This is the second blog I wanted to write about the chaotic details of my early and current journalism life, but I don't think it will interest you.
Conflicts about talking to stuck-up celebrities and deadlines and story changes aren't the kind of stories that make the movies.
More important than grabbing your attention is that I don't even have the time to do it.
I have started writing in my journal again, but it's keeping me up an extra hour each night.
I'm getting insomnia, but it's worth it just to write for myself and just to reflect for once.
To pause.
I still don't have the time to write anything else but school, newspaper and my novel.
I got a great idea for a short story last night, when I was trying to drift off, but I can't find the time to write it.
It's about a guy named Edward Abbey. Doesn't that name ring nicely?
He's balding prematurely and he wears thick glasses and he lives at home on disability checks.
His only companion is his grey tabby cat, Clyde.
The story opens on a depressing winter morning. Edward Abbey is munching on soggy cereal and talking to Clyde.
A pistol is on the table, fully loaded and menacing-looking.
His is thinking about lonely things, like his dead mother and other sad stuff. He doesn't have any friends.
He is considering suicide.
He goes on the internet and dials-up (yeah, it's the present but he still has dial-up. Isn't that depressing?) and finds a website that allows you to tip the cops off to drug dealers. It's so very interesting because it's completely anonymous and such a ratfink thing to do.
I got the idea for this when browsing "how much is an eightball of cocaine" and how much it costs. Ironically, I stumbled upon the info on a cop website based in Michigan that actually allows you to snitch on drug users and dealers.
I looked up some Michigan politicians and sent in tips that they were sniffing coke. I'm causing chaos in a state I don't live in. It's funny.
Here is the link so you can do it yourself:
http://www.huntteam.net/
Anyway, Edward Abbey is so lonely and so bored and so depressed that he decides to submit his own name. He types in "Edward Abbey sells drugs to school kids" and his address and his full name and his height (5'3''), his eyecolor (grey), his weight (213 lbs. [he weighs himself to be accurate]) and finally his birthdate (Dec. 1. 1973).
The next morning, Edward Abbey notices an ivory white van sitting outside his house. He checks periodically and it's always there. It has Michigan plates, (cuz Edward Abbey lives in Michigan) and Edward Abbey realizes that he is being watched. He excitedly pours himself another bowl of soggy cereal and tells all this to Clyde. He feels like a celebrity.
The van is there for a week and then it disappears and this depresses Edward Abbey so he logs on again and rats on himself again. He says, "Edward Abbey has a drug den in his home." The next morning the van is there and Edward goes to the grocery store and the van follows him. As he shops, he notices that a shady young man is following him. This guy pushes a shopping cart and occasionally loads in random objects, but they're not things a man like him would buy. This is a clue the guy is shady because a normal man does not have tampons and saurkraut and Good Housekeeping in his cart.
Edward Abbey realizes he is being watched and he is ecstatic about the attention. He looks in his cart and realizes that he has the same old gross cereal and cat food and some hemmerhoid lotion. He decides that he needs to impress the shady character browsing the same aisles but picking up Tabasco sauce and kid-sized toothbrushes. So Edward puts the cereal back and buys a nice, big steak. He buys A1 steak sauce and a set of steak knives and potatoes and chicken stuffing and carrots. He blows half his disability check on this and the cashier flirts with him. Edward has never felt so good.
But then, in the parking lot, he realizes the shady guy and the ivory white van won't follow him much longer unless he has some real evidence against himself. So he pushes his cart of groceries past his car and down an alley and finds a homeless man.
He tells the man, got any cocaine? And the homeless guy laughs and says sure. And Edward Abbey asks how much it'll cost and the homeless guy says $200. Edward gives him the other half of his disability check and takes the eightball of cocaine and stuffs it in his pocket. Down the alley, he notices the shady guy duck back. Good. He was watched.
And Edward pushes his cart back down the alley and gets into his car and goes home. The white van follows him. Edward cooks his meal and talks to Clyde and Clyde purrs. Edward burns half the meal, but sets it on the table anyway. He removes the pistol, which is still sitting there and he looks at it and feels foolish that he ever felt suicidal. This is the best day of his life. It's like he has guests. He replaces the pistol with the eightball.
Then he sits down and eats and watches TV. When he turns to the six o clock news, he notices his mug on TV. He beams! He's famous! Maybe like Andy Warhol once said, he's only famous for fifteen minutes, but that's still something. He turns up the volume and listens to the anchor talk and talk and talk about . . . HIM! Edward is crying tears of joy. He eats his steak and his stuffing and his mashed potatoes and they're mostly burned, but it's the best meal he's ever had.
Then he hears a million sirens and the cops pull up and the police copters and the news copters are buzzing overhead, louder than a hurricane and he hears a cop scream through a megaphone, "Edward Abbey, come out with your hands on your head!"
This is Edward's big moment. He doesn't know what to do, so instead of panicking, he packs up the leftovers from his meal and puts them in Tupperware and labels them and puts them in the freezer. Clyde is freaking out and clawing up furniture. Edward is crying again, but not tears of joy.
The cops yell at him again. "We know you're in their!" Edward realizes his mistake. He realizes this is the end. That he can't go to prison. He was already living in a jailcell his entire life. He's already had his last meal. He's already on death row.
So Edward takes Clyde into the bedroom and he brings the pistol. I know, this is horrifying, I thought, but it has to happen. It just HAS to. It makes the story anti-climatic if poor, depressing Edward doesn't destroy some outside part of himself. So he does. He points the barrel at Clyde and pulls the trigger.
The cops hear the shot and start firing. Edward is safe, however. He goes to the front door and he opens it and he shoots and that's the end. The scene ends with only the silohette of Edward passing through the door and the extreme brightness of all the spotlights trained on him. Trained on HIM. And we watch Edward crumple to his knees.
And that's the whole story I thought of last night. I know it starts out depressing and ends depressing, but maybe that's okay because our main character learns something, he grows and he steps outside himself a little bit. Only he did it the wrong way, and maybe this serves as a moral for you; don't blame yourself. Instead, free yourself.
And maybe you think it's an excellent storyline despite many of the obvious faults. Maybe it's just like one of those movies. Maybe it's perfect idea. Maybe you're telling me, "why don't you have time to write that? You have to!" Well, maybe I just did.
