies about the situation here and in Belfast and talk and talk and talk, and after all of it, finally toss a few dollars in the till, for the cause, barkeep. And others would listen and nod their heads and sip their beers and go about their lives without another thought of it...because they don’t really care. The blacks don’t care. The Latins don’t. The Asians don’t. And truth be told, neither do the Anglos.

“Oh, the words they use are glorious and meaningful, but that’s all they’ll ever be is words. If anyone else in the world truly wanted the Troubles to end, they’d do more than bleat about the horrible situation in that god-forsaken land. They’d take action. They’d show the Brits there’s too much of a price will be paid if this keeps on. They’d DO something. But what has anyone truly done? To Rome, the situation’s untenable, but their priests keep helping the likes of you. America says they hope civil rights will be had by all, then her arms dealers sell you the weapons you need, not give them, not like they’re doing in Afghanistan, while British arms dealers sell theirs to the Unionists. The Prods violate the laws of England and the Geneva Convention, but when have they ever been held accountable for it? Even the European Court of Human Rights gave into them! No one wants this to end, Colm. Not your side. Not their side. Not anyone.”

“And why would anyone want that, Bren?”

“I don’t know. I just look at the reality of it and that’s what I see.”

Low key day...

I did a load of laundry then spent the day lounging in bed and reading. I'm in the middle of Tomas O'Canainn's Home to Derry, a roman a clef about a widow raising 5 children in Derry in the 1940s, focusing on a middle boy named Sean. I'm enjoying it a lot, especially Sean's dancing about with religion...thinking if he says enough prayers a Protestant girl he likes will convert to Catholicism so he can marry her...and worrying his mother will find out that's what he wants to do...

He's either 10 or 11 years old, but hasn't actually stated his age so I'm not clear as to the exact time frame. I know his father died of appendicitis when he was 4, in 1935, and that's about it. That and they live on the north end of the city, close to where the old Swilly train depot was. If so, that would make the story happening during WW2 and I don't get that sense about it. Still, it's a nicely told book with gentle details that I find fascinating. Like calling his mother "mammy." I'd seen that in comments on Facebook's Derry of the Past page. Now that site has been a fountain of information.

I think the house they live in is relatively new, because it's not listed on a 1905 Old Ordnance Survey Map I have of the city but is just barely noted on the 1946 Burrows Pointer Guide Map to Londonderry. These maps are a bit confusing. The former, for example, makes reference to a lunatic asylum just north of the city center while the later says it's a hospital. Since I'm still looking into whether or not a hospital was open on the Bogside of Derry during the Troubles (I don't think there was) it would be nice to know what was what, back then.

The main hospital for the city is Altnagelvin, which is on the Waterside and was big and modern back in the early 60s. I passed it when I did my walk from Burntollet Bridge a couple years back, and it's even bigger and better now. But I've seen reference to a clinic on the Bogside, where Brendan would be living, and I think the lunatic asylum was still in operation as late as the mid-seventies, so I'm still digging into that, because it factors into his return in 1981.

The more I know the more I know I don't know...

Reading...just reading...

I ran some errands then spent the day finishing Adrian McKinty's Gun Street Girl. This book is set against the lead-up to the Anglo-Irish Agreement and its immediate aftermath, in late 1985. Inspector Sean Duffy knows everybody knows everything while people insist nobody knows nothing, especially when the RUC is involved. A code of silence broken only at great personal risk.

Sean's in his mid-thirties, alcoholic and a junkie, and fast approaching burnout when what he figures will be his last case for the Royal Ulster Constabulary gets him caught up in levels of intrigue that neither John Grisham nor Tom Clancy could conceive. It has a double murder, two possible suicides that you know won't be, paramilitary involvement, gun running, MI5, CIA operatives, Oxford University...the whole mosh pit of UK society, back then.

It really does have a lot of the flavor of Belfast in the mid-80's and I'm getting an idea of how soul-destroying the Troubles have been for people and the insane alliances it brought about. It also has women willing to sleep with Sean because they're hot for him. Very easy-going, for the 80's, when people were beginning to freak out about AIDs. On top of that, McKinty spends so much space on what his detective is drinking and snorting and what music he's playing and what programs he's watching, I felt almost like I was reading a textbook.

What is fun is how this book gives Chandler and Cain and Hammett major runs for their money in the cynicism department. The way the higher-ups in the judicial system are out more for brownie points with their superiors than actually solving crimes works as well in Belfast as LA. Money and power having more currency than truth is the same.

Still, I never got caught up in the story. I read it more from a sense of research than fun. Which I guess is okay. It' just I'd like to find a book that will sweep me away with its characters and events like Anna Karenina did...and Steven King's early works...but I can't think of a book that has done that, since I started writing novels. So maybe I no longer will.

That would be tragic.

I am done on UG...

Underground Guy's paperback edition is now available through Amazon, thanks to Ingram. It's still finishing the setup, but it can be ordered. I don't know if anyone can actually order direct from Ingram, except in bulk. But that's neither here not there because this a POD book, not the kind that'll be put on Barnes & Noble's New Releases table.

I'm now a bit at loose ends. I've set up some promo through Smashwords and Ingram and know the Christmas holiday is overpowering everything, right now, so there's not much I can do to get the book noticed. And reality is, it's a very niche market. My hope is the people who've bought HTRASG will find it and go for this one.

So there it is. I've published two books this year -- UG and The Alice '65, and they could not be more opposite in style, substance and meaning. I also wrote a first draft of Dair's Window, a gay romantic-drama. I halfway think I did all of this just to see if I could...and damn well did. Shit.

So all of my whimpering and whining about A Place of Safety needs to be flushed down the toilet with all my other crap. I can do this and make it work. Reading McKinty's books, as well as those of Stuart Neville and Gerard Brennan, showed me I don't need to be exacting in my details. In fact, being precise like that would prove I'm not of the area. All I need to worry about is not crossing the line into unintentional parody.

That's easy to do if you write colloquial-style dialogue, which I do tend to do. And I'll still need to do some of it because of Brendan's sociological background, but no need to go overboard. I can almost hear some of it turning into a Barry Fitzgerald type of Hollywood Irish...all blather and twee, and that would be death to the story.

But now...after what I've done in the last year...I know I can avoid that. I can make this story sing. Pop. Rock. Ballads. Elegies. Opera. All of it.

So just to verify I'm letting my ego run wild -- I plan to make this my War and Peace.

Back to reading on NI...

I got Adrain McKinty's 4th Sean Duffy novel, Gun Street Girl, today and am settling in to read it. I've already done his first three books -- In the Cold Cold Ground; I Hear the Sirens in the Street; and In the Morning I'll Be Gone -- and while he's not big on inventive plotting his sense of low-key if not merely-tolerable paranoia is very interesting. They're all set in Belfast, which isn't quite the same as Derry, but they do give me a taste of the area as it was in the 80's.

Sean's a Catholic cop in the very Protestant RUC, which was so notoriously brutal, partisan and anti-Catholic it had to be renamed after the Good Friday Agreement because of all the connotations the Royal Ulster Constabulary raised; in 2001 it became the PSNI -- Police Service of Northern Ireland -- and is still overwhelmingly Protestant, but a goodly portion are now Catholic...and I digress...

McKinty's style is something like a Northern Ireland version of Raymond Chandler, with a shattered, fraying Belfast his substitute for a corrupt, decaying Los Angeles. He works in actual events -- in his third book, Sean helps keep Thatcher from being assassinated in the bombing of a hotel in Brighton -- and provides twice as much cynicism as Philip Marlowe could ever have worked up. His stories are a bit predictable, but I don't know if that's from me having plotted my own version of dark and cynical or if it's just that I've read too many mysteries to be surprised, anymore.

In fact, I can't think of the last time a book has surprised me. Maybe that's why I focus so hard on characters and let them lead me places -- letting them provide the surprises. Which they have, many times. So maybe I'm spoiling myself. We shall see.

I also got another book that I bought based solely on liking the writing style of the snippet I read -- The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton. It's set in a boarding house just outside London during WW2. I didn't realize till after I ordered it that he also adapted the scripts for Hitchcock's Rope and the British film, Angel Street (and Gaslight, its American incarnation).

I have a feeling this may be the book I prefer, as a reader.

UG paperback is uploaded to Ingram...

Now all that's left is getting a PDF proof and, if that looks good, having them send me a printed copy. Normally I do that on a rush service, but with Christmas they aren't offering the option so I'll probably just let it go live and get the printed copy when I can....and hope for the best. I want it available by Christmas.

For once I didn't have to keep uploading corrected files over and over, like previous books. The text still saves from Word into PDF with color profiles, no matter what I do, but that doesn't seem to make a difference once it's printed. Watch it freak out, this time.

Then there's the cover -- shifting from RGB to CMYK absolutely killed the vibrancy of my reds, and I can't seem to work around that. Maybe if I had a newer version of Photoshop I could, but mine's 15 years old. It's serviceable and does everything except the transfer of colors, so I can't whine.

So I celebrated by watching The Big Sleep (1946) as I sorted through a pile of paperwork and bills, and I'm finally getting the last of my Christmas cards out. I get later and later every year, but at least I had a decent excuse.

Y'know, I whine and bitch and complain and get beaten up by the whole process of writing...but once the work is done and it's as good as I can make it (for now), I love the final result. Parts of Underground Guy are some of my best work, yet. And while there's part of me that says it's just a niche genre gay-sex book...a part I can't shut up...I think I did a damn good job on it. I may get one or two reviews that say it's crap...if I get any reviews at all; that's not guaranteed...but I don't care. When I did my last check today I found myself feeling proud of several moments, and how the plot flows together, and the characters as they reveal themselves in steps and stages.

What I did in this book is basically take an evil man, use him as the centerpiece of a story he is telling, and have him change in stages from a beast to a human being. If I did it right, when he breaks down after finally connecting completely with a victim of the serial killer...people will weep for him. I hope. I weep, but then I'm the writer. And I'm self-aware enough to recognize that I've fallen in love with my words.

But I still think they're damn good.

UG's paperback cover and synopsis

This is what I worked on all day. Stayed home sick with a near case of strep throat and will probably be home, tomorrow...so may as well make use of my time...
-----
Four men have been raped and murdered in London and the Metropolitan Police think Devlin Pope, an American businessman, had something to do with it. Why? Because while reeling from from news that his mother’s body had been discovered twenty years after her disappearance, he sexually assaulted a young British constable who was working undercover to help catch the maniac.

Of course, Devlin is arrested and the police don’t even begin to believe anything he tells them, despite him obviously being horrified at the torturous deaths that were inflicted on innocent men. Besides, he can prove he was in America when three of the murders occurred. Problem is, he also has a history of brutalizing men who’ve crossed him. But since Reg, that constable, had done nothing to anger his inner beast -- except be in the wrong place at the wrong time -- Devlin’s explanations sound false to everyone ... even himself.

Why? He’s experiencing something he never has, before -- shame over his actions -- and he’s spinning headlong into chaos ... because he has fallen in love with Reg, a man who’s married, has children, is heterosexual ... and hates even the thought of being near him.

Then Devlin learns the police do have another suspect and they are hoping he will help prove that man is the murderer. Instead, he comes to believe they have narrowed their focus to the wrong individual, but they won’t listen to his suspicions. Now he must find the killer, himself ... because to his horror, since Reg looks like the dead men he has continued to put himself in harm’s
way -- and it appears he has become the madman’s next target.

And there seems to be nothing Devlin can do to keep a man he loves but knows he can never have from being butchered.

-->

---------

I hate to do it, but I like this cover a lot more than my artist's one. It's got the grittiness I think the story needs...even if CMYK doesn't want to give me the rich red I had in RGB. I'm sorry to do it, but I'm dumping the artwork.

The book needs what it needs...

(**NOTE: I noticed the duplication of a word in the description on the jacket's back and corrected that. It's now uploaded to Ingram and I'm awaiting a pdf proof to see how it turns out. 12/19)

Paperback of UG is coming soon...

The paperback edition of Underground Guy is 316 pages and just under 100,000 words.  Cost will be $12.95. It'll be in a 5x8 inch format and I'm thinking a darker cover than what I'm using for the ebook. Not sure yet, but I don't want to mislead anyone on it. It's a very brutal book. The ending got adjusted to where Devlin is not completely over his past...hell, not by a long shot.

This story really is raw, in many ways. I hope not too much so. I've heard from a couple of people Bobby Carapisi winds up that way...though one man actually said it's not a very deep book. Not sure what he wanted or expected. In fact, I'm not sure how I could have made the book deeper than it is. But it's something to keep in mind as I work on A Place of Safety -- finding ways to add to the depth of the story.

UG has a fair amount of rough sex in it, too...but it also gets pretty deep into Devlin's mind and emotional turmoil, I think. I guess I won't know how it comes across until people start reviewing it. If they do. Which makes me nervous. People tend to either love my work or hate it; it's very rare for me to get a middling kind of reaction. Good thing is, it's already selling in ebook.

Looks like another trip to the UK is in store, this time to Reading and probably straight from LAX. Then home via JFK...though I am wondering if it'd be easier to come back through Toronto, again, and just catch a bus home. I'll check into that once the trip is actually set. Right now it's only 98% sure.

I'll be in Anaheim for 2 days just after the first of the year...the opposite end of town from where my friends are. I'm still going to try and see some people, but I'm staying on East Coast time so can't go too late. I'm going to see if some of us can get together at a place like Real Food on La Cienega near the Beverly Center for dinner once of the nights.

Right now I'm zoning...so this is all, for the moment.

UG is definitely up as an ebook

I reread the notice from Smashwords about my upload not passing epub-check and realized it wasn't going to be fully available until the issue was repaired, so went in and reworked the Table of Contents and uploaded a new one...and that worked. It passed. So it's fine and is available in nearly a dozen formats, including Kindle.

I turned to working on the paperback file and Word decided to have fun with me. I was trying to work it so the header didn't show up at the top of the first page of each chapter...and thought I had it...but then Word went into meltdown and seemed to wipe out everything I had done. I freaked.

But...I had saved beforehand, so before careening into trash my computer mode  I shut it down and reopened the file...and there was only one issue that needed work. So it looks like the text of the book is set, too. All I need is the cover, then it's done. Underground Guy will be completed and will be my second original novel published this year.

I'm taking off a little while from writing before I get back onto A Place of Safety. Obviously I'm not going to meet my planned deadline, but it's immaterial. I now have the rest of my obligations out of the way...and I'm ready to see how I do with Brendan's story.

The positive thing about working on UG and slamming out Dair's Window for NaNoWriMo is it's built my confidence in my writing. I think UG holds together well, and events flow naturally...for a hot and heavy murder mystery-suspense tale. Apparently very hot, because just to announce it I was going to buy an ad on Facebook...and they refused. Facebook, one of the avaricious companies there is refused my money because the book is for adults.

The puritans have returned and we're the witches they want to burn.

UG is up...I think...

I posted Underground Guy on Smashwords and it looked okay...but then I got an error message so dug back into the Word doc to correct what I think the issue is. When I got done, I went online to update my submission...and it looks like it actually was all right. I checked it in epub and everything did what it was supposed to. Same for Mobi. So I sent Smashwords an email asking about it but don't expect an answer till Monday. Still, they're offering it for sale...so maybe it was a glitch on their end.

I worked up a cover using the artwork I commissioned and like it a lot more. Still not 100% on it. The feel is too light for the darkness of the story...but I sort of like how the light shining on Reg works with the shadows laid in by the artist. I know him as Wereorc but his human name is Brendan Fann and I do enjoy his fantasy work of orcs and satyrs and werewolves. I just think this is too mainstream for him.

Anyway, the story is complete. What's funny is how I kept finding errors as I was formatting for ebook. Nothing major, just bits where the quotation marks were wrong and, to my surprise, a couple of lines where I liked grammar-check's suggestions on sentences better than my own. I also made a few more changes in the telling and found I'd spelled Leila's and Sir Monte's names three different ways and didn't notice it when I was going over the last time. But then, neither did my proofers...

That's embarrassing. The nice thing about find is you can locate the offending words with just a few letters in the right order and figure out how many other mistakes you made, like that. I have a sheet of them to transfer to my paperback Word file...a long list.

Jesus, me and typos...

Workin' through it...

I'm threatening to come down with another cold, which is making it hard to concentrate on UG. I can go for a couple hours then start zoning and wanting to sleep. I know it's not the story doing that to me; I also feel it in my nose and back and everything. What perfect timing.

It's still my goal to get the book out in ebook form this weekend. I've got about 130 pages left to smooth over, then shifting it into the format is next. I've sort of started on that, but setting up the table of contents is a lot of work so we'll see how it goes.

I'm not sure if I want to go through the trouble of making up a new image for the cover, right now. I've thought of something that might make the artwork I commissioned work better, since it came out to light and gentle for the tone of the book...but we'll see how it goes on Saturday.

It's going to be interesting to get people's reactions to this story, considering my hero...well, anti-hero, really...starts out as a rapist and shifts into a true-hero...of a sort. He's still something of a bastard at the end, with his subtle knowledge he's basically recruited another straight guy onto his side of the aisle and plans to take it farther.

Can't be too nice about my assholes, can I?

My own private dichotomy...

I keep having this hysterical dialogue within myself as I work on Underground Guy. It's just an erotic novel with a bit of meaning. Why are you slathering so much effort on it? The guys and girls who read this won't care about your grammar; only if it something that's really glaring, and even then they'll toss it off.

At the same time, another voice...or voices...scream back, Why're you minimizing your work? Why are you even thinking of dissing your characters? They trust you to do your best for them; that's why they've revealed their stories to you. Who cares that there's sex in the book? It's there for a purpose and is used to reveal story and character. If it offends people, so fucking what? It's good and right to be there.

I am working like crazy to make UG as solid a work as I can...and it's got a lot of very positive aspects to it. Devlin goes from being a serial rapist to a man tied into an imperfect relationship that makes him so happy, he never wants to hurt anyone ever again. Tawfi and Reg also have character arcs, albeit much smaller ones, and there's a solid critique of America's judicial system in it, showing how it favors the rich and sometimes the only path to justice is through illegal means.

That's a running thread in my work -- how broken our judicial system is...how it always has been. If you're white with money, you can all but get away with raping a woman or molesting underage girls or stealing funds from widows and orphans. If you're black, brown or poor, you're screwed.

One perfect example of this is how two different women were treated for wrongful voting. A black woman who thought she could vote did so and got sent to jail for 2 years. A white woman who deliberately voted twice got a scolding, nothing more. Or, to keep it in line with my story, a white frat president got probation and didn't have to register as a sex offender after raping and strangling several women while a black woman who was being used as a sex slave was sent to prison for 51 years because she killed her abuser.

Nothing new about it. When Stanford White was murdered by Harry Thaw in 1906 (as depicted in the movie Ragtime) Thaw's wealth kept him from being hanged or even being sent to prison, though he was put in a mental institution where his money let him live a comfortable life. And after the Johnstown flood, the owners of the dam that collapsed where able to keep themselves from being  held responsible for the deaths of 2200 people because they were wealthy and knew the judges hearing the cases, even though modifications they had ordered on the dam were the cause of its collapse.

I guess it's always going to be this way...

Smoothed over synopsis for UG...

I'm giving Underground Guy one last pass then shifting it into ebook format...probably the end of this week. Here's my last pass over the synopsis I'll be using for it --

-------

Devlin Pope’s life has been a fight to maintain control, but it looks like things have finally leveled out. The company he owns with his brother is doing well. He's able to purge his anger with men who are into the same sort of sex games as him. He’s even at the point where his long-deceased father’s physical abuse has become little more than a hard memory.

But the day before he’s set to return to New York from a business trip to London he’s contacted by the New Jersey State Police. They may have found the remains of his mother, who vanished 22 years ago, and want him to provide a DNA sample to verify the body.

Realizing that his mother didn't run off but was murdered by his father crashes Devlin into chaos. In a desperate attempt to regain control, he fixates on a good-looking guy he sees on the Underground, follows him off the train then kidnaps and sexually assaults him.

It’s not the first time Devlin’s done this, but he’d only attacked men who had crossed him, before. This guy had done nothing but sport a tattoo Devlin liked ... so instead of calming the beast within, his turmoil is increased.

What’s even worse -- Devlin finds out the man he attacked is an undercover cop named Reg. Three men have been raped and murdered in the last few months by a man who resembles Devlin and Reg was acting as a decoy to trap the killer. Now another man is dead thanks to Devlin’s interference and the British media are howling. On top of this, the police think he’s the killer’s accomplice and there is nothing he can say or do to change their minds.

As the evidence against him mounts, the shame he feels for what he did to Reg brings up issues and memories he thought long buried. Mixed in is the confused realization he’s fallen in love with the guy ... despite him being married with four kids and not the least bit interested.

Devlin careens into a brutal re-evaluation of his life even as he does all he can to track down the killer before another man dies ... because it’s looking more and more that thanks to his actions Reg has been marked as the maniac’s next target.

And Devlin would sooner die than let that happen.

Is my ending right?

I've been going back and forth about my ending to UG. It's sort of a Happily Ever After which I think is earned...but I'm torn about whether or not it goes too far. But I just went through it, again, and I couldn't change it...even though I think it should be. Or...maybe I'm just afraid and that's why I think it should be.

This is usually the point where I don't know what I'm doing, or why. I'm going by gut instinct when my head is trying to override that. I don't know which is right...but I usually stick with my gut. And in this instance...well, my head is telling me it's the wrong choice.

At the end, Reg is kidnapped and is about to be made into the next rape victim but Devlin saves his life and is seen as a hero for it, because he's almost killed, as well. So after all the hoopla and uproar has begun to die down, Reg shows up to his hotel room and lets Dev have him...somewhat. In short, Devlin has recruited a married straight man into...well, at least a bit of bisexuality. And the suggestion is this won't be the last time they're together.

Tawfi shows up and indicates he'd be open to a threesome, making Devlin and Reg his little harem. Kind of a goofy off-the-wall way of ending a pretty intense story, so I was thinking -- maybe I should have Reg's part just be just a dream. But then I wondered if that was playing it right with the characters. If I'm not just simply concerned about the message I'm sending?

Truth is, I think any man is capable of having sex with another man no matter how straight he is, so long as the circumstances are right. Prison's long been proof of that. Straight men go in, rape or get raped or just have sex with other men because they need the connection or protection, then come out and go home to their wives or girlfriends and don't even think about making it with a guy on the outside. Gay for pay is the same thing; it's a way to make money.

So maybe I am over-thinking this. Maybe I'm just scared of how it'll be seen, and my fear is threatening to hurt the story. That's why my gut takes over and tells my brain to shut the fuck up. Which I appreciate, as a writer. We can think something to death without batting an eye.

I've ruined stories and characters by doing that...and I don't want to do it with this one...

Had to face reality, today...

I had a dental appointment, this morning, at 11:20 so got up at 10am, still tired. I did the appointment, ran a couple of errands, came back to start in on my last polish of UG...and suddenly did a crash and burn and had to take a nap. I intended to just do the 20 minute thing, which is supposedly very refreshing. Instead, I went down for six hours...and woke up feeling good.

I guess jet lag caught up with me. This wasn't a good trip, physically; I was popping Imodium like candy and don't know why unless it was something in the second airline meal...which I couldn't eat, it was so nasty. Coming back, the food was even worse...but that's beside the point. I never was on top of myself in Hong Kong so I guess it finally caught up to me and even though brain said one thing, body overruled and that was that.

Still...I have gone through a fair amount of the story and found a few typos and made some minor changes for clarification. I also have a tendency to state the obvious and have been trying to weed out moments like that. All this for a book I'll be lucky to sell a thousand copies of.

However...I've found I don't care about the sales so long as someone's reading it. I price the books so I make very little off them...not even a dollar each. I don't want price to be a deterrent. Looks like UG will price out at $14.95 and that'll make me $.68 per book sold. I think that's why I'm releasing the ebook first -- it'll be priced at $1.95 and available to anyone over the age of 18.

I may do a Facebook ad just to get some notice going, since Tumblr is shutting down people like me and that was my main source of contact with like-minded people...male and female. It's surprising how many women like to read books about men brutalizing men. I put that in Dair's Window so should be fun to see what happens.

Now I'm ready to go back to sleep.

Final reworking of UG

The opening...basically the same as always but cleaner, crisper and crueler...

___

I saw him on London's underground, looking tired. Sad. Alone. Sleepy gray eyes under honey-colored brows. Thick hair covering a classic skull and cropped close enough to see he had a couple of scars in his scalp. Aquiline nose. Taut lips. Strong neck under a clean chin. Smooth cheekbones. Mid-twenties. His shoulders broad. His chest full and round under a threadbare red hoodie. No gut to him, even sitting sloped over. He got on at Knightsbridge and grabbed a seat near the rear door of the carriage close to where I was standing, his focus on his cell phone -- excuse me, mobile phone -- the whole time. His dark cargo pants were smudged with white paint and his legs filled them just right. Smallish feet in basic tennis shoes splashed with more paint counterpointed by powerful hands. A workman's hands. All the complete opposite of what I like ... and of me.

I'm as Italian-American as they come -- with a Roman nose in good proportion to my face and chin, a wrestler's build that's stocky but tight thanks to running five miles a day, dark hair everywhere there should be, eyes so brown and wary they're close to black, clean-shaven but at least sporting a suit and tie instead of casuals. Very Brooklyn, even in London.

My preferred type was like this one man who entered just before my underground guy at the same station and stood right by the door -- tall, dark, handsome in a Jewish way. Either side of thirty, which put him about my age, and wearing a sleek suit of brushed wool -- a lot sharper than the one I got on sale at Macy's. Probably Savile Row. A neat goatee, trim body and no briefcase added to the sense he was someone whose life was perfectly organized. What was even better? I caught him giving my guy a low-key look of appraisal. The second I saw that I knew it wouldn’t have taken much to get him out of his suit, and under normal circumstances I'd have found a way to strike up a conversation with him, get him back to my hotel and spend a few hours in bed. But nothing was normal for me, right then, and I desperately needed a good solid fuck, one that went all night if that’s what it took to clear my head.

But for some reason the sad guy kept drawing my attention. I can’t explain it ... except I noticed he wasn’t happy about a text he got. He made a reply, waited for an answer and took a deep breath at what he read. The vague lines in his forehead drew deeper and his eyes darker. The news was obviously not good and I felt for him ... which was weird because, to be honest, fair-haired Englishmen never really interested me. But even Savile Row’s dark good-looks, perfect posture and calm control couldn’t drag me away from the little drama unfolding before me via text as my underground guy tensed and shifted and leaned back and scrunched and shifted upright, each movement increasing my awareness of his beauty.

We were on the Piccadilly line, westbound, and it was growing solid with evening commuters, every damn one of them the typical English sort. I was standing not three feet from him just a bit to his left, and I was flat out gazing upon him like some needy puppy seeking a treat or scratch behind the ears. He finally noticed as we pulled into Hammersmith, gave me a couple of quick confused glances then scrunched deeper into his seat. He shifted so I could see his left hand held a thick gold ring on his third finger, and he pulled up a photo of a woman and some children on the phone's screen. Then he got into another serious back and forth via text.

Him sending me a subtle hint that he's not into guys is no problem for me; I’ve had lots of straight guys. But I was way too impatient to take the time needed for a decent seduction, so I decided to adjust my gaze to Savile Row ... but then my underground guy leaned forward to rest his arms on his lovely thighs, still focused on his phone, and in his reflection in the window I noticed he had a tattoo of some Asian character on the elegant nape of his neck. Japanese, it looked like.

Beautiful.

Perfect.

I’d seen it before ... something like it ... and I got caught in one of those moments where you almost glimpse what the memory is but can’t quite grasp it. Then he leaned even farther in and the hoodie pulled lower to expose the frayed collar of a faded green t-shirt and the beginning of yet another Japanese character and --

My heart began pounding. My breath went soft and sharp. I totally forgot Savile Row, forgot the mess in my brain -- hell, damn near forgot that I was headed back to the States, tomorrow.

All that mattered was him.

He was my prey ... and it was all I could do to keep from reaching over just to ruffle his hair and let him know the chase was on, I was so overwhelmed by the idea of having him.

I snuck some photos on my cell phone, which only made him lovelier.

And lovelier.

And lovelier.

My focus became so intent he tightened even more. Oh, he knew I was interested ... hell, a blind fuckin’ poodle would’ve known. But he wasn’t acting like a man who’s freaked out by my attention; it was more like he was surprised. I wondered if he was wondering if this might be the way to make a bit of extra money. Let the fag suck him off for a quick fifty. Looked like he could use it.

I watched him work his texts. Work through confusion ... then wariness ... finally ending with a weary stubbornness over some decision he’d made. I figured it was marital trouble. Maybe telling the wife he’d be late for dinner and she was pissed. Which hurt him. Made him sadder. And more beautiful than anyone I had ever seen.

My heart pounded stronger. Son-of-a-bitch, I had to have him. Had to be with him. Completely. No matter what it took.

He glanced at Savile Row a few times. I almost thought my guy expected something to happen between them, but that man was too lost in his own contemplations, so he cast one more half-glance my way, sent a last text then put his phone in his hoodie pocket and, as we were pulling into Hounslow East, stood up.

I stopped breathing for a moment, because those legs flowed into what was promising to be the most perfect ass ever in existence. Then as he worked his way to the door he brushed against me -- his solid arm rubbing mine, almost like he was saying Here I am -- and I fell headlong into animal mode.

And followed him.

Okay, that was a stupid thing to do. Period. Like I said, not one real, honest, serious ping on my gaydar. The most I could even have hoped for was the cash-for-access scenario, and while the thought of making an offer did dance across my mind, it died quick ... because I wanted more than that would give me. A hell of a lot more. But getting a straight guy’s no problem for me; it all depends on how far you're willing to go.

And I’d learned a long time ago that I had no limit.

Tumblr is the latest to go homophobic...

You see this painting?

Tumbler flagged it as adult content. It's part of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican! Tens of thousands of men, women AND children see it every day...but Tumblr says it's a no-no and won't let you view it. It shows a man's pee-pee.

Then there's this photo. He's wearing as much as you'd see on any high school or college campus across the country...or walking through a park...or at the beach, but it's adult content and flagged, says Tumblr. I've had a dozen on my blog just this innocuous that were handled in the same way.

It seems the puritanical scum at that company are most offended by men being viewed in any way except fully dressed in a business suit. I mean, they flagged one on another site that was of two guys sitting next to each other, fully dressed. No hand-holding, no crotches, even...but one's knee was touching the other one's so it's adult content. Seriously.

That's not an algorithm mixing up men's nipples with women's or seeing a bit of nudity as being hard-core porn. That's a deliberate purge of content that might even begin to be perceived as gay-oriented. It doesn't matter if it's a work of art.

This piece by John Constable -- Academic Study of a Male Nude in the same Pose as a Figure in Michelangelo’s ‘Last Judgement’ in the Sistine Chapel, Rome -- was painted in the 1820s and is on view at Anglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire! But Tumblr got all goofy over it. FLAGGED!!!

On December 17th, a mere two weeks after making the announcement of their plan, Tumblr will erase all content it deems Adult Content. They ignored pleas from Tumblr bloggers to rein in the porn-bots taking over the system. They're either too fucking lazy or cheap or ignorant to just put up a wall to keep adult content behind, like Facebook now does and Blogger can do. Hell, even Smashwords and Kobo have walls for adult material, and sell my books from behind them.

But Tumblr's given in to the hateful right wing and is doing the easiest thing it can to make the intolerant happy. It won't work. Others like myself are exploding over this and their stock is dropping like a rock into the ocean. They have probably killed the company...or maybe not. Verizon owns it so they may be happy with this shit.

But it's so fucking stupid and insulting...

Working on Underground Guy now...

I've gone through UG once again and am beginning to format it for ebook. I think I'm going to make one more pass on it to be double sure, but overall it looks good to me. And there are parts of it I love the fact that I wrote them. Granted, this is another in-your-face book with lots of gay sex in it, but it's also a character study of a man in crisis who is forced to find a new way of dealing with his issues.

I know that sounds bit silly and self-aggrandizing, but I am fucking proud of how I get Devlin to change from being a wild animal into a human being. Not just because it happens logically, but because it's done in a simple way...over chewing gum. Seeing a video of one of the serial killer's victims pop some gum in his mouth just before going off to what Devlin knows will be his death slams into him with the viciousness of a sledgehammer to the gut.

Devlin thinks of all the times he's done that, himself, when rushing off to meet a new client. "Can't have coffee breath." It shatters the walls he's put up to protect himself and he nearly loses his grip on his sanity. And it just...happened...

I have a couple moments approaching that already written in APoS. Like when Brendan does lose his mind at the end of book 1 and slowly claws his way back to reality at the beginning of book 2. What solidifies it is him seeing his uncle's car needs won't start on a damp morning, and since he's good with fixing things he goes out to effect a repair...and that's the point where you know he's going to be okay.

If I had a better grip on my grammar, I might actually start to think I'm a damn good writer.