I’m not sure where one should expect to find the bereaved daughter of a
wealthy Malibu suicide in need of a trauma cleaner long after midnight,
but safe to say a trucker motel down the 405 industrial corridor of oil refineries
and chem plants in Carson was not on my list of likely locales.
—Ouch. That looks painful.
I touched the bandage on my forehead.
—And if that’s what it feels like to look at it, imagine how it feels to actually
have it happen to you.
The half of her face that I could see in the chained gap between the
edge of the door and the frame nodded up and down.
—Yeah, I’d imagine that sucks.
Cars whipped past on the highway across the parking lot, taking full advantage
of the few hours in any given Los Angeles county twenty-fourhour
period when you might get the needle on the high side of sixty. I
watched a couple of them attempting to set a new land speed record.
I looked back at Soledad’s face, bisected by the door.
—So?
—Uh huh?
I hefted the plastic carrier full of cleaning supplies I’d brought from the
van.
—Someone called for maid service?
—Yeah. That was me.
—I know.
She fingered the slack in the door chain, set it swinging back and forth.
—I didn’t really think you’d come.
—Well, I like to surprise.
She stopped playing with the chain.
—Terrible habit. Don’t you know most people don’t like surprises?
I looked over at the highway and watched a couple more cars.
—Can I ask a silly question?
—Sure.
I looked back at her.
—What the fuck am I doing here?
She ran a hand through her hair, let it fall back over her forehead.3
—You sure you want to do this, Web?
That being the kind of question that tips most people off to a fucked up
situation, I could very easily have taken it as my cue to go downstairs, get
back in the van and get the hell gone. But it’s not like I hadn’t already been
clued to things being fucked up when she called in the middle of the night
and asked me to come to a motel to clean a room. And there I was anyway.
So who was I fooling?
Exactly no one.
—Just let me in and show me the problem.
—Think you can fix it, do you?
I shook my head.
—No, probably not. But it’s cold out here. And I came all this way.
She showed me half her smile, the other half hidden behind the door.
—And you’re still clinging to some hope that a girl asking you to come
clean something is some kind of booty call code, right?
I rubbed the top of my head. But I didn’t say anything. Not feeling like
saying no and lying to her so early in our relationship. There would be time
for that kind of thing later. There’s always time for lying.
She inhaled, let it out slow.
—OK.
The door closed. I heard the chain unhook. The door opened and I
walked in, my feet crunching on something hard.
—This the asshole?
I looked at the young dude standing at the bathroom door with a meticulously
crafted fauxhawk. I looked at bleached teeth and handcrafted tan.
I looked at the bloodstains on his designer-distressed jeans and his artfully
faded reproduction Rolling Stones concert T from a show that took place
well before he was conceived. Then I looked at much larger bloodstains
on the sheets of the queen-size bed and the flecks of blood spattered on
the wall. I looked at the floor to see what I’d crushed underfoot, half expecting
cockroaches, and found dozens of scattered almonds instead. I listened
as the door closed behind me and locked. I watched as Soledad
walked toward the bathroom and the dude snagged her by the hand before
she could go in.
—I asked, Is this the asshole.
I pointed at myself.
—Honestly, in most circumstances, in any given room on any given day,
I’d say, Yeah, I’m the asshole here. But in this particular scenario, and I
know we just met and all, but in this room here?
I pointed at him.
—I’m more than willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and say that
you’re the asshole.
He looked at Soledad.
—So, yeah, he’s the asshole then?
She twisted her hand free and went into the bathroom.
—He’s the guy I told you about.
She closed the door behind her.
He looked at me.
—Yeah, you’re the asshole alright.
I held up a hand.
—Hey, look, if you’re gonna insist, I can only accept the title. But seriously,
don’t sell yourself short. You got the asshole thing locked up if you
want it.
He came down the room in a loose strut I imagine had been meticulously
assembled from endless repeat viewings of Tom Cruise’s greatest
hits.
—Yeah, I can tell by the way you’re talking. You’re the one fucked with her
today. Made jokes about her dad killing himself. You’re the asshole alright.
The toilet flushed, Soledad yelled over it.
—He didn’t make jokes!
The dude looked at the closed door.
—You said he made jokes.
He looked at me.
—Asshole. Fucking go in someone’s home, there’s been a tragedy, go in
and try to make money off that. Fucking vulture. Fucking ghoul. Who
does that, who comes up with that for a job? That your dream job, man?
Cleaning up dead people? Other kids were hoping to grow up to be movie
stars and you were having fantasies about scooping people’s guts off the
floor?
I shifted, crushing a few more almonds.
—Truth is, mostly I had fantasies about doing your mom.
He slipped a lozenge of perforated steel from his back pocket, flicked
his wrist and thumb in an elaborate show of coordination, and displayed
the open butterfly knife resting in on his palm.
—Say what, asshole?
Say nothing, actually. Except say that maybe he was right and I was the
asshole in the room. Certainly being an asshole was how I came to be
there in the first place.

Yes, free books.

Some details:

In a partnership with Monsters and Critics.com, Random House is offering a limited time free download of the entire Hank Thompson Trilogy in PDF format.

Over the next three months M&C will will make the downloads available exclusively through their site.   Each book will be on tap for about four weeks before the next book replaces it. So, the download offer is limited-time, but once you have the download it’s yours and won’t suddenly disappear from your computer or e-reader.

Don’t like e-books?

That’s OK.  M&C will also be giving away good old fashioned books.  250 copies of each book will be given away in each month the downloads are up and running.   In addition, Random House will be givng away copies of THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH when it publishes in January.  That giveaway requires that you read the HT Trilogy and write some comments and send them to Random House.

The downloads are no-brainers that don’t require anything but clicking the link and saving the PDF doc.

The HT Trilogy book giveaway require coughing up email, home address, etc.  And, sorry, it’s only availible to US residents.  But the fee downloads are for all.

Caveats: M&C is advertising heavy and they have a way of tucking the links close to the text.  Nothing malicious, but watch where you click or you’ll be learning a lot about “laptop deals and resources.” And, for the record, I have nothing to do with those ads, nor do I endorse any of the products or services advertised.

Bottom line: there’s nothing wrong with free book downloads.  No trees were killed.

THE LINKS:

Monsters and Critics.com

Free download of CAUGHT STEALING (scroll to bottom of page after clicking through)

Free CAUGHT STEALING book giveaway (scroll to bottom of page after clicking through)

LOS ANGELES, June 23 - And then it was tomorrow.

My calendar has been inverted.  Or reversed.  Or flipped.  Or something.

Some readers have noticed that my usual new-release schedule looks a little different this year.  And it is.  For the past few years, in which I’ve had two books releasing each year, my new crime books have come out in the late summer/early fall, and my new Joe Pitt novels have come out in winter, generally in the week after Christmas. 

 Not so this year.

This year, the new Joe Pitt, EVERY LAST DROP, will release on September 30th, and my next crime novel, THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH, will come out on a TBA date in the winter months of early 2009. 

What the fuck?

Allow me to explain.

Some months ago, as much as a year ago in fact, if not longer, my publisher floated the idea of flipping my release schedule. 

(By the way, for the sake of clarification, my books are published by two imprints of Random House.  My crime books come out via Random House/Ballantine, and the Joe Pitt books via Del Rey.  All of my books are edited by Mark Tavani of RH/Ballantine.)

The rationale behind this change was explained to me thusly: The two big release seasons on the publishing calendar are spring and fall.  That’s when all the big books are put out, so as to capitalize on summer readers and holiday gift-buyers.  Because the big fish are in the pond, it is hard to draw attention to the little fish.

(I, by the by, am a little fish.  Wee and agile, perhaps, but neither mighty nor long of tooth.  Leeetle fishy.)

The rationale continued, and further explained, that a series at it’s mid-point, such as the Joe Pitt series, was not likely to increase in readership, neither was it likely to lose too many more readers.  Thus, without much to lose, why not drop it in with the big fish, where it could be found by those who desired it’s sweet and tender fillets? 

Well, it’s not the kind of thing you want to hear, but it’s reality.  Readership tends to decline over the run of a series.  Fact of life.  And, it’s also true that, after three books, you can’t expect too many new people at the party.  Fair enough.

And there was more rationale, the punchline as it were, which was basically that if Joe Pitt were moved from Winter, the crime books could take that spot.  In with the medium and small fishies.  Where it might be easier to get some of the fishing people, who did not know of the yumminess of these fish, to drop a line in the water and hook one of those buggers.

What you like about this kind of thinking if you are a writer, is that it indicates your publisher’s desire to sell your damn books.  Which, trust me, is far from always being the case.  With several books in the pond, none of them anything more than modestly successful in terms of sales, it would be far more typical if everyone had raised their hands, declared that the current sales were good enough, and simply stayed the course.  The fact that they continue to exert energy and try new things with my books is a concrete demonstration of their commitment.  What’s important to remember is that this is not a bottom-line calculation.  Commitment to a low-midlist writer, a willingness to continue to find new readers for the writer’s words, does not emerge from a spreadsheet that demonstrates there is more to be squeezed from said writer.  Yes, it may happen that way, but I think it unlikely.  A more likely scenario, and, in my case, the actual one, is that there are specific people who like the books, who believe in the books, and who believe that other people would like the books if they only knew that they existed.  In a case like mine it is not that the might of Random House swings to support me because I will shit gold nuggets in the future.  No, in a case like mine several people within Random House have time and again supported me and my work because they want to.  Because they want the books to do well.  Because, as I said, they believe. 

That’s some serious shit.

Being believed in is some serious shit.

You can get places on that.  You can get out of some deep dark personal places with that.  You cannot buy it, you cannot take it to the bank, but you can most certainly put it away for a rainy day.

Heartening.

So, the flipped calendar.

This is basically the result of people who care about my books making an effort to do something so that more people will get to read my books.

And that’s why I am so very fucking busy.

Flip the calendar.  Sounds easy enough.  Except, ahem, the book due in the winter is now due in the fall, and the book due in the fall is now due in the winter. 

Think about it.

So you stop everything, rearrange the calendar, finish your current projects, begin work on the book you’d not planned on starting on for another six months, delay the book that was in your on-deck circle, try to figure out what happened to the six months grace you’d always built into your deadlines by being always ahead of them, try to figure out what you’re going to do when you get into the second year of this cycle when your math tells you you’ll have about six months between finishing one book and the scheduled publication date for the next book you’re supposed to write, and you inhale-exhale and say it’s all for the best in the long-run and you go to work and your wife gets pregnant.

Pop!

That’s the sound of my brain collapsing into itself.  It was a tiny sound.  Because I have a tiny brain.

So, that’s the story of the new release schedule. 

I’m about halfway through the process of writing all the books that needed to be rescheduled.  My baby is awesome.  My brain has yet to be seen.

If I seem a little distracted at times…well, my brain is MIA.

Not sure of the date,

-c

I just got this.  Very first pass on the cover for next winter’s THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH.  And don’t expect to see much change when this hits the shelves.  Not if I have anything to say about it.  Quite simply, my favorite cover so far.  There are others I love, but this one has jumped into first.  Clearly we’re still in world where very bad things happen, but this one also has some visual cool and playfulness that hasn’t been present in any of the previous crime books.  The “erasing” of the dead body, while simultaneously highlighting it in toxic yellow, I love that.  I love that perspective is skewed and that you have to look at it once or twice before you realize that the original image is horizontal and that the body is on the floor, not on a couch.  I like that it seems to tell a different story about the kind of book this is, the suggestion that something more than mayhem and entertainment is happening inside.  Some effects may be added, the yellow may end up glossy, and there will undoubtedly be a blurb or two, but this is the winner. 

One of the more surreal things I’ve done the last few years was to be interviewed for the Swedish TV arts show, Kobra.

LINK

My publisher, Ballantine, arranged to have an Expanded Books promotional video made for THE SHOTGUN RULE.

LINK

Well, let’s be fair here, every single other cover that has come from my German publisher, Heyne, has been an asskicker.  Sooner or later there was bound to be one that missed the mark.  Is there anything actually wrong with this cover in and of itself, or is it just wrong for the book?  If I’m honest, and I’m going to be honest, I’d have to say, yes, yes, this is just not a good cover.  That’s OK.  I don’t always write good stuff.  Nobody always does their goodest best.  Sometimes you miss the mark.  After all the covers I’ve loved on the German editions, it’s only fair that one comes along that looks like the poster for a hip-hop dance interpretation of a novel by S.E. Hinton.

LOS ANGELES, April 19 - And the answer is…  

OK, first off, I lost some questions.  Because I’m stupid.  So if you asked me something and the answers aren’t here, please send them again.   

Leading off, Caleb B.

“1.You said Sports was an ok subject to ask you about and if I remember reading somewhere you are a Miami Dolphins fan? (I’ve been a fan since I was little, I’m still recovering from last seasons record) but anyways, I was just wondering that IF Miami keeps the first round draft pick, Who do you think they’ll choose?”   

Yes, Caleb, I do share your affliction.  These days, rooting for the Fins is very much like being saddled with a chronically nauseating, but sadly non-fatal illness.  Irritable Bowl Syndrome, or the like.      Well, obviously, with as many holes as the roster has, the ideal situation would be to trade down.  Doesn’t look like that will be happening, not unless someone gets a big crush on McFadden and must have him.  I read that We’ve actually started negotiations with Michigan offensive tackle Jake Long.  And, while I confess that I’m no draftnik, that sounds like the best choice.  Our line is shit, and has been shit for years. In fact, since Marino’s waning years (pause to genuflect), it has never been better than mediocre.  But mostly shit.  Defense may win championships, but we’ll never know if John Beck is a bust, if Ronnie Brown can get through an entire season without injury, and if Ted Ginn Jr. and his family was the worst first round draft pick ever until we have a line that can create a hole or pass block long enough to keep a play alive while receivers get something resembling open.   

“2. Is that Novel that is being published in Winter ‘09 about the Female character from your contributions in “Expletive Deleted” and “A Hell of A Woman”?”  

Nope.  The Winter ’09 crime novel is titled (wait for it) THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH and is about an L.A. slacker who becomes a professional trauma cleaner.   

From Mike B. 

“1. What made you have Hank be an aspiring baseball star? You just live baseball and thought it would be cool, or were you also a baseball player?” 

I love baseball.  I do not play baseball.  Because I am inept.  Hank’s baseball ability is my wish fulfillment fantasy.  His injury is the intrusion of reality. 

“2. Any thoughts on who your dream casting for Joe Pitt or Hank would be for movies based on your books?”            

My perfect Pitt is, and has always been, young Robert Mitchum. I’ve never pictured a Hank, but someone recently suggested Ryan Gosling and, having seen “Half Nelson,” I think that’s a pretty good idea.    

Anne Kimbol asks,   

“I’m not sure if you can answer this question yet, but you mentioned your upcoming projects in the post about asking you questions. Is one of them the one about the trauma scene clean-up person you mentioned during your Houston Shotgun Rule signing?”              

Yes.  Check out my answer to Caleb’s second question above.   

“Also, what boroughs will we see in Every Last Drop?”                         

Joe will be starting in the Bronx, and traveling to Queens.  The garden spots of NYC.  

And Clayton G. Mugge

“So here I go with my questions and potential ramblings…. First…how old were you when you realized that being a writer was your calling?”  

Well, I don’t think I ever had such a realization.  I always enjoyed writing, since I was a kid, but I never really pursued it, as a job or as a calling.  Writing was more of a form of relaxation for me.  Writing professionally was something that I fell into.  And that didn’t happen until I was about 34.    

“I have read in interviews that you’ve done that you were a bartender at some point… Did the experiences of tending bar influence any of your writings?”  

Sure.  Bartending is a great job for people watching.  There are any number of stories, bits of conversation, or specific people I came into contact with in those years that made there way into my books.  The most specific instance is in CAUGHT STEALING.  The physical layout of that bar was based on a bar where I worked, and a few of the regulars in the bar are composits of some of my customers.

“And lastly, where did the idea of Joe Pitt originate, and what kind of moral, if any, were you potentially trying to convey with the “Casebooks”?”  

Pitt started with the first line of ALREADY DEAD, “I smell them before I see them.” everything spawned from that one line.  Joe’s character evolved from the hardboiled tone of that line.  As for moral, there is none.  

Thanks for asking, 

charlie

LOS ANGELES, April 4 - It’s still a mystery to me.

The writing.

But I still get a lot of questions about process.

When trying to answer these questions I almost always mention that I keep seperate notebooks for each project.  These begin as places to jot notes and ideas, storehouses for anything I think I may need or want as I proceed, but they also end up being places where I go to work out tough plotting issues, becoming maps I may or may not refer to later.

Looking at warrenellis.com today I saw a page of old noted for a comic book that Ellis had scanned and posted. 

I love that kind of shit.  Taking a little peek behind the green curtain.  I don’t really want to know how the wizards do all their tricks, but it’s always cool to get an idea of just how a particular bit of legerdemain might work.

And so I thought I’d do it here with some pages from notebooks of completed projects.  Not that I’m a wizard, but nuts and bolts are also cool to some people.

These are the original notes for what ended up being page 1 of “Moon Knight” #1.  In this version is was actually more like page 5 or 6, but I cut an opening flashback to Marc Spector’s mercenary days because it didn’t work.

 

These are three pages of notes from ALREADY DEAD, the first Joe Pitt casebook (Bit of trivia: the working title was “Complicated Shadows” from the Elvis Costello song of the same name.  I think the line is in the book somewhere.)  At some point in just about every book, I reach several points where I start to lose control of the elements and it feels like the story is getting away from me.  I think that what I was doing here was laying out for myself how events on and off page in the book would have unspooled chronologically.  An effort to see if Joe’s investigation was making sense. 

And a page of notes from THE SHOTGUN RULE.  Basically a to-do list.  Something I’ll do to focus myself when I don’t know where to go next with the story.  Give myself housekeeping tasks to keep up momentum.

-charlie

THE SHOTGUN RULE

By

Charlie Huston

ONE

Piece of Shit Bike

It started with Andy’s piece of shit bike.

-What the fuck were you doing not locking it up?

-I just went in for a second.

-I just went it for a second.  How the fuck long do you think it takes to steal a bike, dickweed?

-It was right next to the window.

-Yeah, that’ll do it, no one ever steals shit that’s next to a window.  Fucking numbnuts.

George is kneeling next to a bucket of water, submerging the half-inflated inner tube from his bike’s front wheel. 

He looks once at Paul, then back in the bucket.

-Don’t be such a dick, man, he lost his bike.

Paul picks up a rock from the huge pile that occupies half the driveway. 

He shakes the rock around his hand like a single die.

-He didn’t lose his bike.

He tosses the rock, bouncing it off Andy’s back.

-He let someone steal it.

Andy feels pressure behind his eyes and fights it. Already cried once when coming out of the store and finding the bike gone.  Can’t cry again. 

He picks up a rock of his own.

-I didn’t let anyone steal it.

He throws the rock at Paul. 

-It was stolen.

Paul stays right where he is, the rock skipping across the pavement and into the street without coming near him.

-Yeah, big diff.

George is still shuffling the inner tube between his hands, looking for the string of bubbles that will point to the slow leak that’s been plaguing him for days.

-Don’t throw the fucking rocks around, dad’ll have a fit.

Andy kicks at a couple rocks, nudging them back toward the pile.  His and George’s dad had them shovel the rocks from the back of his pickup two weeks ago.  This weekend he’ll rent a rototiller and plow up the back lawn and they’ll have to move the rocks a wheelbarrow load at a time to spread over the yard.  It’s gonna suck and he’s not even going to pay them.  He says they should be thanking him for plowing under the lawn that they hate mowing and weeding.

A line of bubble appears and shoots to the surface of the bucket.  George covers their source with a fingertip and lifts the tube from the water.

-Hand me that rag.

Andy bends to pick up a scrap of chamois that’s lying next to the toolbox, but Paul takes a quick step and places his foot over it.

-George, don’t let this guy help with your bike.  He’s bad luck.  He touches your bike and it’s gone.

Andy yanks on the rag.

-Get off dickmo.

-Make me.

-Get.  Off.

Andy pulls harder and Paul lifts his foot and Andy falls back on his ass.

-You’re such a feeb.

-Dick!

George holds out his hand.

-Give me the rag.

Andy throws the rag at him. 

Some big brother.  Think he could take his side against Paul just once.  Just today.  Fucking bike.  Still can’t believe he was so fucking stupid not to lock it up.

George catches the rag, lifts his finger from the puncture in the tube and starts drying the rubber around it.

-Did you see who took it?

Andy gets off his ass, takes the puncture kit from the toolbox and pops the shiny tin lid from the cardboard cylinder. 

-No.  If I had I would have kicked their ass.

Paul reaches up, grabbing a lower branch of the maple tree alongside the driveway and chinning himself on it.

-Yeah, George, what are you thinking?  If he’d seen them he would have kicked their ass.  He’s such a badass ass kicker.  Asses all over town are afraid of him.

Andy flips him off and hands George the top of the puncture kit. 

George drops the rag, takes the lid and uses its ridged upper surface to score the rubber around the puncture.

Paul hauls himself up onto the branch, hooks his knees around it and dangles upside down, long curls falling over his face.

-Come kick my ass, Andy, I’ll just hang here and you try to kick my ass.

Andy stays where he is, watching George fix the leak, taking the lid back and handing him the metal tube of cement. 

Inside he’s picturing picking up the hammer from the toolbox and swinging it at Paul’s face.  He’s picturing finding whoever stole his bike and stabbing them in the throat with a screwdriver.

Paul puts one arm behind his back.

-C’mon, man, one handed and upside down, you gotta be able to kick my ass.

George rubs the cement over the puncture. 

Paul puts his other arm behind him.

-No hands.  No hands.  It’s never gonna get easier than this, man.  C’mon and take a shot.  You know you want to.  Remember that time I pantsed you on the quad?  Here’s your chance to get back at me.

Andy remembers.  First day of his freshman year, bad enough that he’d been skipped a year to start high school early, but there was Paul, greeting him by running up and yanking his hand-me-down bell bottoms to his ankles while the entire student body was crisscrossing the quad on their way to homeroom. 

He pictures standing in the middle of that quad with a machine gun in his hands, pulling the trigger and turning in slow circles until he is all alone and it is quiet.

He shakes his head sharply, trying to jar the image loose, unsuccessfully.

He takes the cement back from George, caps it and drops it in the kit, chewing the inside of his cheek.

Paul swings himself back and forth a few times. 

-What’s the matter, spaz?  Looks like you’re getting twitchy over there.  You gonna freak out and start throwing things again?

George picks up one of the rocks, cups it like a marble and flicks it at Paul, bouncing it off his forehead.

Paul laughs, drops from the branch.

Hector barrels up the driveway.

-Hey!

He skids to a stop, leaving a streak of black rubber on the pavement, his front wheel scrunching into the rock pile.

-Hey, Andy, what’s up with your bike?  I just saw one of the Arroyos riding it around.

They all look at him.

Paul hawks and spits.

-Which one?

-Timo.

He sticks a finger in Hector’s face.

-You fucking sure?

Hector knocks the finger away.

-Yeah, asshole, I’m fucking sure.  We may all look alike to you, but I can tell my Mexicans apart.

Paul picks up a rock, heaves it down the street.

-Fucking Timo.

.

*****

      The Arroyos were legend long before George, Paul and Hector got to high school. 

Fernando was the first.  He spent five years at the high school, leaving behind him a shattered and exhausted administration and a faculty that was to a soul nothing but grateful that they had survived. 

He had taxed the personal behavior codes to the limit, twisted them and found loopholes so obscure the entire rule book had to be revised upon his departure.  And yet, despite the physical damage he had done to the campus and assorted classmates.  Despite the psychological scars he had left on his teachers.  Despite all this, the football coach and athletic boosters had campaigned relentlessly to have a special grading curve installed that might keep his GPA hovering just in the vicinity of a C+, just that fraction across the border from C that would have allowed him to play varsity football.  Their efforts had been inspired by the havoc he had wreaked as both an offensive lineman and linebacker in jv ball.

Any opposing player unlucky enough to have to line up opposite him, any bullrushed quarterback, any running back or wide receiver required to pass through his domain on the field was inclined to trip and fall while he was still yards away rather than endure the rib-cracking-nose-breaking-concussion-inducing hits he routinely laid down.  If the ball were fumbled while he was on the field, every player, his own teammates included, ran from it, terrified of the prospect of ending up in his clutches at the bottom of a pile.  His heavily taped fist pounding your groin, fingers gouging at your eyes and a relentless barrage of Spanish curses regarding your mother’s pussy screamed in your ear.  But, gamer though he may have been, his all but flawless record of non-attendance in class kept him from advancing to the varsity squad.

In his third junior year he had turned eighteen and passed finally into adulthood and the clutches of the criminal justice system.  His record as a minor was admirable enough that his first adult arrest earned him a conviction (sentence suspended), and a final expulsion.

With Fernando gone the School Board heaved a brief sigh of relief, and then began preparing for the arrival of Ramon.

The preparations were insufficient. Ramon engaged upon his own Sherman’s March from the first day of his freshman year.  Announcing his presence by egging the entire faculty parking lot at midday in full view of the sixty-eight year old campus security guard who had been phoned at home the night before and told that if he ever called the police on an Arroyo he would have a Columbian necktie the next morning.  He didn’t know exactly what a Columbian necktie was, but, recognizing Fernando’s voice over the line, he knew he didn’t want one.

Ramon lasted barely one year, doing as much damage in that time as Fernando had done in one.  But shortly after summer vacation began he was arrested for armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon.  The deadly weapon being a hacksaw he wielded like a machete when a clerk at the 7/11 refused to open the register for him. 

Both were long gone when George, Paul and Hector began their freshman year, but Timo was in their class making up for his brothers’ absence. 

Timo seemed to have watched the progression, and decided it wasn’t for him.  He played jv and varsity soccer and starred on both squads.  He maintained a dead-on C+ average that never faltered, the product of a series of “tutors” who were paid to write his papers and prep cheatsheets for his tests.  He was one of the school’s five letterman Mexicans. 

He is also far and away the school’s biggest pot dealer.  Stoners were compelled to buy his shit-brown ditch weed even when their was an abundance of green buds to be found.  The penalty for not purchasing his goods being a visit from one of his older brothers. 

He sported his brothers’ lowrider style.  Khaki chinos, black leather shoes with white socks, long sleeve plaid shirt buttoned at the collar and wrists, but open all the way down and left untucked to reveal the white wifebeater underneath, a net over his blow-dried jet black hair, and a thin mustache he’d been cultivating since sixth grade.  He wore the look, but minus the switchblade in his back pocket or the bag of reefer tucked in his sock or the Newports in his shirtfront.  His lackeys carried these for him.  He was always clean, ready for any patdown.  A fine enough athlete that he was always welcome at the top jocks’ table.  Sleepy eyed and handsome, he was watched not just by the Mexican girls, but by the white chicks as well. Cowgirls, cheerleaders, brains, jocketts all had an eye for him. 

All of this concealing from the faculty what an enormous dick he was.

      *****

      Paul bounced on his toes.

-I’m gonna kill that fucking faggot.

George is sitting on the ground, turning his bike’s front wheel in his lap, tucking the inner tube back up inside the tire.

-Where’d you see him?

Hector is picking up tools.

-Over by their house.

-Was he fucking around or just headed home?

-He was headed toward Fernando’s pad.

George is using a screwdriver to flip the edge of the tire back inside the wheel rim.  He stops.

-Fernando’s?

-Yeah.

George goes back to work.

-Shit.

Paul is on his bike. 

-So fucking what, he’s going to his brother’s.  I’m still gonna fucking kill him.

Hector shakes his head.

-Fine, man, go pedal over there and kill him.  Not like Fernando won’t be home.  Not like Ramon isn’t didn’t get out of Santa Rita last month.  You see him since he got out? 

-Fuck him.

-Looks like all he did in there was eat and pump iron.

He spreads his fingers wide and holds them out over his chest, showing how big Ramon has gotten.

George slips the wheel back onto his bike’s front forks.

-When’d Timo move out of his folk’s?

Hector has pulled out a nearly full pack of Marlboro Reds.  He takes one for himself and hands the pack around.

-Don’t know.  My sister says he got in a fight with his mom and hit her in the stomach and his dad threw him out.  Like dragged him out the front door and threw him and a bunch of his shit on the lawn.  So now he’s at Fernando’s.

The others are quiet as they each take a smoke from the pack. 

George takes out a Bic sheathed in the stainless steel and turquoise case he bought at the Devil’s Workshop head shop last summer, and they all bum a light. 

Hector takes the pack back and looks at Paul.

-And that’s all.  He’s over there with his brothers.  You ride over there and fuck him up, they’re gonna kill you. 

Paul bites the filter of his cigarette and gets back on his bike.

-Fuck ‘em.  I’ll fucking kill those faggots if they let me take ‘em one on one.  Only way they can take me is if they gang up.

-Well, shit, man, that’s what they fucking do.

George packs the last of his tools away.

-Doesn’t matter what they do.  We got to go over there.  They got Andy’s bike.

And that’s when they look around and realize that Andy’s gone.

©Copyright 2007, 2008 by Charlie Huston.  All rights reserved etc.

 

CAUGHT STEALING

By

Charlie Huston

PART ONE

SEPTEMBER 22–28, 2000

Eight Regular Season

Games Remaining

My feet hurt. The nightmare still in my head, I walk across the

cold wood floor, shuffling my feet in the light grit. I’m half-drunk and I

have to pee. I’m not sure which woke me, the piss or the nightmare.

My john is just a bit smaller than the average port-o-potty. I sit on

the pot and rest my forehead against the opposite wall. I have a pee

hard-on and if I try to take a leak standing up, I’ll end up hosing the

whole can. I know this from experience. Plus my feet still hurt.

It takes a while. By the time I finish I’m just about asleep again. I

get up, flush, and shuffle back to bed. On the way, a last bit of piss

dribbles onto my thigh. I pick up a dirty sock from the floor, wipe the

urine off and toss the sock in a corner.

I crawl back under the covers and twist around a bit until I’m

arranged. I start to drift back asleep and the nightmare begins to rise

up again in my mind. I force myself fully awake to keep it from getting

back in. I think happy thoughts. I think about a dog I used to have. I

think about Yvonne. I think about baseball: long, lazy games of base

ball, plastic cups of cold beer between my thighs, peanut shells

crunching beneath my sneakers. Fly balls soaring over loping outfield

ers. The beautiful ease of the long pop fly out . . . No! Wrong! Base

ball is a mistake and the nightmare is rushing back in. I think about

home. Home does the trick and I start to ease back asleep. And only

then as I finally fall asleep do I register the blood I saw on the sock

when I wiped my leg, the blood from my piss. I sleep.

***

These things are not related: my aching feet, the nightmare, the blood.

My feet have hurt for years because of the job. The nightmare has

been going on for half my life. The blood in my piss is brand new, but

I know exactly where I got that too.

I got the bloody piss from the beating I took from a couple of guys

last night. By last night I mean a few long hours before the nightmare

woke me up. And when I say I took a beating from these guys, I really

mean they gave it to me. Free. I got lucky; they both had small hands.

Go figure, two big guys with small hands. It happens. They didn’t

want to bust up those little hands working on my face, so they gave it

to my body. It didn’t take long. They put some good ones in my gut

and ribs and I dropped. Then I took a couple boot shots in the kidneys. That’s where the blood is coming from.

The alarm goes off at 8:00 A.M.Now that the booze has worn off I

hurt everywhere, but my feet are what’s really killing me. I go to the

can, sure enough: more blood. I brush my teeth and hop in the shower.

Bruises are starting to well up all over my torso and the hot water feels

good. I leave the shower running and walk dripping to the fridge, grab

a cold beer and take it back to the shower. The water feels good, but

the beer is better. It takes the edge off my hangover, kicks up the dust

of last night’s drunk and gives it life. I take the washcloth from the

shower caddie and gently scrub my feet.

Out of the shower now, I finish the last of the beer while trimming

my toenails. I clip them very short and even and make sure there is no

grit hiding at the edges. I find a clean pair of socks with no holes and

get dressed. I head out the front door. There’s time for breakfast.

At the diner I have bacon and eggs and another beer. The first beer

was good, but the second is even better. I’m heading into the third

week of a pretty good binge and the first couple drinks of the day are

always the best. I have to ease into it with beer because my job starts

late. If I hit it too early I’ll be drooling by the time the shift begins. I

sip the beer, eat my chow, and look over the sports pages.

As a rule, the Daily News consists of equal parts violent sensationalism, feel-good human interest, celebrity gossip and advertising.

I read it every day and feel dirty all over. But it’s New York, and everybody

gets dirty sooner or later. Today it’s all election coverage and stories

about yet more dotcoms biting the dust. I flip past the photos of the

interchangeable candidates and get to the important stuff. See, the

reason I started buying this rag in the first place is because it’s the only

way to get West Coast scores in the morning. Unless you have cable. I

can’t afford cable.
Back in California, the Giants are suffering their usual late season

collapse. A week ago they were in striking distance of first place. But

after a seven-game skid, they’ve been eliminated from contention for

the division and are trailing the Mets for the wild card by four games

with eight games left in the season. Meanwhile the Dodgers are red

hot and have the division clinched after winning twelve of their last

fourteen.
I look at my watch and it’s time to go see the doctor.

I hate the Dodgers.
I’ve had this appointment for a week. I’m not here about the blood,

I’m here about my feet. I’ve tried every kind of shoe and insert I can

find and my feet are still killing me. So now, after years of bitching, I’m finally seeing a doctor. I could ask about the blood while I’m

here, but what the hell is he gonna tell me? He’s gonna tell me to go

to an emergency room and they’re gonna tell me that it’s not life-

threatening. They’re gonna charge me a few thou I don’t have to tell

me to rest a bit and not to drink alcohol or caffeine. I don’t drink caffeine. It makes me jittery. I sit in the waiting room and think about

that second beer and how good it was.

I’m not worried about the kidney. If the kidney was serious, I’d be

unconscious by now. It’s contused: my kidney is scraped and it’s

bleeding a bit. Dr. Bob comes out of his office and calls my name.

Dr. Bob is a great guy. He’s an Ivy League med school graduate who

came to the Lower East Side and opened a community practice. He’ll

take anybody as a patient insurance or no insurance, his rates are as low as they get, and you pay your bills whenever you can. All of which

suits my situation. He told me once he didn’t want to make people

healthy just to make them poor. Like I said, a great guy.

I told him about the feet a week ago and he sent me out for some

X rays. Now, in his tiny office, he turns from where the X rays are

clipped to one of those light things on the wall and sits on the stool in

front of me. He starts to look at my feet. He really takes his time, inspecting them. He holds each foot, first one and then the other, and

kneads a bit, searching for some imperfection. All the while, he directs his eyes upward, as if they might interfere with the examination:

a safecracker with his eyes shut.

—Doc?

—Shhh.
He squeezes my feet a few more times, then stands up. He’s talking

now, but I’m having trouble hearing what he’s saying. He’s gesturing

from my feet to the X rays. I’m thinking about getting out of here and

drinking my next beer. I’m thinking how I wish I were lying down right

now because I feel a little strange. He is looking at me oddly.

The roaring in my ears is not the hangover. I cannot hear over it and

it occurs to me that something must be wrong. The examining table

spins out from underneath me and I thump to the floor. I try to lift

myself up, but I can’t. I feel a warm wetness spreading over my lap

and down my legs. I can see the tops of my feet. I can see the tips of

my three-hundred-dollar sneakers that are supposed to be the most

comfortable things that money can buy but are not. And I can see

the bloody urine trickling out the cuffs of my jeans. Something is very

wrong. I sleep.
***

When I wake up, the first thing I think about is the fucking cat. I’m

looking after this guy’s cat for a couple weeks. God knows how long

I’ve been out and if the thing is even alive. Fuck! I knew this would

happen. I told the guy I wasn’t good with animals, that I can barely

take care of myself, but he was really up against it, so I took the damn

cat. Then I see I’m in the hospital and figure out I may have more important things to worry about.
A joke: Guy is born with three testicles and spends his whole life

feeling like a freak. Boys make fun of him in gym class, girls laugh at

him. Finally, he can’t take it and goes to have one of them lopped off.

The doctor takes one look and tells the guy no way, it’s too dangerous,

might kill him or something, but he sends him to a shrink who might

help out. This counselor or whatever he is tells the guy to take it easy,

he should be proud of this third ball, he’s special. I mean, how many

guys have three testicles, right? So the guy feels great after that. He

leaves the doc’s office, walks into the street, goes up to the first man

he sees and says, “Did you know, between you and me we’ve got five

balls?” This dude looks at him funny and says, “You mean you only

have one?”
First guy I see when I walk out of the hospital I go up to and start

talking.

—Did you know, between you and me we only have three kidneys?

He doesn’t say anything, just walks around me like I’m not there.

New York, baby, New York.
I’ve been in the hospital for six days: one unconscious and five conscious. The doctors removed the kidney, which had been nearly ruptured by the two big guys with four small hands and further damaged

by my negligence and massive consumption of diuretic liquids. Booze.

The kidney was at “four plus” when they took it out. At “five,” they

simply explode and kill you. I have been told that I should never again

consume alcohol in any amount for the rest of my life on pain of

death. Likewise no smoking or caffeine. I don’t smoke and, like I said,

caffeine makes me jittery.
After I blacked out, Dr. Bob called the EMTs and had them take

me to Beth Israel. He rode with me in the ambulance and when we

arrived he got me past all the emergency room crap and directly into

an operating room. He saved my life. One of the doctors told me all of

this and when Bob showed up I tried to thank him, but he waved it off

in a just-doing-my-job kind of way. Then we get to my feet.

—So, your condition is chronic and brought on by the amount of time

you spend on your feet at work.
I’m a bartender. I work a ten-hour shift five nights a week. Sometimes six or seven nights.

—You could buy a lifetime supply of Dr. Scholl’s and get your feet

massaged every night and it would not help. If you want the pain to go

away, you are going to have to get off your feet.

—What if I?—

—Off your feet. You’re like a computer worker with carpal tunnel: if

you want it to go away, you are going to have to change your work

habits forever.

—Wow.

—Yes, wow. Furthermore, the pain in your feet has been exacerbated

by poor circulation, which I would say is related to excessive alcohol

consumption.

—Wow.

—Yes. So stop drinking. Period.

—Yeah, sounds good.
And that was that. He told me good luck and was on his way out

when I asked about the bill.

—When you get a new job and you’ve paid off your bill here, we’ll talk

about money.
A great guy.
Booze and my kidney. Booze and my feet. A pattern emerging.

I called the bar and talked to Edwin, the guy who owns the place. I

apologized for the lack of notice, but Edwin was cool and just told me

not to be a stranger.
Would I have quit if it was just the booze and the kidney? If someone said, “Get away from the booze and the drinking life or you’re

gonna die,” would I have quit? I don’t know, but my feet are killing me

and that tears it.
I called my folks, made sure they knew I was OK and told them not

to come out or expect me to come home to be nursed. Mom cried a

little, but I made her laugh in the end, telling her the testicle joke.

Dad asked if I needed money and I said no. We talked about Christmas a bit and how long I’d stay when I come out and then I told them

I love them and they told me they love me and we hung up and I just

fucking stared at the ceiling for a while.

I called one of the other bartenders from work. Her name is Yvonne,

we used to see each other quite a bit, still do from time to time. So

she’s a girl I see from time to time. She’s more than that. She’s my best

friend. But I also see her from time to time. She has a key to my place,

so I told her about the cat and she promised to check on it until I got

home. She offered to come by the hospital, but I said no. I want to be

alone. I need to figure out what the hell I’m gonna do.

So now I’m out. I walk up to the stiff on the street and tell my kidney

joke, and then I’m taking a cab home. They wanted me to stay for ten days so they could keep an eye on me and take out my staples before I

left, but my lack of a) cash and b) insurance encouraged them to let

me go. I’ll have the staples out in a few days and just take it easy until

then. I have one kidney, I’m being forced to go cold turkey, I have a

hospital bill that makes the ten grand I carry in credit card debt look

like a bad joke, and I have no job. On the other hand, I pick up a paper and the Giants are on a four-game winning streak and have picked

up two on the Mets, who split a four-game stand against the Phillies. I

lean back into the cab seat and feel a sharp stab in my former kidney

and wonder what the hell was eating those guys who beat the crap out

of me.

***

Paul’s Bar closes at 4:00 A.M. On a Thursday it’s usually all regulars by
2:00 A.M. So when I’m working, that’s when I start my serious drinking. Last Thursday there were about ten regulars hanging out in the

place and I was starting to get my head on when the big guys came in.

They plop down at the far end of the bar and I wander over. These

guys are genuinely big; even sitting on the stools, they loom a little. But

big means nothing, I’m more curious about the way they’re dressed.

Both guys are wearing Nike tracksuits: one in black, one in white.

They are sporting several gold chains each, which go well with the

gold-rimmed Armani sunglasses they both have propped up on their

shaved heads. These guys are not our usual crowd. I take them for

Poles or Ukrainians left over from the old neighborhood before the

East Village went Latino and then arty and now yuppie. They order an

Amstel Light and a cosmopolitan. Each. They have Russianic accents.

And this is still far from the weirdest pair we’ve ever had in the place,

so I fix the drinks and take the cash and they say thank you.

As I walk back down the bar to get my own drink and resume my

game of movie trivia on the MegaTouch, I hear cursing behind me. I

turn and the guy in the white tracksuit is holding his cosmo like the

glass is full of vomit.

—This is shit.
He turns the glass upside down and spills it on the bar. The guy in

black tastes his and promptly spits it back up, also on the bar.

—This is also shit. I cannot drink this.

To prove his point, he takes another sip and spits it on the bar, then

he stands and walks to the trash and drops the drink, glass and all,

into the can.
I don’t like to fight. I have fought very little in my life, but what I

have noticed is that even when you win, you get hurt. I work out four

days a week and take boxing and self-defense on the weekends. I have

steel-toed boots and a Buck knife. I have an ax handle behind the bar.

None of this will help, because I don’t want to fight and these guys

clearly do. I smile. I walk down the bar to the two tracksuits, a smile

plastered on my semidrunk face, radiating joy and love. I am Martin

Luther King. I am Gandhi. I will ask these gentlemen if they would prefer another drink or their money back. I will carefully wipe their spit off the bar and all will be at peace, because I don’t want to fight.

They sit at the end of the bar, Amstels untouched, the one upturned

cosmo glass before them and, as I approach, they both slip their sunglasses over their eyes like they’ve been blinded by my smile. And that

is when I notice the small, girlish and simply beautiful hands they

both have. I am not afraid. These men are lovers, not fighters. These

men are concert pianists with graceful digits made for music, not

pugilism.
I reach the end of the bar and open my smiling mouth to offer them

a round on the house as compensation for their disappointment. They

grab me, drag me over the bar, and beat the crap out of me. Then they

leave.

I’ve been beat up before and had it hurt a lot worse. I don’t even

look that bad. But I do close the bar early and spend the next several

hours drinking and holding an ice pack to my ribs while Tim, a couple

other regulars and I tell fight stories: the high and low moments of

beating and getting beat. We have chalked up the tracksuits as psychos and, hey, what more can you say? A few hours later the blood shows up in my piss.

©Copyright 2004-2008 by Charlie Huston. All right reserved etc.

 

SIX BAD THINGS

By

Charlie Huston

PART ONE

DECEMBER 4-11, 2003

Four Regular Season Games Remaining

I’m sitting on the porch of a bungalow on the Yucatan Peninsula with lit cigarettes sticking out of both my ears.

I like to go swimming in the mornings. When I first came to Mexico I liked to go drinking in the mornings but, after I got over that I took up swimming and I discovered something. I have unusually narrow ear canals. Go figure. I discovered this while I was trying to sober up paddling around in the lukewarm morning waters, and found that my ears were clogged. I tilted my head from side to side and banged on my skull, trying to dislodge the water, but no luck. I plugged my nose, clamped my mouth shut and blew until it felt like my brain might pop out of my ass. No good. I crammed Q-tips up my ears, prodding at the blockage. That’s when things got really bad. For a few days I walked around half deaf, feeling like my entire head was packed with water logged cotton. Then I went to a doctor. I have a habit of saving doctors for a last resort.

Dr. Sanchez looked in my ears and informed me of the tragic news: unusually narrow ear canals. The water was trapped deep inside and my irresponsible Q-tip use had sealed it in with earwax. He loaded a beer-can-size syringe with warm mineral water and injected it into my ears until the pressure dislodged the massive clogs of wax and washed them into the small plastic basins I held just below my ears. He gave me drops. He told me never to stick anything in my ear other than my elbow and laughed at his own joke. He nodded sagely and told me the solution to my problem was quite simple: when my ears became clogged, I must stick a cigarette into either one and light them. The cigarettes, that is. Then he handed me a pack of Benson & Hedges and told me they were his preferred brand for the task and charged me a thousand pesos.

So. I am sitting on the porch of a bungalow on the Yucatan Peninsula with lit cigarettes sticking out of both my ears. The cigarettes burn and create a vacuum in my ears, sucking the moisture into the filters. I have a towel draped over each shoulder to catch the hot ash as it falls. I’ve been doing this a couple days a week for years and it always works. Of course I do now smoke two packs of Benson and Hedges a day, but there’s a downside to everything in life.

The sun has dipped far in the sky behind my back and the reds of the sunset are reflected in the perfect blue sea before me. I adjust my sarong so that the soft breeze waft higher on my legs. The heat of the cigarettes has become intense. I reach up and pinch them out of my ears, careful not to squeeze so hard that the waxy fluid trapped in the filters leaks out. I dump them into an ashtray resting on the porch near my feet, slip the towels off my shoulders, stand up and start walking toward the water. The beach is pretty much abandoned. A ways off to my right, I can see a small group of local boys covered head to toe in sand, kicking a soccer ball around on their homemade field. In the opposite direction, the silhouette of a pair of lovers kissing. When my feet hit the wet strip of sand near the waters edge I give my sarong a tug, it falls to the ground leaving me naked and I walk down into the gently lapping waves. The beach slopes away so shallowly from the shore that I can walk upright in the water for almost fifty yards before it will cover my head. I walk in the water with the sun sinking behind me, hearing the soft slap of the tiny waves quite clearly in my unclogged ears. I’ll probably have to do it all over again when I get out, twisting the cigarettes into my ears, lighting them and waiting patiently while they burn down, but it will be worth it. I want to take one last swim today. I’m going home tomorrow and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to come back here.

Machineguns wake me up in the morning, but they’re just in my head. I have my backpack ready by the door, the waterproof money belt draped over it. I go to the bathroom and stand under the showerhead. The water is a gentle warm sprinkle, not the thing to snap you out of a nightmare. Still sleepy, I close my eyes. Pedro explodes past me backwards, his torso stitched open by a cloud of bullets. My eyes snap open. I walk out of the shower and drip water across the bungalow floor to the boombox. I search the CDs for something loud. Led Zeppelin? Something fast and loud. The Replacements. I put in Pleased to Meet Me, the opening chords of I.O.U. flare out and Paul Westerburg starts screaming. I turn it up.

I finish my shower, pull on a pair of cotton fatigue-style pants, grab keys, sunglasses, my papers and a hefty wad of pesos. I check the money belt, make sure the extra passport and ID are where I can get to them easily, and strap it on. A tank top, short-sleeve linen shirt, a pair of trail sneakers and I’m dressed. I grab the backpack and sling one strap over my shoulder.

-Come on, cat.

Bud leaps from the comfy chair, walks over to the kitchenette cabinet and meows.

-Sorry, Buddy, no time. You can eat at Pedro’s.

He meows again. I walk over, grab him by the nape of his neck and put him on top of the pack.

-Fresh fish at Pedro’s. Trust me, it’ll be worth the wait.

I turn off the box, take a last look around. Did I forget anything? I mean, other than not to fuck up my life again? Nope all taken care of. Back door bolted, storm shutters padlocked. Good enough. I walk onto the porch and set Bud and the pack down next to the door.

I’m pulling the tarp off the Willys when I see a white Bronco turn off the trail a quarter mile down the beach and come bouncing across the sand towards me. Could be they just have a few more questions, but I don’t think cops roll up on you at dawn to ask questions.

I drop the tarp, wave, and point to the bungalow with a big smile on my face. One of the Federales in the Bronco waves back. I walk to the bungalow, grab Bud and the pack, step inside, lock the front door, go out the back, and dash across the sand into the jungle that is my backyard. All I have to do is get to Pedro’s and I’ll be OK. Unless the cops are there too.

The Bucket is right on the beach. It’s a small place, a thatched palm roof over a bar, no walls. Stools don’t work on the beach so eight rope swings hang from the beams and sets of white plastic tables and chairs are on the sand. There’s no electricity. Pedro hauls bags of ice down here every morning on his tricycle and dumps them into corrugated tubs full of bottles of Sol and Negro Modelo. If you order a cocktail, you get the same ice the beer sits in. If you want to eat, Pedro has a barbeque he made by sawing a fifty-five gallon drum in half.

I’m at The Bucket around nine every day after my morning swim. Pedro gets the coffee pot off the barbeque grill, pours me a cup and drops yesterday’s Miami Herald in front of me. His wife gets the paper every day when she goes in town for the shopping or to pick up the kids from school. Pedro brings it to me here the next day. I glance at the sports page. Dolphins this, Dolphins that.

Pedro has chorizo on the grill and a frying pan heating up. He cracks a couple eggs into the pan, gets a plastic container of salsa from the cooler bag on his tricycle and stirs some in, scrambling the eggs. He takes a key from his belt, unlocks the enameled steel cabinet beneath the bar, grabs the bottles of booze and starts to set them out. I walk around to the grill, give the eggs a few more stirs and dump them onto a plastic plate. The chorizos are blackened, fat spitting from the cracks in their skin. I spear them, stick them on the plate next to the eggs and sit back down on my swing at the bar. Pedro brings me a folded towel and sets it next to the plate. I open it up and peel off one of the still warm tortillas his wife made at home this morning. I stuff a chorizo into the tortilla, pack some of the eggs around it, fold the thing up, take a bite and sear the inside of my mouth just like I do every morning. It’s worth it.

Pedro is about my age, 35. He looks a little older because he’s spent his whole life on the Yucatan; his face is a dark, sun-wrinkled plate. He’s short and round, has a little pencil moustache and wears heavy black plastic glasses like the ones American soldiers get for free.

He tops off my coffee.

-Go fish today?

I look out at the flat, crystal-blue water. Up in town, the tourists will be loading into the boats, heading for the reef to go diving or to the deep water to fish. The local fishermen here have already gone out and Pedro’s boat is the only one still in, anchored to the shore by long yellow ropes tied to eight-foot lengths of rebar driven into the sand. I could fish, take the boat out by myself or wait for Pedro’s brother to show up and go out with him for an evening fish. If he doesn’t have a job tonight.

-Not today.

-Nice day for fishing.

-Too nice. I might catch a fish. And then what? Have to bring it in, clean it, cook it. No, no fishing today.

-Game on later?

-Every Sunday, Pedro, there’s a game every Sunday except for the bye week.

-Who today?

-The Patriots.

-New England.

-Right.

-Fucking Pats.

-You’re learning.
I met Pedro up in town a few years back when I first came to Mexico. I came to Mexico hot. Running. I walked out of the Cancun airport, got into a cab and told the guy I wanted to get out of Cancun, down the coast somewhere. Someplace smaller. He took me about an hour down the road to a little vacation town. Small hotels along a nice strip of beach. It was OK for awhile. The tourists were mostly mainland Mexicans, South Americans or Europeans. Not many North Americans at all. Then they started building this giant resort community on the south end of town and that was it for me.

I found this spot: driving distance to town, a handful of locals with vacation palapas, some expatriates living in bungalows, some backpackers and day trippers looking for a secluded beach. But no bar. Pedro was working in the place I spent most of my time in. I knew he wanted his own business and he knew I wanted a place to hang out in. We made a deal.

I’m a silent partner, I pay my tab like any customer and nobody knows I backed Pedro to open the place. I gave him half the bar for moving here to run it; he’s working off the other half. Shit, I could have given him the whole thing outright. I got the money. God knows I got the fucking money

The day trippers are starting to drift onto the beach. They hear about it in town or read about it in Lonely Planet and come looking for unspoiled Mexico, but they’re usually pretty damn happy they can get a cold beer and a cheeseburger. The expats will come around in the evening when they get back from fishing trips or working in town. The locals mostly show up on Friday and Saturday evening to drink the way only a hard-working Mexican can drink. Me, I drink soda water all day, haven’t had a real drink in over two years. I take another sip of coffee, light the first cigarette of the day and get back to the sports page. It’s the healthy life for me now.
The Dolphins have a problem. Their problem is a head coach who happens to be an idiot. I have a problem. My problem is the Miami fucking Dolphins of the National fucking Football League. When I got down here, I found out I couldn’t give up sports. I tried to get into futbol, but it just didn’t click. A basketball season is like a basketball game, only the last two minutes count. And unless I was ready to watch bull fights that left football. Baseball? Yeah, I like baseball. I would have liked to have spent the last three years watching, listening to and reading about baseball just like I did the thirty-two years before them, but that’s one of the things I had to give up. I got into football because I always hated football and nobody looking for me is gonna look for a guy who likes football. It makes it harder for people with Russian accents to find me and kill me.

Why Russian accents? Because that’s the way the Russian gangsters who want me dead talk.

At noon Pedro takes the radio from beneath the bar, clicks it on and twirls the dial ‘til the fuzzy sounds of WQAM Miami come through. He extends the antenna, alligator clips one end of a wire to it and clips the other end to the sheet of chicken wire that covers the palm roof. Suddenly the signal jumps in loud and clear.

I sit at the bar, sip seltzer and smoke and listen. The game drones on predictably. The Fins jump out early with three unanswered touchdowns, stand around while the Pats cut into their lead just before the half, and then come out flat for the third quarter. By the start of the fourth quarter, they’re hanging onto a three point lead, and the coach is calling plays as if they were still up by twenty-one.

A shaggy backpacker wanders up the beach and over to the bar. He shrugs out of his pack and takes a seat on the swing next to mine. Pedro is poking at some ribs on the grill. The guy is sitting backwards on the swing with his elbows on the bar, looking at the ocean. He looks over his shoulder at the radio. The Pats have just pinned the Fins on their own two-yard line. He looks at me and nods his head.

-Football.

Nothing odd about that, a perfectly reasonable observation. Except that he says it in a Russian accent, which is not something we get a lot of around here. Me, I take it in stride, just spit-take my seltzer all over the bar. I’m smooth like that. The guy slaps me on the back while I choke.

-OK?

I nod and wave my hand.

-Fine. Choke. Fine.

I point at the radio.

-Fucking Dolphins.

He shrugs.

-American football. Too slow.

The Fins try to run up the gut three times, get one yard and punt miserably to their own thirty-five. Pedro comes over and the guy orders a shot of tequila and a Modelo.

-Hockey, very fast, good sport to watch. You like hockey?

-Not really.

-European football, soccer?

-Not really.

-But to play, yes? Americans like to play soccer, but not to watch.

-I guess.

The backpacker guy nods his head and smiles like he approves, takes a sip of his beer.

-What about baseball? You like baseball?

Just after sunset I walk back up to the north end of the beach. My bungalow really isn’t much, but it’s bonito in its way. Wood walls up to about waist level topped by screen windows that circle the one room building, with heavy storm shutters that I mostly keep open. I step up on the porch, past the canvas-back chair, small wooden table and hammock, and dig the key from the Velcro side pocket of my shorts. In the normal course of things, if I was just a guy down here living on the beach, I wouldn’t really need to lock my door. But I’m not that guy and I do need to lock my door. I have secrets to hide. I open the door and secret number one says hello.

-Meow.

I got into some trouble when I lived up in New York. I did a guy a favor and I got into some trouble for doing it. The favor he asked me to do that lead to all the trouble, to me being on the run in Mexico, was he asked me to watch his cat. I said yes. And here I am three years later, still watching his cat.
Bud jumps down from the bed and limps over to say hi. One of his front legs was pretty badly broken in all that trouble, so he has that limp, and some of the fur on his face grows in a weird little tuft because he has a scar from the same encounter that broke his leg. The guys that did the leg-breaking and the scarring are dead. Someone felt bad about that, not Bud. He rubs his face against my calf and I bend down, scoop him off the floor and drape him over my shoulders.

-Jesus, cat, you’re getting fat. You are a fat fucking cat and no two ways about it.

I open one of the kitchenette cupboards, grab a can of Bud’s food, scoop it into his bowl, and he leaps off my shoulders and digs in.

-Enjoy it while it lasts, cat. You’re going on a diet.

I leave the music on and walk down to the water. The water is perfect. It’s always perfect. I wade out, lean back, let my legs drift up and my arms float out until I am bobbing on the surface of the Caribbean, looking up at the stars. And for half a second I almost forget the Russian backpacker who set up his tent at the opposite end of the beach. The one who might be here looking for me and the four and a half million dollars that the Russian mafia thinks is theirs.

I have that money.

But It’s not theirs. It’s mine.

I killed for it. And I’m gonna keep it.

©Copyright 2005-2008 by Charlie Huston. All rights reserved etc.

A DANGEROUS MAN

By

Charlie Huston

Part One

Monday, June 20 2005

Preseason

I find the guy in the Laughing Jackalope just like they said I would. 

I take a seat at the bar, order a seltzer and ask for a roll of quarters.  I let the seltzer sit, and start slowly dribbling the quarters into the video poker game built into the surface of the bar.  I stare at the cards as they blip across the screen.  I play a quarter a hand, flying in the face of the most basic rule of video poker that says you always bet the max.  Quarter bets pay a bare fraction of the max bets.  Hit a big hand on a quarter bet and you’re gonna feel like an asshole. 

I hit a straight flush with a quarter in once, paid 1200 to 1.  Sure enough, I felt like an asshole.  Well that’s happened before and it’ll happen again.

The machine blips me a pair of jacks along with a nine, a ten and a king.  I pass on the even money the pair promises, throw one of the jacks and go for the inside straight.  Deuce.  I drop another quarter in the slot. 

There’s only a handful of people in here.  The guy, the bartender, a couple sitting on stools, feeding nickels to one of the slots; an old timer nodding a bit at the bar; and the evening cocktail waitress straightening the tables and getting things set for the crowd that will come in when the shifts change across the street. 

I keep my face in the game, sneaking peeks at the guy, keeping my hand next to my face, hoping no one notices the palm-size patch of white scar tissue around my right eye.  I’d just as soon no one remembers that scar if the cops come around later.  But really, I only have to worry about that if a body turns up.

I’m on my third roll of quarters and little has changed.  The couple’s shifted from the slot machine to the juke box, so now “Crazy on You” complements the blips of the poker games and the recorded come-on of the slots.  The guy still hasn’t moved.

He’s been sitting at the far end of the bar, sliding c-notes into his own video poker game and going through them about as fast as I’ve been going through my quarters.  Every fifteen minutes or so he throws back another shot of chilled Jager and bangs the glass on the bar, indicating the bartender should get his ass over there and give him a refill. 

Back in the day, when I had to do that job, when my biggest worry was getting the drunks out the door before the sun came up, I’d never have put up with that shit.  Someone banged a glass on my bar or snapped their fingers or something like that and they’d be sitting dry a long fucking time before I remembered they were there.  This bartender is different, he’s working the day shift at the Laughing Jakelope for Christ sake, glasses banged on the bar are the last fucking thing he’s gonna raise a sweat over. 

The bartender pulls the frosted green bottle of Jagermeister out of the cooler, fills the guy’s shot glass and puts the bottle back.  The guy doesn’t even look at him, just keeps peering into the game screen, his credits rolling up and down as he scores on two pair here, three of a kind there; searching for a full house or a straight flush or even a royal.

There’s a blast of sunshine as someone opens the tinted front door and two drunk couples come stumbling in.  They’re college kids, the boys in shorts and tank tops, their faces sun burnt red except where their eyes have been raccooned white by their sunglasses, the girls in shorts and tube tops, skin tanned cancer brown, harsh bikini lines climbing up out of their stretchy tops and creeping around their necks.  All of them are double-fisting plastic cups full of something bright blue and frozen.

The bartender looks down from the TV hanging above the bar.  He’s been watching one of those behind-the-scenes shows; this one cracking the lid open on a reality show that teamed up stars from older shows that have already been behind-the-scened.  He sees the cups the kids are carrying and shakes his head.

-Uh-uh, not in here, can’t bring outside booze in here.

One of the guys, his tank says DON’T DRUNK WITH ME, I’M FUCK!, looks at the drinks in his hands, and back at the bartender, trying to connect the dots.

-What the fuck, man?  We been carrying drinksh in and out of cashinosh all fucking day.

The other guy, his shirt says I’M WITH ASSHOLE and has an arrow pointing up at his own face, hoots.

-Been drinking all fuckin’ day!  All fuckin’ day!  Gonna drink all fuckin’ night!  All fuckin’ night!

The bartender nods.

-Sure, just not those drinks in here.

Everyone’s watching now, the guy, the old timer, the slot couple, the cocktail waitress.  Asshole takes a couple quick sloppy steps toward the bar.

-The fuck, dude?  Gonna drink!

Drunk Fuck grabs the tail of his shirt and yanks him back.

-Dude, no, sheck it out.

He drapes an arm over his buddy’s shoulder, spilling a little blue slush down Asshole’s arm, and whispers in his ear.  Asshole listens for a second and then busts up.

-Yeah, yeah, dude, tha’sh it!

He straightens up and bows to the bartender.

-Yesh, shir, we will be pleashed to do ash you wish.  Fuckin’ A.

He gestures toward the door and Drunk Fuck leads the way.  Asshole pushes the door open and they turn into dark silhouettes against the fierce late afternoon sun.  Asshole points out the door.

-After yoush.

Drunk Fuck bows.

-Shank yoush.

He takes one step outside and chugs the contents of his cups and throws both empties into the parking lot.  He steps back in and holds the door as Asshole steps out and repeats the performance.  The girls are laughing and snorting, hanging onto each other to keep from falling down and struggling to keep their tits from popping out of their tops.  Asshole steps back in.  He wags a finger at them.

-Ladiesh!  No fucking drinksh from outshide!  Pleash!

He points at the door.  One of the girls straightens up, tries to curtsy, almost falls, and weaves out to the sidewalk.  She up-ends one of her cups and gets half of it in her mouth while the other half slops down her chin and neck and into her cleavage.  She explodes laughing and the slush that went in her mouth sprays onto the ground.  She stuffs a hand inside her top and tries to dig out the blue daiquiri.  Asshole wiggles his fingers.

-Allow me.

He tries to jam his fingers between her tits and she slaps his hand, still coughing and choking.  Drunk Fuck tries to get into the act and they jostle the girl around, plucking at her top.  The other girl steps outside.

-Hey!  Hey, assholes!  Check this out!

She tilts her head back, holds both cups over her face, opens her mouth wide, and starts to pour.  Frozen blueberry daiquiri fills her mouth and overflows down her face.  The guys watch, one with his arms wrapped around the waist of the choking girl and one with his hand halfway down her top.  The two-cup girl lets about half of each daiquiri pour over her face, then just dumps the remainder over her chest and belly.  Asshole and Drunk Fuck abandon Choking Girl and pounce on Two Cups.  Asshole kneels in front of her and sucks blue ice from her pierced navel while Drunk Fuck picks up a straw from the pavement, sticks it between her tits and starts to suck on it.  Two Cups giggles and screams. 

By now the door has swung shut and we are all watching the action as a shadow play taking place beyond the darkly tinted glass front of the Jackelope.  Still, we hear it pretty clearly when Choking Girl coughs, gags and begins to vomit blue onto the sidewalk and her friends’ sandaled feet.  By then the bartender has come out from behind the bar, crossed to the door and locked it.  He walks to the kitchen door and sticks his head inside.

-Jesus!

A Mexican kid in greasy dishwasher whites comes out.  The bartender points at the scene outside.

-Clean that shit up.

Jesus stares at the carnage taking place beyond the window and nods.

-Si.

The bartender walks back to the bar, picks up the remote and turns up the volume on his show; the slot couple punches in another song and “Saturday in the Park” starts playing; the old timer shakes his head and mutters something about Goddamn fucking college kids; the cocktail waitress goes back to cleaning out the votives that she’ll be setting on the tables soon; the guy knocks back another Jager and bangs in on the bar.  I take a last look out the window just in time to see Two Cups start puking, too, as the boys watch, laughing and high-fiving each other. 

Then the guy gets up and goes to the bathroom. 

Jesus is standing by the glass with a mop bucket, waiting for the kids to leave so he can do his shitty job.  I follow the guy into the bathroom so I can do mine.

He’s pissing loudly into one of the urinals.  I edge past him into a stall, close the door and pull the handful of tiny coke-filled glassine bags out of my pocket.  The urinal flushes and I pinch one of the bags open and drop it along with several others onto the floor, most of them scattering out under the stall partition.

-Shit!  Oh, shit!

I slam my shoulder loudly against the stall as I get down on my knees and start scrabbling under the partition for the dropped bags.  I peek out and see that the guy has moved to the sink and is washing his hands and ignoring me.  I scoop up the bags, and flick the open one with my middle finger.  It skitters across the tiles, leaving a thin trail of white powder, and comes to rest at his feet.

-Fuck!  Oh, fuck!

I stand up, jerk on the locked stall door a couple times, bang it open and stumble out.  The guy is just straightening, the open, now almost empty, bag pinched between his thumb and forefinger.  I shuffle toward him, the rest of the bags peeking from my fist.

-Um, that’s mine.

He stands there, a couple inches shorter than me, balding, flashy tasteless clothes, pinkie ring, a bulky upper body that’s settling into his mid section but still powerful around the shoulders.  The same build my body is starting to develop.  He looks from the bag to me.

-Yours?

-Yeah.  So, you know.

I put out my hand. 

He points at the bag.

-This?

He points at me.

-Is yours?

I shrug.

-Yeah.

He shakes his head.

-Well.

He reaches for his back pocket.

-Looks like this might be your lucky day.

He pulls out a wallet, shows it to me, and lets it fall open, revealing the LVMPD badge within.

-Except it ain’t.

©Copyright 2006 - 2008 by Charlie Huston.  All rights reserved etc.

This was the first cover I ever saw for any of my books. My editor called me up and I swung by the Random House building and he brought it down to the lobby. We sat on a bench and looked at it right there. That felt cool. And I thought the cover was pretty cool, too. A groovy, but dark image that tied in to something in the book. I loved that it took a second to decode, to realize you were looking in a rearview mirror. I also liked the neon effect on the title. Thought it was pretty dead on. Things would change.

Original Hardback

_____________________________________________

OK, this is the way business sometimes works. I get a call from my editor one day before publishing. He says he has bad news, we’re losing the cover. It works like this.

Good news: Barnes & Noble likes your book.

Bad news: Barnes & Noble doesn’t like your cover.

What happens when B&N digs your book, but not your cover, when they think your cover looks a little too “horror”? Don’t be silly, you change it.

What am I gonna do, complain about B&N taking an interest? Well, OK, so I complained some. I really liked that first cover. The replacement, not so much. To me, this looks vague, non-specific. It’s suggestive of noir and you can see the book is set in New York, but other than that…Zip. So it goes. All things considered, I thing the designer did a fine job. He had this sucker in the bag. Next thing he knows, it’s back in his lap as a rush job. You get what you pay for.

Anyway, look at the wall in my folks livingroom, you’ll see the one I like up there.

Final Hardback

Buy It Amazon

Buy It B&N

___________________________________________

I had lunch with my editor and some other very nice folks at Ballantine after I had turned in the final draft for Six Bad Things. They told me they were going to try another look with SBT and wanted the paperback edition of Caught to be in the same style. Cool by me, never liked the cover we ended up with anyway.

The basic design, big block letters, gloss, foil effects that you can’t see here, were all fine by me. The idea they were pushing was “Big Time Thrillers!” And I thought that came across. The image itself confused me. Not that I don’t think it’s kind of cool, but I could never see what it had to do with the book. I know, that’s pretty common. But it still bugged me a little. That said, you look at this and you know that whatever’s inside is gonna try to fuck you up. So mission accomplished on the wrapper.

Trade Paperback

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________________________________________________

My German editor is a guy named Markus Naegele. He tells me that Der Prugelnabe translates as The Whipping Boy. He also assures me that this is a cool slang term in German. I could give a fuck. As far as I’m concerned, Der Prugelnabe means Badass fucking cover! This thing rocks. It evokes the German title, the content and the mood. And it looks like it was designed in an East German dungeon by an entombed serial killer. Love it.

German Edition

_______________________________________________

Still not fucking around, are they? This is the German mass edition, the one you can stuff in your back pocket. The image is more straight-forward and thrillerish that the original cover, but it still grabs me. The bloody thumbprint is key. And speaking of keys, how the fuck do you find a key that looks ominous? I don’t know where, but apparently the Germans do.

German Mass Market Edition

__________________________________________________

Um…Cute cat? First, I have no contact with my Czech publisher. I happened to stumble over this while trolling the internet for pictures of myself in my underwear. That’s why the quality is off. Now that I’ve got that out of the way…Um…Cute cat? OK, I think the title translates as “Caught Red Handed”. Works for me. What also works for me is that this cover has the feel of a real 1930s noir. Cigar, whiskey…Um…Cute cat? What doesn’t work for me is that it’s a very silly cover. All in all, I fucking love it.

Czech Edition

This is the “Big Time Thriller!” cover. A sit turned out, Six Bad Things never came out as a hardback, it published as a trade original instead (this was a B&N thing again, but I’ll talk about that in a journal entry some day). Not too shabby if I do say so. My taste leans toward something a bit darker, but it nails the content. I wrote the book with the idea of a Sergio Leone road movie in mind, and that’s what we have here. A lonely road cutting through the desert at night, the glow of Vegas in the distance. Good One.

Hardback

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_________________________________________

Once SBT was shifted to a trade paperback release, the emphasis moved away from “Big Time Thriller!” and shifted to “cool, edgy thriller…” And so, back to the drawing board. Lucky me. I mean that. The basic image is the same, but the layout around it is far superior. With the hardback, I never realized just how hot the image was because so much of it was obscured. This design lets the picture do all the heavy lifting. And I love what they did with the title, keeping it small, letting the road pull your eye right to it.

Trade Paperback

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_______________________________________

Showed this to my agent, Simon. He said, “Yum. Dark.” My editor, Mark, said, “Every cover they produce is like an Orwellian room. They just love scaring the shit out of themselves.” Markus said Der Gejagte translates as The Hunted. Once again, I could give a fuck. Far as I’m concerned, Der Gejagte mean Another Badass Fucking Cover! Love it. Nails it again. And you can see where it’s going. Not just a theme with the bandages, but the colors as well. Can’t wait for them to buy A Dangerous Man so I can see how they try to scare themselves with that one.

German Edition

__________________________________

This was a piece of marketing collateral that went out when Six Bad Things was being sold to the bookstores. There was a fifteen page cutting from the beginning of the book inside. I think it looks pretty great. In some way I like it better than the desert road image. The real funny thing is, this was the cover I always imagined for SBT. I never had any clear ideas for the other books, but I one night Mark Tavani and I were having beers and we talked about covers. I told him at the time I though a forearm with Henry’s tattoo on it would look hot. He agreed, but it never flew. And then… I think it’s boss. And I’m glad I got to see it somewhere besides the inside of my head.

Sample Booklet

When my editor, Mark Tavani, asked me if I had any thoughts about what we should do with the cover for A DANGEROUS MAN, I immediately suggested a long shot looking down the length of the Coney Island boardwalk. Voila. Honestly, I don’t think I needed to say shit. Half the book is set at or near Coney, and the boardwalk gives a natural opportunity to visually echo the cover image from SIX BAD THINGS. I assume this is a stock image cut and tinted to suit our needs. I love that the designer picked up the single line of bright color that they used on SBT and carried it over here. These books belong together. Hopefully we’ll get to do a redesign on the CAUGHT STEALING cover one day and find an image that completes the set. A view down a base path at a city ballpark with the Manhattan skyline in the background would be my first choice.

Trade Paperback

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___________________________________

What the fuck? I mean, what the fuck? I love this fucking cover! But, what the fuck? Seriously, do German publishers allow their designers access to the light of day? To food, clothing, warmth and plumbing? I suspect they feed them on harsh beatings and rock hard kibble that cuts their gums and tongues, thus providing them with blood so they can sketch their cover concepts on the dry skin of their deceased predecessors. Seriously, this is fucked up. So cool. I like to stare at it and scare myself. Want to get really scared? These guys have the rights to ALREADY DEAD. I live in fear of seeing what they do with a vampire book.

German Edition

LOS ANGELES, February 5 – There’s gonna be some changes around here.

Life, as noted, she comes fast at your head.

life is here.

And I need to duck.

In order to accommodate the double whammy of baby and compressed deadlined on my next two novels, I’m streamlining as much of my life as is possible.

 

Some parts of life resist streamlining.

 

Family and work don’t care to be shaved down to wind resistant teardrops.  But some flat edges have to go.

 

So, changes.

 

Here.

 

I’ve not been happy with the amount of posting I’ve been able to do at pulpnoir the last few months.  The precedent I’ve established, producing mini-essays on work related topics on a weekly basis, requires that I have some dedicated space in my brain that chews away at the next entry.  That space just ain’t there these days.  That fact, combined with the additional fact that the site has never been as dynamic as I intended, now requires change.

 

To that end you can expect:

 

A new look.

 

A new functionality.

 

And a new approach.

 

I’ll be using the site not just as a way to staying contact with my readers and to invite new readers in, but also as a tool to store and organize research and ideas. 

 

Existing posts and pages will be reorganized, tagged and categorized, thus making them more searchable for you and for me. 

 

What all this amounts to is the site becoming more bloglike.

 

Which, it turns out, is maybe what it should have been in the first place.  To my dismay.

 

Over the ensuing weeks a great deal of seemingly random information will begin popping up as I start taking bits of research off my hard rive and begin posting it here where it can be tagged. 

 

Some of this will by nonsensical crap.  Some fascinating crap.  It will all depend on where you’re coming from.

 

I’ll still be writing my essays, but rather than leaving the site to languish as my newly overburdened brain tries to come up with something vaguely interesting, I will l now be filling the gaps by sticking up shards and scraps that I find interesting, bits of the world that seem to suggests stories to me.  The things that I would usually paste into a file, will now go here.

 

To that extent, readers will get a little look at the process.  There are links and articles I’ve already logged for posting here that have found their way into my work.  So, if you like seeing the seeds that grow into the weeds, many will be scattered over the site.

 

The new version of the site will launch in a week or so.  The original will linger in the meantime, but this is the last entry.

 

New stuff coming.

 

Back soon,

 

Charlie

This is the first book of mine to come out as hardback since Caught Stealing. As such, there’s quite a bit riding on its success or failure. And, right or wrong, a lot of weight is put on the cover image. Since this is a biggie for me, I was more than usually intrusive. And I really did not like this cover. The shotgun shell motif, color, typeface, that was all fine, but I hated the central image. It said nothing about the book, didn’t pull the eye, and reminded me far too much of the vague cover we ended up with for the Caught Stealing hardback. And while you can’t blame a cover for a book not doing well, I don’t think the lack of a good cover helped. I whined at a high fucking pitch and the folks at Ballantine were kind enough to make some changes.

Shotgun Hardback Version

Ah, now that’s more like it. The elements I asked to have included were the suburban setting of the book and the four teenage delinquents who are the protagonists. I wanted the cover to be about the book. The concern over actually showing the teenagers was that readers and retail book buyers might think is was something called a “kids in peril” book. I’m not sure what that is, but I agreed that it sounded like a bad thing. Using the four shadows, stretching them toward the darkly generic house to imply some menace, was a great solution. I was, and am, pleased to no end that the design department was so patient and creative in making these changes. And yes, I like the Stephen King quote as well. As testified to by the stiffy in my pants whenever I read it.

Final Hardback

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The final book in the Henry Thompson trilogy finds Hank a burnt out button man for Russian mobsters in Las Vegas. This one takes Hank full circle back to New York City as the baby sitter for pro ball player with a bad gambling jones. Dark and violent as ever. The end of Hank’s story is about redemtion. My just is out on whether that stuff is actually out there. Not sure I believe in redemption. But I do believe in forgiveness. Hank may or may not get any.

Some nice things people said:

“Mr. Huston

Once, years ago while walking through Central Park late at night a stranger I would say in his early 40’s walked up to me smiling looking very friendly. I returned the smile and went to go about my way. He gently put his hand on my shoulder (still Smiling) and kicked me hard in the stomach. I went down immediately as I am a bit of a out of shape fat fuck. My new friend leaned over and whispered in my ear, “if I catch you ass-fucking a Panda again your going to catch a serious beating”. Anyway, he took off at a leisurely pace leaving me moaning and groaning on the ground with my piss all over me.

So yeah, here I am trying to wipe the piss of my pants at a Dunkin Donuts outside of a miserable Chinese Buffet all because of you. I started reading your book “A Dangerous Man” at the Buffet and finished it outside in the parking lot in my car. I had not realized I had pissed on myself till I stopped for a coffee, so here i am reflecting on pissing myself and I thought of that great experience in Central Park that is now shared with reading your novel.

I guess my point is, nice book, the other two were also quality shit. It’s a shame the series is over. Keep up the good work.

I will think of you fondly next time I ass-fuck a Panda.”
—D.T. of White Plains, NY

What was going on:
A DANGEROUS MAN was the first book of the Henry Thompson Trilogy that was written while I was a full time writer. It’s the final chapter in a story that is ultimately about violence and redemption. As such, it’s quite a bit darker than the previous books. It also moves at a slightly slower pace and doesn’t hit the whacky button as often. It was a pretty exciting day when I got word that Random House was buying the rights to this book. There was a period of time when CAUGHT STEALING failed to live up to comercial expectations that I feared I wouldn’t be finishing Hank’s story. Not in a form that anyone would get to read anyhow. Finishing the story was more of a relief than anything else. I was ready to say goodbye to Hank. It’s been some time now since I wrote about his unfortunate adventures, and I find myself missing the bum. But done is done. A DANGEROUS MAN is Hanks last chapter. The guy deserves the rest.

The second Henry Thompson book, Six Bad Things, picks up Henry’s story a few years down the line. Henry’s got himself stashed south of the border, lying low and sitting on some cash of disputed ownership. Russian gangsters, Mayan temples, silicon millionaires, murderous surfers, a rabid dog, exotic dancers, pill-popping-crossbow-wielding rodeo clowns, and the Miami Dolphins are among the obstacles Henry crashes into along the road to Las Vegas. As usual, it’s all about the money. Henry’s got it, and everybody with a gun or a knife or a halfway decent threat in hand wants it. There’s blood on the highway alright, and lots of it belongs to Henry.Some nice things people said:

“Six Bad Things rocks and rolls from the first page. This is one mean, cold, slit-eyed mother of a book, and Charlie Huston is the real deal.”
—Peter Straub

“SIX BAD THINGS IS RELENTLESS. IT GRABS YOU BY THE THROAT, OR SLIGHTLY LOWER, AND NEVER LETS GO.”
—Jeff Lindsay, author of Darkly Dreaming Dexter

“Tell Charlie Huston he owes me a night’s sleep. Had to finish the book—it was bloody amazing. If there is such a thing as compassionate noir, Charlie has found it. A true marvel.”
—Ken Bruen, author of The Guards

What was going on:
When I wrote Caught Stealing I wasn’t planning a trilogy, but one night, long before the book was sold, I had an image of Henry on a beach in Mexico. I wrote a few pages, and over the next couple years I started getting an idea of what might happen to Henry next.
When Caught Stealing was bought by Ballantine it was as the first book in a two book deal. Mark Tavani, my editor, asked what I had in mind for the second book. I mentioned that it could be a sequel, but if we went that way it would have to be the second book in a trilogy. He went for it.
I was bartending and waiting tables at Angus McIndoe Restaurant (pronounced McAndoo, and another of the better places to ply the trade) when the advance for my first book deal came through. I was able to stop working just long enough to edit Caught Stealing and write Six Bad Things. It was pretty fucking cool. Going back to the grind sucked. But little things like knowing you’ve sold your first two books can make slinging drinks and hash a little easier.
And I kept writing. And I stayed lucky. And I sold some more stuff. I worked my last bartending shift in March 2004. Knock wood.