In one of my stories, “Descent,” the hero stumbles upon an injured, escaped convict and is torn over whether to turn him in for the reward or leave the sonovabitch to die. Unsure, he solves this quandary by doing the most unexpected thing: halfway to collecting his reward, he turns around with his hatchet to chop the guy up. (You don’t see this happen; it’s just there, like Hemingway’s iceberg lurking under the water.)

Soon after my Introduction to Literature class read this story, I was barraged with questions like, “Where did you get the idea for the hero to do that?” A few of them thought I'd found an escaped convict and done the same thing. (I let them go on believing this because it means fewer complaints when grades come out.)

But no, I've never chopped anyone up. I got the idea because the mind of a writer is like a sniffing dog, following whatever scent pops up, to wherever it leads.

So rather than trying to describe this phenomenon, let me give you a few real-life examples. All of what you are about to read occurred as part of an ongoing, internal monologue--kind of like those Sunday morning televangelism shows, where you can turn the channel, come back, and the guy’s still talking. But anyway...

(NOTE: Because the following goes deep within my abnormal mind, it will probably contain material offensive to most readers. Sorry, but that’s the price of trying to be 100% honest.)

Spike Strips

So I’m on my daily walk, loping along like that sniffing dog, not thinking of anything in particular, when a car tears down the street--I’m talking like seventy in a forty-five. Here’s what went on inside my mind:

God, I hate those people. Think’s he cute, ripping around like that. Hmm, they say guys who do that have small dicks. I wonder if that’s true. Whatever...he’s a loser. But what if he hits someone? What if he hits a kid? What if he hit a kid while I was watching?

All right, first, I’d take care of the kid, try to save her. Cover her with my coat, raise her feet higher than her head to prevent shock. Then I’d drag the guy out of his car and beat him with my shoe. Alexas says these shoes have to go anyway, so big deal if some blood gets on them. Better yet, what about preventing such a tragedy? Take a deterrent approach. What if I had Tony make me a portable spike strip? Yeah, yeah, that’s it. Carry the thing in my pocket and when I see one of those pricks racing towards me, whip the strip across the road and watch those tires shred. Yeah, baby! Car full of jerkoff gang-bangers flies off into a tree, and unless it bursts into flames, I break into the car. Leave the drugs, but steal their money. Just like in the Godfather: ‘Leave the gun, take the cannolis.’ Word would get around there’s a new sheriff in town, and he carries a spike strip to stop speeders.

God, I wish vigilante justice were legal. Love that Old West. But, Chris--it goes against everything you learned in philosophy, like Kant’s Categorical Imperative--that cosmic ‘ought,’ remember?

You know what? Fuck philosophy and fuck Kant. Friggen guy’s unreadable anyway. Parachute Kant into the middle of East L.A. and see how far that crap gets him.

Spike strips. How cool are they? Wonder if there’s a patent for a portable one? Well, they’re all portable, so I guess what I’m really talking about is a personal spike strip.

(I stop and look at a newspaper in the window of an honor box.)

Honor box. Wonder how honorable people really are. Bet there’s some guy out there with a van, buying up all the papers in the world with a couple of quarters.

(I read some of the front page.)

Jesus, is this clown kidding, wanting to be reelected? Look at the economy. Coupla guys I worked with at Merrill are still having a tough time finding work. Unemployment’s a big problem...

Okay, here we go: a quiet suburban community is terrorized by drivers like those punks I saw earlier. Thing is, though, this community’s full of unemployed engineers--computer engineers, electrical enginneers, mechanical engineers. They get pissed off at these idiots racing through their neighborhood--maybe one of the kids is almost killed--so they band together to fix the situation. They mount cameras in trees at key intersections so they can see the speeders ahead of time. Then they build remote-controlled spike strips that shoot out of the curb, shred the speeder’s tires, and zip back into the curb like the electrical cord on a vacuum cleaner. When the cops arrive, they walk around and scratch their heads cause they have no idea how it happened. No skid marks, and nobody saw anything. Meanwhile, the engineers are in their control room, shooting pool, smoking cigars, watching the cops on closed-circuit monitors.

Yeah, they're still unemployed, but they've got a dandy spike strip...

 








GOTTA LOVE DOGS: A fine photo
of a dog sniffing out smack.

SPIKEY GOODNESS: Nothin' says
'hello' like a succulent spike strip.

Yessir...there's a new sheriff in town, and he carries a personal spike strip to stop speeding idiots.

---

 

Operation Yankee Kidnapping

The following went through my mind while listening to the Red Sox and the Yankees on the radio:

FANTASY BASEBALL: Until the Sox beat the Yankees, one of my sick fantasies was somebody kidnapping 'A-Rod' and locking him in a treehouse. Yeah, I know--weird.

BACK AT WORK: Brought back from
the dead, Ludwig starts writing stuff
for Journey's comeback tour.

Above: The author, still not writing.  He's
out walking and thinking up more
bizarre "what-if" scenarios.

 

©2004 Chris Orcutt and NotWriting.com. All rights reserved.