The Write Room: THE EXPATRIOTS

The Write Room: THE EXPATRIOTS: Good morning kids. Here I offer with your morning coffee a short story that I've had around for, oh, at least a couple a years now I guess...

THE EXPATRIOTS

Good morning kids.

Here I offer with your morning coffee a short story that I've had around for, oh, at least a couple a years now I guess.
I kind of collect them in preperation for a book of shorts one day. I only submitted this once, for a contest once that it did not win or even get an honorable mention. I think the whole Arizona imigration thing was a little too hot  of a topic at the time and maybe this a was something the publication felt they could do without. Or maybe it just sucked that bad, eithier way it wasn't as cuddly and cozy as the winning entry of that contest in that particulair publication.
And it was the first and last contest I submitted to.

THE EXPATRIOTS

            Water has memory. It can change the present, but always remembers where it’s been. And like people; it tends to go where it knows. Tyler Hawk pulled off his glove and cupped a hand full of icy water from the stream running wild around his boots. Billy lit a cigarette and said something. Billy and Hawk had met working for Tom Kelly back in Brownsville. That was home to Billy Cooper. Hawk was there for another reason, a mission of his own, and now that it was done they would make their way through the Great Divide and up to Canada. Billy kept talking but Hawk listened to the water. Someone had been there…recently.

            Hawk stood and pulled his side arm just as a crack echoed though the mountains. He kneeled back down, turned and looked at Billy, his eyes wide, one hand on the strap of his pack and the other on his rifle. Hawk said, “Coop… get the fuck down.” The kid didn’t move except for a shifting of his eyes and the cigarette trembling between his lips. “Billy?”  

            Hawk knew and rolled away behind a rock the instant another shot struck in the stream just ahead of where his feet had been. The kid fell lifeless and face first into the creek. Hawk climbed up into a crevice and cocked the automatic and made his way to the top of the creek bank and waited there in the snow.                                                                                             

            He had rolled out of sight in a way that looked more like a fall and would bring the shooter in to examine his kill. He held his breath and waited. And when he heard the soft crunch of snow under a very careful step he turned and fired, pop, pop, pop. All three shots were kill shots but he ran up on the fallen man and put a final through his head.

            He pulled the assassins rifle away and knelt down and examined the man: his boots, his clothes, and his weapon. He looked at Billy’s body and let out a broken sigh. He thought of the days leading up to this and the ones that lay ahead: hard days and long nights and like the water, he knew those days must run their course. He shouldn’t have let the kid come. “Fuck.” He cursed the unforgiving sky.

            Tom Kelly’s a Marine veteran well into his fifties but could have passed for older. His sun burned and wind weathered face looked like the wood he often worked with and except for an occasional smile had the same physical properties. He sat at his desk gently tugging a rubber band on his wrist that came from that morning’s blueprint he’d gone over with the crew before they headed out. In his office loft east of Brownsville he sat at his desk and studied the men sitting before him.

            Woody Wilson, a Texas Ranger and a friend of Tom’s. He’d been invited to this meeting by Tom and unbeknownst to the federal man, Ray Steele, who had showed up on a job site asking questions, and that made Tom uncomfortable and now he was back.

            Tom wasn’t the kind of man who liked explaining himself and he especially didn’t care much for the government asking him to, but he’d play along, for a while anyway.

            Tom took a deep breath and reached for his coffee. “Not sure what I can do for you Mr. Steele. I told you all I know the other day.”

            “Well…I just needed to get as much information as I could. You know how it is, paper work and all.” He smiled in a friendly way and Tom looked at Woody over the rim of his cup as Steele continued. “When was the last time you saw Tyler Hawk?”

            “Like I said before, last Friday… gave him his check and that was that.”

            “Did you know he was wanted for a war crime?”

            “Nope. He never talked about his military service and I never asked.”

            “He’s all over the news Mr. Kelly. Hawk’s Special Forces, AWOL and unhinged. You just hire anyone without a background check?”

            Tom took a drink of his coffee and said, “I don’t watch the news, and I’ll hire anyone I damn well please.”

            Ranger Wilson adjusted his hat and prepared to speak but Steele quickly jumped in. “Of course, it’s your right. What about Angel Medina?

            Wilson interrupted, “what about him? State of Texas is working on that along side with Mexico. Are ya here for Medina?”

            “No… I’m not,” said Steele. “I’m just trying to build a mental profile of Tyler Hawk.”

            “Well put this in yer profile,” Wilson said. “Angel Medina was dangerous individual and yer not gonna get much sympathy from anybody around these parts for him turnin dead. He would’a ended that way sooner or later anyway.”

            Steele adjusted his chair sideways and looked at Wilson. “Are you justifying the murder of a man Mr. Wilson?”

            “Medina was not man. He was drug lord and a cold blooded piece a shit, and if’d a had the reasons Hawk had, I’d a killed him too.”

            Tom shook his head in agreement and said, “Angel was a dead man long before Tyler got here. It was only a matter of time. You should know that Mr. Steele; in fact I think you know a lot more than yer lettin on. So what the hell do you want? You didn’t come all the way down here from Washington without knowing about all of this, all of us.

            Steele said, “true… Medina was wanted by the F.B.I. for trafficking, wanted by the state of Texas for the kidnapping of Hawk’s daughter…Mia is it? And he was wanted in Mexico for murder as well here. But everybody deserves a fair trial, don’t they Mr. Wilson?”

            Wilson smiled. “Now if I didn’t know better I’d say you were insulting my professional intelligence. Medina was an illegal, shouldnt’a been in here in the first place. He was also a goddamn predator. I think, unless ya have anymore questions for Tom, that we should just finish this up at state level Mr. Steele, and let him get on with his business.”

            “I don’t mean any professional disrespect Mr. Wilson, but Illegal immigration is a federal matter, federal law.”

            “Is it now?” Wilson said. “Do ya even have any idea of the illegal traffic coming across the border everyday? Have you ever seen twenty, thirty Mexicans crammed in five foot uhaul and left in the desert to fry after their life savings have been stolen by a coyote? It ain’t a pretty site. Thousands of people are coming across that border everyday and every night, some are good people who want a better life but some… are not, some, are predators, murderous, vicious animals with no respect for human life and they don’t give a good god damn about federal law or anything else. Don’t come down here and tell me about my home son. That girl a Hawks is back now, safe, and the world is free of one less asshole, federal law had nothing to do with that.”

            Steele looked at Tom Kelly and changed the subject. “Another employee of yours, a parole violator,” he thumbed through a folder and pulled the name up with his eyes, “William Bradley Cooper, also missing. Seen him lately?”

            “Billy Cooper comes and goes,” Tom said. “He’s a local. He’s a good kid, a little wild but he’ll be alright. He’ll be back sooner or later. Probably on a bender south of the border somewhere.”

            Woody Wilson’s eyes never left the side of Steele’s head, and if it bothered Steele in the least, he wasn’t letting it show.

            “Do all of your employees just disappear like that?” Steele said.

            “No, but it happens in this business. I’ve got a check here in my drawer I’ve been holding for six months for a guy I heard moved on to California. Coop’ll turn up…Hawk won’t.”

            Ranger Wilson stood and adjusts himself in a way that indicated the conversation was over. Steel stayed seated and flipped through his folder pretending to search for something. Steele knew Hawk was gone and could be anywhere in the world by now. He had suspected he slipped into Mexico but the closeness of that made it seem unlikely. And the possibilities of where he was heading was even more troubling.

            Woody Wilson handed him his card and said, “I’ll be in town here a few days Steele, if ya need anything from me. After that I’ll be at that number in Austin.” Steele took the card and looked at Tom.

            “Is there anything else?” Tom asked.

            “Hawks’ wife and daughter, we haven’t been able to find them.”

            “Probably at her mothers…Amarillo. Don’t know her too well, only met her couple a times.”

            “They’re not in Amarillo, we checked.”

            “That all Mr. Steele?” Woody said.

            “Just one more question. Mr. Kelly, did you know Angel Medina had kidnapped Tyler Hawks’ daughter when you hired him?”

            Tom Kelly looked at Steele for a long time and Ranger Wilson shuffled his boots and Tom understood. “I don’t follow the activities of people like Medina,” Tom said. “No I didn’t. Hawk told me he’d gotten discharged and needed work, that’s all.”

            “If ya’d like to know more about Medina Mr. Steele, I got a whole file cabinet on him up in Austin,” Wilson said. “Maybe we could talk about the kidnapping rate along the border. Maybe we could talk about immigration law too…the federal one that is.”

            Steel finally looked at Wilson with contempt. He stood and suddenly he was no longer a bookish irritant but instead, his physic suggested a man who had spent very little time at a desk or with books. “I don’t think that will be necessary”

            “I didn’t think so, but I thought I’d offer,” Wilson smiled. “What branch, exactly, did you say you were with Mr. Steele?”

            “If you hear from Hawk Mr. Kelly, you can call me at this number.” He handed the card toward Tom to no response, and after a few seconds he laid it on the desk. Woody picked it up and looked at it, a government logo, name and number, nothing else.

            “I won’t hear from him,” Tom said. “But if I did…I wouldn’t tell ya.”

            “Mr. Kelly...you might think Tyler Hawk is somebody you know, but I can assure you he isn’t. He is an international fugitive. He is a threat to national security. He’s highly trained, very dangerous and we have reasons to believe he’s planning an act of domestic terrorism. I would hate to see you in any trouble Mr. Kelly, because I really don’t think you deserve it.”

                         “Domestic terrorism,” Tom said, stood and shook his head. “Aint that just something. Why do I get the feeling Hawk won’t be getting one of them, fair trials? Mr. you are so looking in the wrong place. I put a guy to work. I needed another hand and he needed a job, and that’s about the extent of it. I live with threat every day. This community lives with threat and fear. Every day the drug cartel’s comin’ closer and closer to that border. A house full of folks was machine gunned to death just the other day in broad day light, not more than hundred yards from where my grandson gets on his school bus. People are missing, people are dead and it keeps getting worse. The border’s a war zone from here to California. Where is your federal law when it comes to the people of Brownsville, or Tucson, or San Diego, where’s the Mexican law when it comes to those folks. And ya come down here…stand in my office and threaten me? Ya come down here looking for a man whose served his country and was discarded and thrown away? A man, for all I know may have done something right, may have done something you should’a done. Ya damn right I don’t know Tyler Hawk, not after people like you got done with him.” Tom took a deep breath and steadied his nerves and finished up with, “Mr. Steele…get the hell off my property.”

            “Take it easy Tom,” Wilson said. Wilson hadn’t heard Tom Kelly say that many

words in the forty plus years, they’d know one another that long and longer.

            Mr. Steele looked at Tom, cold and emotionless. “So you did know about Tyler Hawk? Mr. Kelly…are you a racist, Mr. Kelly?”

            Tom Kelly grew up on the border he lived on both sides during times of love and generosity among the two cultures that blended into a kinda harmony of language, food, religion and family. Times when he played as a child south of the border and even his own kids played with all the other kids, before it all began.                                                    

            At some point in time, it seemed like a door had closed and another had opened, and his world had went out and suspicion and hatred and something dark and unrecognizable stepped in. He was tired and old, and helpless in watching everything he loved get ruined, run over, run down and nobody seemed to care enough to do anything about it, and it made him wonder if he, himself even did, and that made him bitter.        

            He glared at Steel and said, “conseguir la cogida de mi tierra. Is that clear enough for ya?”

            “It is Mr. Kelly, just call me if you hear from Tyler Hawk, You’re not aware of what this man is capable of. I’m not here to cause you problems, I’m not, but maybe I can prevent some.”

            “Thank you Mr. Steele,” Wilson said and extended his hand toward the door.

Steele picked up his folder and brief case and walked out. The two men watched from a window as Steele walked toward his car and stopped for an instant like he forgot something. He looked around the yard and continued into the black suburban and drove away.

            “What do ya think Tom?”

            “I think…we ain’t heard the last of him, but I doubt we’ll ever see Hawk again.”

            “Tom did you know about Hawk when ya put him on?”

            “Yeah I knew… I knew he was coming and I knew what for. And I knew he wouldn’t stick around long.”

            “You know Tom…you can get rid a one Angel Medina and another one’ll pop right up in his place.”

            “Yeah, I know that too. But who am I to git in the way of progress?”

            Woody looked out the window and laughed a little, but not because it was funny. It had been a long time since anybody laughed in Brownsville without that uncertain hesitation. “Is there anything else I can do for ya Tom?”

            Tom shook his head and thought of the days leading up to this and the ones that lay ahead. And like the water, he knew those days would run their course. He looked out the window and regretted and silently cursed the unforgiving sky. “No Woody,” he said. “I sure wish there was though.”

            “So do I Tom…so do I. Say hello to Maria and the kids for me.”

The Write Room: Garden Party

The Write Room: Garden Party: Well the time has come again, and it comes more often than every five years, but those little timely reminders of how old I'm getting are co...

The Write Room: The Collector-a flash of fiction

The Write Room: The Collector-a flash of fiction: Flash fiction is something I don't have a hell of lot of interest in, but a lot of people do, so I pump it out once in a while has a kind of...

The Collector-a flash of fiction

Flash fiction is something I don't have a hell of lot of interest in, but a lot of people do, so I pump it out once in a while has a kind of mental calisthenic. I very rarely share it or do anything with it. But I have even less interest in blogging so it just might be the perfect vehical for my flash attempts.

THE COLLECTOR

The land was his by the way of a will. It was all that he had; the land, the trees, and the artifacts that had been collected by himself and descendants and thought of as a kind of pension. A menagerie of obsessions that decorated the acreage and cluttered the halls of the home where he was raised and now just fodder of ever lessening value.

He locked the doors of the car, coughed till his lungs restricted, choked and rolled the windows tight. He’d been offered great sums of money from the advancing population. Time and again they came with their check books, blue prints and plans for development. He turned them away.

He felt the heat and heard the cracking of fallen timber in the smoke and flames outside. He’d been ordered to evacuate. He’d been given orders over the years on other things too and ignored them as well. It was his land and he’d do as he pleased.

He heard the sound of the tires on the car exploding, one by one and smelled the stench of burning rubber and wires. He had no wife or children to speak of, or would speak of him and he kept to himself, his junk and integrity.

He removed his fingers from the steering wheel and with it came strings of plastic and flesh. They said the fire was coming his way and he thought if it did, it would be his to own as well.

Garden Party

Well the time has come again, and it comes more often than every five years, but those little timely reminders of how old I'm getting are coming at me from friends and barely friends from the shadowed misty past that yet another class reunion as at hand. Thirty years...shit.

I've never gone to one, not one and it isn't because I don't think I'd enjoy it, I'm sure I would. I just don't quit have the desire to drive 4 hours and talk about schools days, most of which I skipped or was too fuckin stoned to know that I was there anyway.

There's even been suggestions that I read from one my books. Right, like that'll entice me. No way could I compete with REO Speedwagon, Journey ballads and the class dorks' new Russian wife he just bought. No way, nor would I wanna try.

Don't get me wrong, there are people that I'd love to see again and share a laugh with, most of which I'm still friends with and chat with often now thanks to social media. I'm talking to friends I thought I'd never see again. Pretty cool.

My wife says I lack sentiment. I deny this observation because I do reflect often on those tender years of growing, learning, good times and bad. But I'll admit I spend a lot more time thinking of the future that I do the past.

Nostalgia's great and healthy in small doses. The Human spirit, for some reason and to a great extent is powered by nostalgia. I don't know why, but people always have the notion that the past is the place of better times. "Good ole days" they say. And some of them were and some of them were not.

She says, my wife, "There's not a nostalgic bone in your body." Again, not true. I don't know if nostalgic is the right word, but I remember as I write this, hay rides being pulled far to fast by a 4x4 in the cool autumn nights down gravel roads and across the county. Keggers around a bon fire, drinking till dawn, skipping school and bumper skiing. One time when three of us almost drowned in Lake Wilderness by tipping a canoe in April. That was but one very close call, very close. And certain faces that did not survive those years and risky activities.

I'd love to do it all over again, I would, but its already been done, so, to quote Jack Sparrow, 'bring me that horizon.'

Now days when I see or hear the word, reunion, strangely enough what pops into my brain is the Rick Nelson song, Garden Party, and the line in particular, 'if yer gonna play a garden party, I wish you a lot a luck, but if memories were all sang. I'd rather drive a truck.'
So to all of you from 82, who are still truckin, I can't think of anybody else I would have rather shared it with. You guys are all aces in my book. And from this days perspective I wish ya a lotta luck, love, happiness and good fortune and if our paths meet again I hope that it be like accidental ships in the night and in some far away point on the globe, because those encounters make for the best reunions.

Have a great time and raise a glass for me, I'm fine and still suckin air. I'll be thinking of you as I do more than you know.

A Good Cafe, Delmar

Several have asked about my recent reading at the Mashuggah Cafe in St, Louis last week, so I thought I'd drop a line and share my perspective of the crime scene at Noir at The Bar. Now mind you the reading part was less important than one might think in comparison to actual space and time occupied at the little cafe on Delmar in the University City part of town that night.
I should point out first, that I had my reservation about going at all. I don't like readings. They're usually so fucking pointless and boring. But this one seemed more along the lines of, I don't know, "my kinda folk," and that's what convinced me to do it. Still, the reading part nagged me, worried me a little, not fear of public speaking but a worry along the lines of lost in translation. Something changes when fiction is read aloud, a certain dynamic, or delivery that might best be suited best for actors rather than writers, Never the less, I went anyway, for reasons, at first, selfish, I suppose, like any other unknown writer would justify the acts of performing and wagging their little tail for the treat of applause and acceptance. "I need this, it'll be good for me, get out there and meet some people." Is what I told myself. And that's what I did.
Now I won't go on about geography, travel, and hotels, because anyone whose driven the length of Illinois, or width of Kansas or Nebraska, or Texas, as I have will know, there's not much to say about it, externally anyway. But the time and space I will entertain.
The space, The cafe, Mashuggah they call it, and I don't know what it means and don't really care, but it's good cafe, with wear and character that probably comes from generation of students that passed across the wood floors with their shoes full of hope and possibilities, that only the youth can understand with all their limitless passions and certain hopeful beliefs of a world that only exists for that short 4 year, ok, maybe 5 or six year period, maybe longer because some never leave that comfortable nest. I'm wandering away here. The cafe, was a tiny little coffee bar, with patina and an assortment of beers I gathered from observation. And really good coffee.
There was art on the walls, some local, some good, some not so good. I noticed some good photography and a sketch by Picasso that caught my eye early on arrival. It looked original, although I'm sure it wasn't, in the company of the Boulevard of Broken Dreams poster upstairs and flowered water color that might have come from a child.. Maybe though, one never knows anything for sure. A hand made Bob Dylan discussion group sign, of wood, I think, hung proudly above the quiet patrons focused on their laptops. I spied a few screens and most were writing something, word doc pages, and reminded me of my own twenty something days in university town cafes like The Deadwood in Iowa City, only then, it was a pen, notebook, pitcher, and an overflowing ashtray at the table.
The tables were unstable, and the chairs an assortment. Posters of local bands and other events were cloaked in the mystery from their designs and clung to a cork board outside the surprisingly clean restroom. This I took in, in the afternoon, the reading was at seven, but I wanted to case the place and neighborhood first, so I did and felt very old and out of my element among the afternoon crowd of students. But that's alright, I was there once upon a time, in a different space and time, but I was there all the same. I get it.
Seven PM, maybe a little after, because I'm never too eager to make a mistake these days, so I plan my arrivals and departures carefully and for effect. The effect being one of never being around one place too long, so as your presence lingers longer than it should. Another is, I know myself, and I can can come across as a bit gruff and intimidating sometimes, but I'm actually pretty passive and accessible when you get to know me. Anyway, my wife and I left the hotel at seven and we walked the the three blocks or so. It was a warm, balmy evening with rain in its future, and the atmosphere was a little different. Gone were the students, and learners and their plans, replaced with doer's and worker bees of the community and the writers that I'd be reading with, and wanted to meet. No. I really did. For the writing business is a lonely one, and I was aware of some of these writers and their activities over the years. I was hungry for stories, not from their pages, but from the trenches. The real stories. In all honesty, I don't think very many writers really give a shit about another writers work, when their in the same but opposite trench together. Under that somewhat equal and level playing field. they want to know about each other, the writer.
So here we are, all smiles and hand shakes, a group of wordsmiths' on their way somewhere. To where? who knows, but on their way in their, our, minds anyway, and that's always a good place to be. All were younger than me except one veteran of the biz, and all were full of giddy and life for the moments they were allowed to wave their achievements. Our host for the evening, Scott Phillips and Jed Ayres, were already there. Scott, a man of notable writing achievement, seemed quiet and reserved and that most likely comes from years of stupid questions asked by writers of lesser notoriety. Writers who want something form him, most likely help, help from his coat tails to his shoulders. Help he probably has no desire and very little power to give and I don't blame him, for he knows, as I know, and every writer eventually learns, that at the end of the the day, it's all about the writing and the writer, and nothing else. There's not anything anyone can do for a writer outside an honorable mention here and there and among the right people. That's all, but you can't ask for that, no, no. You have to earn it. Again, it's all about the writing.
Jed, in my opinion and that's gathered in short, but seemed like a man of infinite kindness and generosity and good man to have for a friend. I knew this when he insisted on paying for the books I brought him as a gift and his manners toward my wife, and the way his eyes saw you, listened to you, in conversation. I knew he either had proper upbringing, and by proper I don't mean money, but proper as in good parenting. Or, a really shitty up bringing that mixed with his intelligence, made him humble, honorable and reliable, for through some freak of nature it happens sometimes that people become the very thing they we're denied as a child. Either way, a gentleman and a scholar, probably of the street, and og his own doing, but that would be even better.
The reading, I won't say much about it, because it's one of those, ya had to be there things. The guys from KC, fine writers and fine young men, full of enthusiasm and good intentions, and read some fine and impressive copy. The kid from South Africa, another, good man, and I'm always pleased to meet a foreigner traveling abroad. The local guy, was about my age but had written for more than I and seemed very at home and use to it all. I on the other hand had stopped writing in the early nineties to focus on a more "tangible, profitable and realistic career," so I thought, but that didn't pan out either. So I returned to writing, around 08, feeling like, fuck it, if I die broke, at least I die rich with leaving something behind other than a tombstone. Writing is what I've always wanted to do. To be a writer, at some point meant a lot to me, and I wanted that feeling for love of what I do back in my life and it is.
It has nothing to do with fame and money, and I don't know why people insist on putting those two together, because they're not same thing and very rarely, accompany on another and even more rare is that the accompany a writer. I mean shit, it is a very very small club, of rich and famous and writers, face it. What I brought home from this trip is this; I write, and I came to read, because I'm on a road with fellow travelers, passing by, a road home, so to speak. A road to a place I want to be, a place warm, and satisfying. A home where I've never been, where I belong, where their's a warm fire and comfortable cat purring on the hearth. A cozy home after a long jounrney through the winter of life, and the slipperss fit and the coffee is good, and there's art on the walls and in my heart and in my mind.                                                                                                                                                 Home, like a good cafe

13 shots of noir, Paul D. Brazill, a short sharp interview.

Short, Sharp interview - Paul D Brazill

At a good cafe, known by the local underbelly of artist, writers a musicians as The Write Room, he steps in from the brisk evening weather and strolls the stench of absinthe and opiates to my corner booth in back. I watch him walk and wave away the waiter.

It’s Thursday night and the only patrons are the truly dedicated, and whispering his name from the shadows and stealing glances at man, the myth, the legend; Paul D Brazill.

KLH: Brazill, what’s up, have a seat. Can you pitch your latest publication/ project in 25 words or less? 

PDB -13 Shots Of Noir is a collection of flash fiction and short stories in the vein of Roald Dahl, The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents ... Crime, horror and dark fiction are contained within the pages of 13 Shots Of Noir. 

KLH: Hey man...which books, films or television shows have floated your boat recently? 

PDB -Books:  I'm currently enjoying William Ryan's historical crime novel, The Holy Thief and I loved J J DeCeglie's Drawing Dead.Very different flavours. Both very tasty.

Films:  Kill List was a more than worthy follow up to Down Terrace.

TV:  The new season of Justified seems well on form so far. Sherlock was top stuff.

KLH: None a mine huh, nice. No, no, don’t worry about it, really. Listen, I was wondering; is it possible for a writer to be an objective reader? 

PDB -I'm not a particularly objective person, so ... Some people seem to be able to have critical detachment. I don't. I either like something or I don't and I don't really care why.

KLH: What about the screen. do you have any interest in writing for films, theatre or television? 

PDB -Television is more of a writers medium and there's a lot of meaty stuff being done at the moment, so that's very attractive. 

Films are mostly a visual thing, so the interest isn't so strong but I'd be more than happy if a very visual director wanted to turn Drunk On The Moon into a film. Guns Of Brixton would make a great, sweary, modern Ealing Comedy, actually.

Theatre is of no interest to me in any form. I've been to the theatre less than five times in my life and it wasn't a particularly enjoyable experience. A bit embarrassing, really. Although, I do enjoy going the opera so maybe I could write a musical like Guys and Dolls!

KLH: How about, Guns and Dames, that has ring. How much research goes into each book? 

PDB -Very little. It's the world as seen through my bleary eyes.It's not journalism.

KLH: Me neithier, I fake it. What about the web- how useful or important are social media for you as a writer? 

PDB -I have no real idea if they are useful or important but they certainly eat time. I suspect their importance could be an Emperor's new clothes situation. It could just be a bunch of  C and D list writers promoting their stuff to other C and D list writers. But it costs nothing and, for me, if I didn't waste time on them, I'd waste it doing something even more useless, I'm sure.

KLH: What’s on the cards in 2012?  

PDB -My novella Guns Of Brixton will be published by Pulp Press early this year.

Snapshots, a flash fiction/short story collection, will come out through Pulp Metal Fiction.

An anthology of Drunk On The Moon stories will be published by Dark Valentine Press.

And a couple of other things are hovering and waiting to strike, too!

KLH: Ok that’s a lot. I feel positively blocked. Now drink up mate, thanks for stopping by 

Paul D Brazill can be found at his blog You Would Say That, Wouldn't You?

HEARTLAND GOTHIC, RELEASED FEB 29TH BY TRESTLE PRESS

http://www.amazon.com/Heartland-Gothic-ebook/dp/B0072WX6C8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1327847239&sr=1-1

Shakespeare Was A Genre Writer- Guest Blog with Proffesor Josh Mark on genre vs literary

Author and Proffessor Josh Mark stopped in The Write Room Cafe, Sunday morning for a cup and a dark corner to contemplate the boundries of writing fiction.

"Morning Josh, what's on your mind?"

`Shakespeare Was A Genre Writer'

"Yes, of course, I'll be right back that for ya."

There is this wonderful passage in the Cornell Woolrich novel, I Married A Dead Man, which I believe refutes the bigoted `literary' claim that genre fiction is not truly `literature'. For those who don't know, Cornell Woolrich (who also wrote under the name William Irish) was a well-known and highly successful writer of `genre fiction', crime novels in the 1940's and beyond. His story, It Had To Be Murder, was the basis for the famous Alfred Hitchcock film Rear Window and many of his stories, or plots derived from them, have served to provide writers with ideas from 1938 to the present. It would seem, then, that Woolrich should be regarded as a `writer' and not as a `genre writer' and, further, neither should `genre writing' be counted as less than `literature'.  As a human who has spent much of his life in the academic world, I have heard from fellow professors, countless times, that there is a definite distinction between `literature' and `fiction' with particular disdain accorded to `genre fiction'. Yet, when pressed on the question of what makes one piece `fiction' and another piece `literature' I have never received a satisfactory answer from any of these professionals.  Cornell Woolrich's work was, then, and is, today, considered `genre fiction' as it falls into the category of `noir crime fiction' but it is so much more than any label can hope to define. This is true of so much `crime fiction' or `YA fiction' or `horror fiction' that I think it's time we re-evaluated these tags we give to pieces of writing and try to approach them honestly and without labels.  The whole of this Woolrich novel is brilliant but this one passage stopped me cold when I first read it and I had to stare into space for a while thinking on it in the exact same way I have done when reading Shakespeare or Plato or any of the other greats. It goes like this:

"What makes you stop, when you have stopped, just where you have stopped? What is it, what? Is it something, or is it nothing? Why not a yard short, why not a yard more? Why just there where you are, and nowhere else?

Some say: It's just blind chance, and if you hadn't stopped there, you would have stopped at the next place. Your story would have been different then. You weave your own story as you go along.

But others say: You could not have stopped any place else but this even if you had wanted to. It was decreed, it was ordered, you were meant to stop at this spot and no other. Your story is there waiting for you, it has been waiting for you there a hundred years, long before you were born, and you cannot change a comma of it. Everything you do, you have to do. You are the twig, and the water you float on swept you here. You are the leaf and the breeze you were borne on blew you here. This is your story, and you cannot escape it; you are only the player, not the stage manager. Or so some say."

Not only is the passage beautifully written, it asks a central truth about human existence: Do we have control over our choices or are those choices dictated for us by some higher power? Whether that `power' is Fate or God or simply the sum total of all of our other choices or our upbringing, are we really free, in any given moment, to choose to turn right instead of left? Did we actually choose to become who we are today or was that choice dictated long before this moment by some factor far removed from our own freewill?

In the novel I Married A Dead Man, just before Woolrich writes this passage, the scene is this: A young girl has been deserted by her lover in a strange city. She's pregnant, which is why he's left her, and all she has is something like seventeen cents in her pocket and the train ticket back to her home town he bought for her. She gets on the train, tired and depressed, hopeless because she's returning home in disgrace, and lugs her suitcase down the aisle of the car. Worn out, she finally just stops, puts down the suitcase, and sits on it directly across from a young couple. That moment, when she stops there, defines the rest of her life.

Isn't this true for all of us at one point or another? It's the simplest thing, or seemingly the simplest, which leads to the greatest and most important times of our lives and which, actually, can come to define us. Who is to say, then, that genre fiction is not `literature'? What is literature but the story of what it means to be a human being? However one chooses to tell that story, it is a story we all need to hear repeated from time to time.  It lets us know that we're not alone.  I don't believe there should be any such designations as `crime fiction' or `noir fiction' or `YA fiction' if, by so designating a piece of work, one may then smugly dismiss it as `not literature' and, therefore, not worth reading.  The poets of today speak to us through the radio and off CDs in our stereos and, just because Springsteen or Gerard Way are not included in a college literature book, does not make the impact of their work any less. We should expand our understanding, and definition, of `literature' to include the totality of what goes to helping us all be more human and stop defining and trying to devalue those works which don't neatly fit the accepted understanding of what is `literary' work. Before he became `Shakespeare', Will was just a guy who wrote plays to entertain and, along the way, enlightened people to what it is to be a human being. So called `genre fiction' provides us with precisely the same experience.

My Muse Plays Hard To Get, by Kevin Lynn Helmick, Pulp Metal Magazine

Piece a flash? from a few years ago in Pulp Metal Magazine

http://pulpmetalmagazine.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/my-muse-plays-hard-to-get-by-kevin-lynn-helmicks/http://pulpmetalmagazine.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/my-muse-plays-hard-to-get-by-kevin-lynn-helmicks/

Donna Crocker's Blog: Guest Blogger Kevin Lynn Helmick

Donna Crocker's Blog: Guest Blogger Kevin Lynn Helmick: Welcome Kevin , For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge A Guest Blog By Kevin Lynn Helmick Hello one and all. I’ll spare the introductions...

Thoughtful Reflections: Sebastion Cross, a New Novel, by Author Kevin Lynn Helmick is Packed with Adventure and Intrigue

Thoughtful Reflections: Sebastion Cross, a New Novel, by Author Kevin Lynn Helmick is Packed with Adventure and Intrigue

Pluck You, the history of the middle finger, a guest blog and wisdom by Johnny A

The History of the Middle Finger
Well, now......here's something I never knew before, and now that I know it, I feel compelled to send it on to my more intelligent friends in the hope that they, too, will feel edified.
Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured English s...oldiers. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore they would be incapable of fighting in the future. This famous English longbow was made of the native English Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as 'plucking the yew' (or 'pluck yew').
Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and they began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French, saying, See, we can still pluck yew! Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodentals fricative F', and thus the words often used in conjunction with the one-finger-salute! It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows used with the longbow that the symbolic gesture is known as 'giving the bird.'

And yew thought yew knew every plucking thing.

You Would Say That, Wouldn't You?: Short Sharp Interview: Kevin Lynn Helmick

You Would Say That, Wouldn't You?: Short Sharp Interview: Kevin Lynn Helmick: PDB: Can you pitch your latest publication in 25 words or less? KLH: I’ll give it a shot- Heartland Gothic . It’s a fish outta water, bla...

Blogging Sucks

Blogging

I absolutely fucking loath it, blog, blooog, sounds like a flat tire or something. I'd prefer "essays," but it don't quite fit. I'd even take "flash fiction," but that ain't it, because my flash fiction is usually flash because it couldn't float. Who came up with the term "blog" is that the best ya could do? Is it short for something? I don't know.                                                                                                                          

This is sometime how write through a tough spot, bitch and write at the same time, and maybe the muse will come up from the vast depths of my creativity and grace the page with that certain unattainable magic that happens in moments of heated composition of projects when all the cylinders are fully injected and firring away at fifty fuckin thousand rpm's.

See it kinda works, but it's late, I'm beat and I get up at hit the keys not long after the haunting hour of the night, when dreams, the story, the characters, and reality are only separated by a thin veil that only thickens with the rise of the household occupants pulling me out into the world, where I obviously do not belong.

I doubt if anybody will even read this first real blog of shit, and I don't blame ya, I wouldn't... just based on the title. I mean it has no cool links, cuz I don't know how to do that. It has no advice, cuz I don't like sounding like one those an ass clown blowhard, who just can't help from spouting advice every time they open their mouths. In fact, it has no useful, informative content what so ever.

But I got it out of the way all the same. Maybe next time I'll have something to actually talk about. I do have a few biographical adventure I'd like to share, mostly about bar fights, close calls, famous people run ins, and shit like that.

So stay tuned if you really have no life at all, cuz this ain't gonna be pretty, and everybody loves a train wreck.

Pocketful of Ginch: Book Trailer

Pocketful of Ginch: Book Trailer: Here's the trailer for "The Adjustment," now available at your local booksellers. Take this and repost it everywhere you can! Unfortunately...

You Would Say That, Wouldn't You?: Short Sharp Interview: Kevin Lynn Helmick

You Would Say That, Wouldn't You?: Short Sharp Interview: Kevin Lynn Helmick: PDB: Can you pitch your latest publication in 25 words or less? KLH: I’ll give it a shot- Heartland Gothic . It’s a fish outta water, bla...

An interview with Kevin Helmick, On-Heartland Gothic, a Rural Noir

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/gelatisscoop/2012/01/07/kevin-helmick-drops-by-to-discuss-his-upcoming-novel

Paul D Brazill gives away the farm, just for one day

ONE DAY THROW DOWN!

 SALE WITHIN A SALE-PAUL D. BRAZILL’S “BRIT GRIT TOO -MONDAY- AND MONDAY ONLY -$.99, PLUS THE BUY ONE GET ONE FREE IS STILL IN FORCE!!

 

Amazon Kindle Best-Selling and trailblazing author Paul D. Brazill has decided to drop the price of his legendary “Brit Grit Too” to $.99 for one day, Monday, January 16, 2012. If you purchase “Brit Grit Too” Trestle Press will match that with any title up to the full purchase price of $4.99 as part of the BOGO sale.

Just email Paul D. Brazill or find him at his legendary blog- http://pdbrazill.blogspot.com/

Or email Trestle Press directly with your proof of purchase-trestlepress@gmail.com

This is what you will find contained within “Brit Grit Too”:

  Edited by Paul D Brazill, Brit Grit Too collects 32 of Britain's best up and coming crime fiction writers to aid the charity Children 1st http://www.children1st.org.uk/

The BRIT GRIT mob is coming to kick down your door with hobnailed boots. Kitchen-sink noir; petty-thief-louts; lives of quiet desperation; sharp, blood-stained slices of life; booze-sodden brawls from the bottom of the barrel and comedy that’s as black as it’s bitter—this is BRIT GRIT

Table of Contents.

1. Two Fingers Of Noir by Alan Griffiths

2. Looking For Jamie by Iain Rowan

3. Stones In Me Pocket by Nigel Bird

4. The Catch And The Fall by Luke Block

5. A Long Time Coming by Paul Grzegorzek

6. Loose Ends by Gary Dobb

7. Graduation Day by Malcolm Holt

8. Cry Baby by Victoria Watson

9. The Savage World Of Men by Richard Godwin

10. Hard Boiled Poem (a mystery) by Alan Savage

11. A Dirty Job by Sue Harding

12. Squaring The Circle by Nick Quantrill

13. The Best Days Of My Life by Steven Porter

14. Hanging Stan by Jason Michel

15. The Wrong Place To Die by Nick Triplow

16. Coffin Boy by Nick Mott

17. Meat Is Murder by Colin Graham

18. Adult Education by Graham Smith

19. A Public Service by Col Bury

20. Hero by Pete Sortwell

21. Snapshots by Paul D Brazill

22. Smoked by Luca Veste

23. Geraldine by Andy Rivers

24. A Minimum Of Reason by Nick Boldock

25. Dope On A Rope by Darren Sant

26. A Speck Of Dust by David Barber

27. Hard Times by Ian Ayris

28. Never Ending by Fiona Johnson

29. Faces by Frank Duffy

30. The Plebitarian by Danny Hogan

31. King Edward by Gerard Brennan

32. Brit Grit by Charlie Wade

Spinetingler Award nominee Paul D Brazill has had stories in loads of classy print and electronic magazines and anthologies, such as A Twist Of Noir, Beat To A Pulp, Crime Factory, Dark Valentine, Deadly Treats, Dirty Noir, Needle, Powder Burn Flash, Thrillers, Killers n Chillers, Noir Nation, Pulp Ink, Pulp Pusher, Radgepacket Volumes Four and Five, Shotgun Honey& The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime Volume 8.

He writes for Pulp Metal Magazine and Mean Streets.His blog, You Would Say That, Wouldn't You? is here:http://pdbrazill.blogspot.com/

He is the creator of the  horror/noir series, Drunk on the Moon, published by Trestle Press.

  

Heartland Gothic

coming soon from Trestle Press

Clovis Point

Chat with Giovanni Gelati, and Kevin Helmick

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/gelatisscoop/2012/01/07/kevin-helmick-drops-by-to-discuss-his-upcoming-novel#.Twc4c8rh_5c.facebook

A stop off Gio on the way to publishing Heartland Gothic, we talk about writing, books, writers, shit like that.
thats pretty cool
that's pretty cool

Trestle Press Family

Trestle Press Family

Sebastian Cross: Sebastian Cross, an epic literary adventure by Kev...

Sebastian Cross: Sebastian Cross, an epic literary adventure by Kev...: " Sebastian Cross is a literary adventure that examines the intricac..."

Sebastian Cross, an epic literary adventure by Kevin Lynn helmick

             Sebastian Cross is a literary adventure that examines the intricacies of creativity, the relationship of art and culture and the significance of literature on the cusp of the information age. Any reader who enjoys thought provoking prose and suspenseful adventure with exciting, charismatic characters will love reading this moving account of the rise of an American icon.

             Murray Henshaw is a Chicago based literary agent who narrates the epic tale of his twenty-two year relationship with the eccentric writer/adventurer, Sebastian Cross, and his ascent to immortality through a life changing novel he’s created entitled Wages of Sin.

             Along with the fame and success that Cross achieves upon the release of his brilliant masterpiece, Murray and Sebastian’s lives begin to unravel as the book sets off world wide controversy, random suicides and assassination attempts by a deranged cult leader known as John Chase.                                                                                                                                                

             Murray struggles with the onslaught of law suits, damaging press, the death of his overbearing father and suicide of his fiancé. He befriends Jack Singer, an aging novelist from the south side who signs with Henshaw in hopes of resurrecting his stagnant pulp fiction career. Singer’s rough straight forward advice and organized crime connections help guide and protect Murray and Sebastian through some their most challenging moments.

             Refusing to be restrained by social norms, Sebastian wanders further from reality as his international exploits grow to legendary proportions. He summits the world’s most challenging peaks and sails the globe alone pushing the limits of his physical and mental abilities while desperately trying to escape the literary monster he’s created. Against the advice of all, he insists on confronting his nemesis, John Chase, in a climatic pivotal moment that sends Cross over the edge and this saga racing toward an emotional, triumphant end.     

            

https://www.createspace.com/3532911