[As I'm getting into this I'm realizing I need more work on the B storyline, which'd be the whole death thing. There should be a chapter before this one where Stephanie's family is found, and some of the boring really needs to get removed from this. So we're going back in time a little. Whee! This 'wednesday' is the day before Joe is in on the interview with Stephanie]
Wednesday morning Chris Gagnon was sitting at his desk digging through the medical examiner's preliminary report on the O'Ma
[i bet you thought I'd forgotten about poor Alex! I think I need some connecting material with Chris and Steve, though]
Friday afternoon Joe was still digging through the pile of evaluations on his desk. It was slow going, slower than normal. He'd been playing the events of the past week over in his mind. Everything was just so strange.
A week ago he was happy and things were simple. Maybe they weren't picture perfect, but he had a quiet life he liked and a boyfriend he loved, and that w
[in which Joe gets yelled at. I keep waiting for someone who's really a cop to tell me exactly how wrong this all is -- I've been winging it on common sense and chutzpah so far. I really, really hope the stats I'm pulling out of the air are wildly overstated for dramatic reasons too]
Joe walked back to the rec room to see if there was anything else that Steve needed. Joe wasn't exactly sure what he was going to do. He felt numb and sick. His empty stomach hurt. His throat hurt.
Steve was
[i'll warn that things get a bit unpleasant in this one. I can't judge how bad, relative to the norm for the genre since I don't usually read this sort of stuff]
Chris was speechless as Joe went into the room. Joe and Billy O'Malley being related wasn't anything that'd even occurred to him. The last names were different. Joe was slender while Billy was built like a fat biker. Joe was sophisticated and clever and attractive
[Ah, poor Joe. I've figured out the second plot. Bwahahahahahaha! *cough*]
Joe parked on the street behind Steve's car, his little silver coup looking very out of place on the dingy corner. It wasn't one of the better parts of town, all old multi-story brick buildings that had been built back when this was the center of everything, before cars and the suburbs had killed it.
The sign next to the door just said "Johnson House", and gave no indication what was inside. Joe opened it. Waiting
[short, but it seems important. Not sure why. This, for the record, is the spot where I had to stop and make a note of all the characters that had shown up so far and what they did...]
Thursday morning Joe was digging through quarterly employee reviews. His office door was closed and his desk was piled with papers and empty coffee cups. Dave Brubeck was playing softly on the stereo in the corner. The electronic twiddle of his phone caught him by surprise. He'd told his assistant he wasn't su
[Right, this is where we find that my exposure to firing ranges is almost entirely through cop shows and Mythbusters]
Tuesday evening Joe dashed out of work late. It was 6:30 and he had to meet Steve at the range for seven. There wasn't time for him to get home and change, so he was stuck dressed for work. He was pretty sure a suit wasn't appropriate dress to go learn how to shoot things, but he didn't have a whole lot of choice.
The firing range was in a nondescript brick building by an
[Writing things like this on the train is a really surreal experience. I think I won't do that again -- it's tough enough to get past the puritan mores and write it in the first place. Luckily for me I was wearing a heavy jacket... (And yes, Joe gets laid, so be warned. Or encouraged. Whatever)]
Joe should have gone out to the club. He knew he ought to. He could dance. He could laugh. He could see Alex.
And that was why he didn't.
Guilt had gnawed at him ever since he'd left Steve Ru
[you know it's not going to be this easy. Be honest. You know that. This was originally chapter 15, but I needed a flashback, so it isn't]
Toby's scream brought Chris to his feet. The boy was lying on the ground on the other side of the pool, holding his knee and crying. Chris crossed the distance in four strides, almost falling himself as he ran on the hot concrete patio blocks that ringed the pool. He was there in seconds, cradling Toby as he cried.
"Sh, sh, it's okay. Papa's here, To
[This is a flashback. It needs a good transition into it, but it doesn't have one right now]
Nine year old Chris Gagnon huddled under his blanket. It was partly because even in Arizona, April nights were cold. It was partly because he was a little afraid of his dad, who was drunker than normal. But it was mostly because it was 9:30 and past his bedtime, and he still had eight pages of the newest Alpha Flight comic to read.
It wasn't the really newest issue, but it was the newest one he c
[Mmm, suspense! I think. I've been practicing some new things with all this. Short sentences. Characters thoughts. cliffhangers! All sorts of things. It's been interesting]
Joe's head whipped around. Standing at the corner of the house was the last person he expected to see.
"Alex?" Joe asked. A little thrill went down his spine, right to his crotch. It was a good thing he'd worn the speedos after all. They were snug enough to keep any reactions
[i'm not sure if this is filler, setup (since it's only ~1200 words), or an introduction of more characters. But at least we learn something important -- Steve drinks domestic beer. (oh, the horror. The horror! )]
Joe pulled into the driveway of Steve's house at five minutes to two. The house was like all the others on the block. It was a neighborhood of older houses, middle class since the time they were built a century or more ago. They were all two-story buildings, old enough to have por
[This should've been chapter six or thereabouts -- right before Steve visits Joe at work. Ah, well, something for the rewrite]
Friday morning Chris Gagnon woke up feeling like he'd been run over by a truck. He was tired and achy and his mouth tasted like something had crawled into it and died. He wasn't too surprised, he'd had beer last night. A lot of beer. He rolled out of bed, holding his throbbing head.
The worst part of it was the dream.
They'd stopped when he was eleven. After
[insert witty and self-deprecating comment here]
Joe was still getting the blood off his hands when Steve pulled up in front of his apartment. He'd been trying to get it off since they left and it was still there, under his nails and between the ridges of his fingers.
"Gah, this stuff gets everywhere," Joe said as he pitched the wipe, now a light pink, into the trash bag to join the two dozen others he'd used.
"Yeah, it can be pretty bad," Steve said. "Listen, it was a little late to
[Hey, Joe's good with kids. Go figure. Can't tell if this is the start or the end of a sub-plot...]
Joe put his best comforting face on, and tried to project as much reassurance as he could. He didn't have much experience with kids, but in his years in HR he'd had to deal with hysterical employees, psychotic episodes, stalking ex-husbands, and once helped deliver a baby. He hoped he could handle this.
"Hey there," he said quietly. The girl shrank back as far as she could, trapped between
[And the plot thickens. Or at least congeals, but good enough]
Inside the apartment building things were busy. Detective Russell didn't need anyone to tell him where things had happened. The blood smears on the open door of unit 1-B and the forensic team inside it were more than enough.
There was a uniformed officer just inside the door to the apartment. Jensen. Rookie. He was looking green, but doing his best to hold it together.
"What happened?" Russell asked.
"Three fatalities
[Y'know, this wasn't here when I started the story. And Joe's probably going to get in so much trouble. Oh, yeah, I'm practicing cliff-hangers. They seem useful things.]
Detective Russell pulled up into the apartment complex driveway. Like a lot of complexes in town, it was a collection of small buildings. These were brick, six apartments per three story building. There were twenty of the things lined up ten on a side. The complex itself was relatively new, maybe thirty years old at most, bu
[And at the end... plot sign! Yay, something besides romance, sexual tension, and hints of madcap farce. 'Cause, let's be honest, who wants to read about sex anyway? I know it bores you guys to tears...]
They drove in silence for a few minutes, into one of the dingier sections of town. Detective Russell parallel parked in front of a ratty pizza restaurant and got out. Joe followed, feeling nervous and uncomfortable. He was very over-dressed for the neighborhood.
There was no way Joe was
[Look, forward motion of what I think may possibly be a plot. Or a sub-plot. Something like that. And a title!]
Detective Russell parked his car in one of the empty handicapped spots in front of the Maple Building. He wasn't sure what, past the sign labeling it, distinguished it from the Oak, Spruce, Chestnut, or Birch Buildings he'd passed, but he supposed the cookie-cutter office buildings required cookie cutter names.
And they were all cookie-cutter, a half dozen buildings, three stor
[Another chunk 'o story, quite by surprise. I hadn't expected to get here quite this fast]
Thursdays Joe went clubbing for fun. Not anything serious, and since he'd started dating Alex certainly not to get laid, but just fun. Drink some, dance some, be around people and have a good time. He enjoyed it, and what was wrong with that? He could lose himself in the music, let the last bits of the workday drain away, and just relax.
It had been a kind of shitty day at work, but then last night
[Yeah, yeah, short. I'm trying to write every day, shooting for ~1k words. Haven't quite managed, but at least the story's moving forward. A new chunk every day I write one, keeping a few in the can as a buffer, in case I finally figure out what's going on and need to throw out stuff]
Thursday morning Steve caught Chris at the coffee machine. True to stereotype there was a box of donuts, but since they were plastic, decorative, and someone's idea of a joke that was probably OK. The muffins,
[Yeah, I've got through chapter 5 done, if you can call these mini-things 'chapters'. This is me working through writer's block, so I make no promises as to anything ]
"What am I here for?" Joe demanded as Gagnon dragged him into an interrogation room. "Am I under arrest? Do I get a lawyer? This your idea of a joke?"
"Sit," thundered the detective.
"Great," grumbled Joe. "I'm getting locked up for giving bad head."
He got a glare for that. "Everything said in here is recorded, s
[More brain dump. Again, still rough, and while I'm looking for a title I figure I ought to know what's going on first. I'm only to part five and I'm not entirely sure yet]
The cruiser was quiet for the ride to the police station. Detective Gagnon drove in silence after briefly radioing in, while Joe sat in the back of the car and fumed. He was pissed, and rightly so. His boyfriend had pulled him over and roughed him up. On top of that he'd not even acknowledged his existence.
What annoy
[This thing is dribbling out of my brain so, lucky everyone, you get to see it raw and unedited and un-rewritten, and barely written in the first place. But at least it's out!]
Joe knew it was going to be a bad night when he saw the flashing lights in his rear-view mirror. Besides going way too fast, it was raining and he was driving a sporty little silver coupe, either of which was guaranteed to piss off any cop that pulled him over. The big rainbow squiggle decal on the bumper probably was
Sometimes you realize that the world is just sort of bizarre if you look at it right. For example:
The train I take into work in the morning carries more people on it in one go than the entire population of a town I lived next to.
It's the 7th of January, and my son and I went into New York City today to see the cherry trees, which were in full bloom in the Brooklyn Botannical Gardens. We were both wearing t-shirts, and it was really too damn hot.
Somewhere in Wales there's a guy who
