Night of the Crimson Moon

(Originally published in Weird Western Tales. Werewolf/western fiction)


NIGHT OF THE CRIMSON MOON
by Howard Hopkins


The second night of the full moon is always the hardest. Or perhaps I should say the bloodiest. It’s when the moon stands out stark and gory against the chocolate mesas or when it rises, blood-bloated, over the pinon-studded hillside. Then, it is a harbinger of death, as surely as the Colt Peacemaker at my hip.

The only difference is I can control killing delivered by the gun; I cannot control the murder-lust summoned by the crimson moon.

My name…if I told you that most who heard it died with it on their lips, would that make you any less curious? I suppose not. Humans are a curious lot; they want answers even when they don’t like the questions.

I can tell you what the wanted posters call me: Kid Coyote. That’s the name the lawmen pinned on me and I reckon it’s as good as any. Not even sure I recollect my real name anymore, nor my Comanche name.

That’s right I’m a ‘breed, on my mother’s side—easy enough to see in the coal-black hair that just touched my shoulders, the mahogany color of my eyes and cherrywood complexion of my skin. A ‘breed on my pa’s side, too, but that’s a whole other story, one I have been running from for…Judas Priest, how long had it been now?

Ever since I can recollect. A thousand crimson moons, I’m thinkin’.

It was just a little town, a pisshole in the bowels of Colorado Territory. My ass was a’painin’ from two days in the saddle and I reckoned I had hours till the sun slipped behind the mountains and the crimson moon bled over the opposite horizon. Just a whiskey, maybe two, then I’d be out before…well, before something happened that upped the ante on that wanted poster and added to the guilt I already carried around like lead-filled saddlebags. I didn’t need or want any more trouble right now. I’d just finished a job in New Mex for a catteman’s organization. I’d left that job with more than a loose notion the men I’d brought down weren’t the only pieces of the puzzle. But figgerin’ out mysteries after I’d been told “job well done, now move on” wasn’t in my trade description of itinerant nature and I was bone-weary of killin’. The kind I got paid for, but more acutely the kind I didn’t.

Reckon I forgot to mention; I’m a hired gun, a range detective, whatever the hell folks want to call a hired killer nowadays. For while I was wanted for certain crimes I had no wish to answer to—and no control over—I was also wanted for permanent solutions to problems by men of high means and low conscience. They always knew how to get hold of me, even if the law didn’t.

You’re thinkin’ ‘bout now my life is a mite complicated, you’re right. But what I did, killin’ rustlers, outlaws and the like, well, I could justify that, I reckon. I could make it honorable after a spell, least in my own mind.

What I did under the crimson moon…well, not so much. I wasn’t in control of that. And the blood spilled on those nights…well, it dripped through my soul as well as my fingers.

I drew up outside the local saloon, cast a glance about for any sign I had been recognized, but folks wandered the late-afternoon-shadowed boardwalks like sheep. Sheep oblivious to the wolf in their fold. That suited me just fine.

Carrion, a sign nailed to a post at the edge of town had said. I reckoned I should have turned around right then, but my exhaustion got the better of me. Still, a quiver of apprehension stalked through me as I dismounted, despite my best attempt to ignore it. Something in the air…almost the like the gunmetal scent of blood.

Dammit, I could smell death coming and yet…yet I let my fatigue delude me into thinkin’ it was just a false scent, a memory of other crimson moons.

I’m an idjit ofttimes, I goddamn swan.

A parched idjit.

The scent was gone now, and only the musk of horse dung, old piss and dust clogged my nostrils. Working the stiffness out of my legs, I crossed the boardwalk and pushed through the batwings.

Only a handful of folks occupied the place. Too early, I reckon for anybody but the serious drinkers and gamblers. As I paused on the landing I noted a few green-felted tables, faro boxes emblazoned with tigers and a whore with walnut-colored hair wearing a red sateen bodice and frilly skirt. The late-afternoon sunlight arcing through the window, varmints of dust scurrying within, fell over the mounds of her corset-heaved bosom and made her face radiate with a peculiar sinful light. He eyes met mine and a sly expression parted her too-red lips. Reckon she was purty in a hard sorta way, though kohl darkened eyes beneath which nestled dark half moons and over-applied coral made her cheeks appeared bruised.

For just a thought I wondered about bedding her, knowing I was cutting my timing close enough as it was just stopping for a whiskey. A man’s got needs, even a man such as myself. Especially a man such as myself.

Reckon if I hadn’t been so goddamned tired I wouldn’t have let her take my arm and guide me towards a table the moment I took the three steps to the barroom proper. A half-empty whiskey bottle rested on the table, ‘long with two dusty glasses.

I was half-aware of the barkeep and a couple cowhands casting me their peepers, and again the warning voice was howling somewhere in my soul.

And again I ignored it.

“You got a nice face,” she said, almost a tinge of ...what? Regret, maybe, in her voice. Somethin’. I might have placed it on any other day.

“Reckon there’s plenty a folk who’d disagree,” I said, eyeing the whiskey.

She laughed, a wooden nickel thing I’d gotten used to hearing from whores, and reached for the bottle. I glanced at the ‘keep and the two ‘hands as she poured, just to make sure that warning voice inside wasn’t tellin’ me I’d been recognized, but not a one paid me any mind now.

Reckon, that should have told me all I needed to know, but the sound of her honey-coated voice in my ear took all notions of caution from my head. I won’t tell you what she whispered, but it got some juices flowin’.

I took the whiskey down in one gulp and she poured me another. Her eyes…her eyes were suddenly a hell of a lot harder than they had been a moment before.

“What the hell—” I tried to get out more but my lips suddenly didn’t want to work right. The room was doing a two-step. Reckoned I might have heard the ‘keep and cowhands laughing.

“Hell’s jest where you are, sugar.” No honey in her tone now. Just spite, condemnation, maybe. Goddamn hard to tell because the room was darkening and her voice was seeping into the night swallowing my mind…

***

I’ve had better awakenings, I’m here to tell you. Reckon even that time a rattlesnake had slithered inside my bedroll was better than the position in which I found my sorry hide now. I opened my eyes suddenlike and a low growl escaped my lips. I closed my eyes just as fast because with their opening came the feeling of a blacksmith taking a hammer to my skull.

“You best open them slowlike,” a voice said. Her voice. No, no honey in it at all now. “That drug makes a man’s brain pound powerful hard.”

It took me a moment but when I opened them I kept them that way this time. I was on a bed, likely upstairs the saloon, I figgered. That’s usually where the whores plied their trade. I lay on my back upon a torn mattress that stank of urine and sweat and things I didn’t want to think about. I was stark naked, spread-eagled, my wrists and ankles tied to the brass frame that held the mattress. The room was damn near dark, but I could see her shadowy figure poised above me, and the knife in her hand.

“I’m going to cut off your nether parts,” she said and I didn’t have to see the smile on her lips to know it was there.

“What…what the hell happened…?” I was having a hard time getting my mouth working right and from somewhere inside me…came a feeling I recognized. A burn, I called it, a hungry burn. Just starting, but swelling. “Oh, hell,” I whispered, and my gaze traveled beyond her shadowy figure to the winder.

The moon. The crimson moon. The barest of slivers showed above the charcoal building tops on the opposite side of the street.

Soon...

“You should be a lot more careful who pours your drinks, sugar,” she said. She touched the knife tip to my bare chest, just hard enough for me to feel a bite but not enough to break skin. “Never know when some lowly whore’s gonna slip something into your whiskey, do you…Kid Coyote, they call you, is it, now? Course, it won’t matter none to your sorry self in a few minutes, on account of you’ll be dead and won’t get a chance to make the same mistake twice.”

The moon…

I tried to see her face more clearly, and crimson light from the moon, now inches higher above the buildings painted her face with blood. I didn’t know her, I was certain, but she knew me.

The crimson moon…

“Who are you? What do you want from me?” I reckon it was a stupid question, because it was pretty damned obvious she intended to pig-stick my hide and leave me for the worms.

Burning…

She leaned in, kissed my forehead, and gently dragged the knife tip along my chest. “Really is a same to kill such a handsome fella, but I reckon I can’t let my kin go to his reward without some sort of peace, now, can I?”

When she edged back a slice of crimson moonlight slashed across my chest. The burning was worse, now. It swelled from the base of my skull and in the pit of my belly at the same time. What had been a gentle warmth became a painful searing, growing, consuming, and every warning signal I’d ignored riding into Carrion now mocked me.

Blood running through my fingers…flesh tearing in my teeth…crimson tides shredding my soul…

“Please…you have to leave…” The plea in my voice startled her an instant. She took a step back, deeper into the crimson shaft of moonlight. On my chest a crawling sensation began and I knew damn well what it was.

The sign…

“Leave? Why, sugar, now why would I want to do that? I have to kill you first.” She came slightly closer again, peering at me. “We figured the temptation to stop in this town would be too much once you crossed out of New Mex., you know that? Man like your ownself…well, you got needs and patterns. Law might be too stupid to see ‘em but not my kind.”

“W-we? Who…” Oh, Christ, I wanted to scream with the burning. It sizzled through every fiber, every nerve. My innards were commencing to want to explode.

Her wooden-nickel laugh jangled through my thoughts. “Just finished a job for the Hickman Cattleman Association, didn’t you? Chased down some rustlers, blowed their brains clean out, I hear tell.”

“Nobody but Hickman knew that, how did you--?” I was starting to writhe; I couldn’t help it. And I heard just a trickle of nervousness in her voice now. She was wondering what the goddamn hell was wrong with me. I’d heard and seen it before.

The moon…

“Hickman don’t know some of his own ‘hands worked for the rustlers. You left a job half done, sugar. Got a telegram from one called Jep. One of those rustlers you killed…” Her tone went hard. “He was my brother. I aim to make sure he’s avenged. We didn’t have much, him and I, but we’s family. You killed the only thing I had left, you sorry sonofabitch.”

The crimson moon…

“I-I…please…just…leave…now….” My innards screamed, howled. Fire, flooding every part of me, raging from every pore…

“’Sides, I right like killin’, ‘specially you menfolk who think you can just use every woman you come alongside.” She leaned over me, raising the knife. “Don’t you worry none, now, I’m gonna do it real slowlike and make it last…” She uttered a giggle that was as loco as any expression I’d ever heard. But I no longer gave a damn because the pain had grown too intense, too unbearable. I could no longer resist, could no longer fight it. I had never been able to fight it. I could smell blood in the air, sweet and cloying; see the crimson on her face, ravishing, lustful, hungry.

Release me…release the wolf…

“Nooo!” I yelled and she laughed, then suddenly went silent.

“What the hell is that?” she mumbled, fear bleeding into her voice.

She had seen it, despite the gloom. The pentagram in blood seeping from my chest. The sign. The sign of the crimson moon.

She suddenly jerked up the knife, but it was already too late. I felt power, and scenes of blood and streaking night flooded my vision. I lost who I was to who I am. The wolf. The ropes at my wrists and ankles snapped as my strength increased five-fold. She plunged the knife down and I barely was conscious of the pain it made piercing my shoulder.

A scream: hers.

A howl: mine.

***

The glare of the morning sun stung as painfully as any knife blade. The gunmetal flavor of blood and rotted flavor of flesh in my mouth was no longer sweet, but nauseating. I’d heaved my belly twice already and though I didn’t remember anything past her scream, I knew what I had done.

Again.

I’m not sure how I ended up on my horse riding into the morning, but then I rarely recollected what happened after a crimson moon. I only knew besides the guilt that would haunt me I was getting damned tired of riding naked into the sunrise once a month. I was getting damned tired of just about everything…

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Straight to Hell I go...

(Warning: Those easily offended by differing religious opinions should skip this blog.)

Most days it doesn’t really bother me when one of my more fundamentalist acquaintances tells me I am going to Hell for writing horror. Today isn’t one of those days. Today I find myself just a little annoyed with it all, at their presumptiveness, well-intentioned or not. They seem to think because I like ghosts and witches and things that go bumpity bump bump in the night I am some kind of Devil worshiper. This seems very prevalent amongst Fundamentalist types, non-denoms, muslims and a few others who don’t fall into the moderate spectrum of whatever faith they ascribe to. I also get it because I have friends who are of various denominations and faiths, from Wiccan to atheists.

And I have no problem with any of it as long as they aren’t trying to change or judge me. I personally judge people I associate with by the way they treat me and others, not on their particular religious viewpoint.

For the record, I am not a Satanist, Devil-worshiper or Tinkie Winkian, nor do I sacrifice virgins or small animals to Beelzebub, or sit on a mountain waiting for a spaceship to pick me up. In fact, I’m a Methodist. Who enjoys spooky things—reading them and writing them. Does not mean I am out there participating in wicked acts with naked nymphs in the woods in the dead of night (though if anyone has any info on how I might do that please lemme know…)

One particular friend thinks if I write anything but Christian-oriented material it’s evil stuff. Anything supernatural is a tool of the Big Red Horny Guy. Sex is bad too. Though how she got those kids, I’m not too sure. Sci Fi and those naughty romances fall into the same category as well. Westerns are ok as long as there are no wicked bargals or peculiar acts with horses. But horror stories about ghosts, demons and Mr. Rogers with an axe are the worst. And though she likes me and seems to go out of her way to talk to me, I think it’s only because she sees me as a poor pathetic lost soul that needs to be saved.

There are days I get sick and tired of it. And want to fire back with what the—pardon the term—hell does “Judge not lest ye be judged” mean to you anyway? And those who know how sarcastic I can be tend to wait for the word paint balls to start spewing. But I rarely say anything. Much. For one thing, it’s not worth it, and for another you can’t change their minds. I don’t want to try to change their minds anyway. It’s not my place. I try to respect their viewpoint, but that is as long as there isn’t this condescending or patronizing “You know you’re going to Hell” look on their face or in their tone.

I think the thing that tweaks me most about it is not so much the judgmental aspect. I can deal with that most of the time, as long as I am not male PMSing, because I know they truly believe what they are thinking and are passionate about it. I understand passion. As long as it doesn’t infringe on the passions of others that’s fine and even commendable. But I think it’s the fact that even after once, twice or thrice politely telling them I respect their opinion but feel different, they still go at it at every opportunity. They don’t give up. It becomes a mission. I become a mission.

But it’s beating a dead horse. Because nothing turns me off faster than someone trying to cram something down my throat. Especially a subject I might otherwise enjoy discussing with someone who wants to share and is open.

So, I guess I should ask if anyone here knows what the condo rental rates in H-E-Double Toothpicks are going for nowadays. I need something fairly cheap and I burn easy, so keep that in mind…

Editorial Ups and Downs

Getting advice from an editor on a submission instead of a form slip can be a godsend. Especially a skilled, insightful editor. Let’s face it, as writers we are sometimes far too close to our own work to spot our bad habits or eccentricities, or even particular plot or character turns or inconsistencies that an unbiased eye might pick out.

In fact, I recently co-edited Moonstone’s short story anthology The Avenger Chronicles, and though it was a dream come true for me to have the opportunity to work on one of my all-time favorite characters (and one I would jump at again), the editorial work on some stories was a challenge. Many required a number of rewrites and going back and forth with the authors—probably not all of them particularly happy about it, either—to get the best story out of the story.

Despite the fact I was able to do this with other stories, at one point I was asked to co-write a particular story and bring it into character to save it. I ended up basically having to rewrite the entire thing on the original author’s frame. However, it took me four times through because by the time I got it corrected it was so much my own work I kept missing something I would have seen in another’s material. The editor-in-chief on the project saw the problem and pushed me to reach deeper than I might honestly have done (or even noticed) on my own. Suddenly the whole story came together and that scene became the piece’s most moving and poignant. I was lucky because that editor compelled me to exceed my comfort zone, just as I was doing with some of the other authors in the book. And every time that happens to an author, he/she becomes a better writer, moves a step closer to mastering his/her craft.

But what about when the opposite occurs? It happens. It has happened to me. Not often, but when an editor recommends, or worse, demands something be done in a story that not only diminishes the story but reflects poorly on the author, it can be really frustrating.

In this case the most frustrating advice I ever got was: “Write down to the reader”. It involved an ending on a story that had some subtlety and a few points the reader would have been forced to think about a little (one involved one of those “ah-ha!” moments we sometimes experience in a story). The story was accepted, and I had already signed a contract, but the edict was clear. He didn’t say it in so many words, but his mindset was all too blatant: “Our readers aren’t too awfully bright, so you need to spell this out for them.”

What? I thought at first he was kidding. Then I thought, ok maybe he just didn’t get it and felt a little annoyed about that. But after an exchange of letters, it was clear he did get it and was simply saying he felt the folks reading his magazine weren’t too smart and needed strained peas fiction instead of solid food tales.

I wasn’t quite sure what to do at first. I tried rewriting the scenes and references to make them hit-over-the-head obvious, the way he requested, but I felt like my artistic integrity had gone out the window. I told myself, ok, he must know his audience, so I need to do this.

But did he know them? I feel he sold them short. (And I get the same feeling with many movies nowadays, especially in the horror genre in which I write.) The lack of respect on his part was, in my opinion, detrimental not only to his readership but to authors and genre enthusiasts, and to the long term health of that type magazine. It’s hard enough now to find magazines that even accept short stories in a genre.

I ended up refusing the changes and losing the job. I felt I had a duty to respect my own artistic integrity and my potential readers. I don’t feel an author should ever write down to a reader. In fact, most folks who have written me after reading one of my novels or stories are smarter than I am and much more aware of the subtle sub-themes and tones running through the work (one reader even pointed out a mirror theme with a secondary character in my vampire-western The Dark Riders I wasn’t aware was there!) Not only do you have to respect those readers, but if you are open and lucky enough to have them you need to learn from them as well.

So maybe the moral of the story is, take an editor’s guidance seriously, but if it is grating against something fundamental in your being don’t take it as sacrosanct.

And always, always respect your readers.

Anatomy of an Abuser: Addendum

Since a number of folks have asked me privately whether Anatomy of an Abuser was fact or fiction I thought I would clarify the series a bit. While I am a horror writer, I could not possibly begin to make up or imagine the true horror Lesa in the series went through. Lesa was indeed a real person, in fact four real persons melded into one for the sake of impact and boiling things down into a cohesive storyline. Every detail, every event in the series, did indeed happen. The Lesa who died was my grandmother (my Meme, as our French side called her). She was 62.

John was also quite horribly real. Every abusive incident described and ascribed to him he was indeed responsible for. And worse. There were personal things I simply could not write about. John was also four persons melded into one.

The point of the series of course was not to create a character who overcame all obstacles and prevailed at the end, like in fiction. The point was to drag the dark evil of domestic violence and child abuse out into the light and, with any luck at all, perhaps help one person escape it should they be in the situation, or convince one person who is not to do something about it. Get involved. Help. But most of all—stop it. Permanently and irrevocably.

This is an epidemic that simply must be eradicated. Please, if you can, do something about it. Volunteer at a shelter; do something, anything, to bring awareness to this problem. Speak out. Scream out. Alter the status quo. It truly can start with just one person. One courageous person.

It’s risky. I won’t lie to you. Many of the assholes who are abusing, though cowards, are dangerous cowards. Police probably are more often wounded in duty breaking up domestic problems than robberies. I don’t have the stats on it but I’m sure they would back me up. But if you think you are afraid to do something about it, to get in the middle, think of how the person involved feels. How the child being battered feels.

Band together. Tell someone who can help. Make authorities aware, as useless as I have seen them be in these situations. Make them take abuse seriously. If enough people take a stand, then, maybe, just maybe…

To ignore it, to let it go on…that’s the easy thing to do. But is it the right thing to do? The human thing to do? The compassionate thing to do?

It’s so easy to say, Oh, that’s not my life, not my problem. But if this is allowed to go on…let me tell you, one day it will indeed be your problem. Violence and bullying never stay contained. Those perpetrating it can never get enough of the power, the high they feel dominating another. It WILL spill over. At some point you or someone you care about will be affected by it. Maybe destroyed by it. As cheesy as it might seem, it reminds me of the scene from Spider-man (movie and comic book) where Peter Parker—in full possession of his spider powers—allows a criminal to escape because it’s not his problem. The very criminal who a short time later murders his beloved Uncle. He learns an irreversible lesson that night. The hard way. Don’t let that happen to you or someone you love. “With great power comes great responsibility.” That’s the adage from Spider-man, the lesson Peter learns from his uncle.

But “With one voice comes great change.” Make that voice yours. Make that the lesson you teach.

I was too young to do anything about it when my grandmother died. Too young except to break off any and all contact with my grandfather beyond that point, in the couple years he had left before passing away. Now, I can do more. I can, through words, try to make folks aware, and challenge all abusers out there, let them know that they can’t shut everybody up. They can’t beat or terrorize everybody into silence.

As far as I am concerned, they can simply go to hell. I’m willing to pay boat fare…

Gym Daze

Since I am a certified gym rat (or is that certifiable? Huh, I can never keep that straight) I tend to have a case of tunnel vision when I am working out. I go there to do my workout and spend no time chatting in an effort to avoid it. But there have been times when I have been distracted for whatever reason, not into the workout or simply unenthusiastic about it, and have taken some notice about the other types you see in the gym.

There are the chit-chatters, of course, who view exercise as a social opportunity. Maybe they want to avoid the exercise or maybe they’re just lonely. But they annoy me. Because I am on a self-imposed schedule and there for a reason. Chatting isn’t it. And they tend to hang on this or that machine, pretending to do a rep every once in a while to make themselves appear legit. I am somewhat of a social retard anyway. Uncomfortable around lots of people, more so when I am sweating and gasping. I’m pretty weird that way. I don’t like talking in gasps. Or to other sweaty people, not all of them as concerned with personal hygiene as I am. But I digress.

Then there’s the perky little lemon-heads in painted-on leotards (do they still call them that?) and sports bras and little else. Half of them are bouncing around like a Chihuahua force fed six cans of Red Bull and the other half are on their cells yapping about the wonderful workout they are having. Working out their mouths, I suppose. (“Like, my dad, he, like, bought me a Lexus, but, like, I told him I, like, wanted blue tooth and he, like, totally blew me off on that---I knooooow, that’s sooo bogus…”) They have this strange tendency to pose when they work out too. When they’re not Tigger bouncing, I mean. “I’m so pretty, I’m so pretty!” Eeee-yah…

There are the serious weight guys. I’ll leave them alone because, well, they’re big and scary and on the off chance they read this I’d like to survive my next workout. I love ya, man! Truly, I do!

There’s the handful of folks whom you know have either been cajoled into going by a spouse of boyfriend and/or dragged into the gym by same. They don’t want to be there but know it’s a good idea they are for health reasons, physical or emotional. They all have that “this-isn’t-as-much-fun-as-a-whoopie-pie” glaze in their eyes. I guess I can’t blame them. Working out is hard work, though I dare say a day writing is harder—or at least it seems to take far more out of me.

Then there are the stalkers. They are there simply to pick up a person of the opposite—in some cases the same—sex. They usually don’t work out much. They are the pretty boys or what’s-your-types who scope out the lemon-heads or worse heavy girls with low self-esteem. You know the kind. Strictly takers, users, losers. They’ll tell a girl anything for one reason alone…then move on to the next conquest. I wish there was some kind of flashing butthead alarm that shrieked to High Heaven every time they try their stupid moves.

Then there are the dirty old men. No, I do NOT fall into that category. Stop that laughing. Well, ok maybe a little…Somebody should tell them a little deodorant and perhaps a shower might do a hell of a lot to help their cause. I mean, it’s getting harder to find women with daddy issues…what’s the world coming to.

Lately there’s been an influx of cougars. Oh, wait, they’re ok in my book. Moving on…

There are sub categories, of course, some harmless, some annoying, some who apparently had little control over their early adult binge drinking or inhaling. The ex high school jocks or jockettes who haven’t realized high school is over and their silly little clique rules no longer are appreciated in the real world. A couple of hookers (er, so I have heard) and maybe a midget wrestler or two. The silicone sweeties who can’t seem to understand why they should stay out of the chest pressing machine. And one guy I’m pretty sure has butt implants, though I really didn’t want to get caught looking.

Ah, well, as with any social environment, it takes all kinds. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go avoid lifting something heavy…

Dead Man Limping

Some days you feel like the cowboy and other days you feel like the saddle. I have had a lot of saddle days lately, at least on my present Western in progress.

As many who read this blog know and who have visited my website (um, you HAVE visited my website, haven’t you? Please visit my website. I’ll give you a cookie…), I write westerns under my penname, Lance Howard (my middle and first names switched so I don’t forget it!) My 30th, Coyote Deadly, was published about a month ago and sold out its run about two weeks before its publication date. Luckily at the same point it was also picked up by another company for a large print paperback edition, which should be out within about a year.

Now you’d think after writing 30 of these critters I would have it down and number 31, Dead Man Riding, wouldn’t be much of a problem.

Uh-huh.

It normally takes me about three to four weeks to write one of my westerns. I generally marathon write first drafts anyway (I feel the most creative part should gush onto the page to capture intensity and spontaneity; the technicals and prose can be prettied up later), with the second and third drafts taking up the majority of the time. Subsequent drafts take much less time because those are tweaking run-throughs.

But Dead Man Riding has dragged on a couple extra months. I finished the third draft yesterday and will start the fourth in a day or three.

Not sure why this one has been my daddy. I had a firm grasp of the theme and characters before I started. The first chapter went pretty well, though I had to be a bit more conscious of an editorial edict that went across the board where violence description was concerned. Maybe that was part of it. I was a bit concerned with it (one of my westerns, Ripper Pass, involved Jack the Ripper, so you can imagine there was a bit of violence) and perhaps that interrupted the process. But it just seemed like after a couple chapters I felt a sudden, I dunno, “flatness” in my enthusiasm. It was almost a drag to finish the first draft.

None of that lack of motivation showed up when I started revising the book, though the enthusiasm over revisions was also pretty flat (I gotta admit, however, that part usually is, because while creating is hard but fun, revising is like sitting on the toilet in the dark only to discover your kid has glued tacks to the seat). Same with the third draft. In fact, the story reads as well as I am capable of writing it. I have a lead character driven by the murder of his past love by a man he brought to justice years earlier—and who has escaped—and a young woman sporting a gullet full of vengeance for the same outlaw because he ventilated her husband. These characters meet up, of course, and highjinx ensue.

I thought maybe after 30 books I was tiring of the genre, but I had noticed the same ennui on one of my recent horror books, so that wasn’t it. Normally I experience something akin to that somewhere two-thirds of the way through a novel anyway—after the initial enthusiasm of a new story and the first few chapters wears off and before the excitement of the final chapters begins. It just seemed longer this time.

I’m sure most people go through this in their jobs after they have been at it for a spell. A bit of burnout, because like any task writing, despite each story being different, has quite a bit of repetitiveness to it. It passes (especially when a publisher offers you a contract or you have to sleep with an editor for a job…er, nevermind that last part…)

Whatever the case, time to get that cowboy’s butt off my face and finish up that doggy because I need to be working on a contracted Green Hornet story. (Now this I am excited about.)

Don’t wanna be a saddle forever!

Howard, Where's Yer Trousers?

I love St. Paddy’s Day. I’m only a wee bit Irish, but I can’t get enough of jigs and reels and silly songs about goats swallowing dynamite.

In fact, I just ate corned beef and cabbage for a week. Every night. All by my lonesome. Strange, no one wants to get near me now. Wonder why that is? No, no, I swear it’s just the cabbage that smells that way. Really.

I’m thinkin’ it’s time to wear a green kilt and walk along my street with Irish bagpipes. Except it’s March and here in Maine that means we still get snow storms and the breeze under yer man-skirt is enough to turn yer shillelagh blue instead of green. And for some weird reason the neighbors aren’t quite as thrilled with wailing bagpipe jigs as I am. Party poopers.

Then there be the leprechauns. You know, glorified lawn gnomes. Respectable because if you catch one of the little buggers you get gold instead of arrested for vandalizing property (hey, I thought lawn gnomes liked being splished with paint balls!) Of course, leprechauns are a bit hard to find in Maine. I don’t think they like the cold. They are all in Acapulco getting green tans. And they are somewhat of a danger because they like to whack you with that crooked stick of theirs. They aren’t all as nice as the Lucky Charms guy. Leprechauns drink a bit. Or a lot. It screws with their cheery personalities. Turns them into puddiwhackers. Magically delicious, my green butt. More like magically devious. I caught one once…on somebody’s lawn. It just stared and me and didn’t say a word. The police couldn’t get it to talk either. They had some silly story about too much whiskey and indecent exposure while wearing a green kilt and unnatural acts with a lawn gnome. Pfft. Those guys have nooo sense of humor.

And of course there’s all those Irish Colleens of lore, sung about in Irish songs. They’ll steal your heart and your wallet and you end up in some place called Van Diemen’s Land. I don’t really know what that is but it can’t be good.

Oh, and don’t forget Irish Cream. But that’ll just get you in trouble with the lawn gnomes and cops again.

Anatomy of an Abuser: Conclusion

No, Lesa’s nightmare is far from over. Because John’s new woman is a whole lot tougher and a whole lot more world savvy than Lesa was at 15. She doesn’t put up with John’s crap for long. In fact, she has introduced John to the wonders of heroin and other drugs. And one night while he is in stupor she cleans out the money, valuables and runs off with another man. A case of karma, yes, but unfortunately one with disastrous consequences for Lesa.

Because one night not long after that John calls his former wife. Calls her and talks his sweet talk. Ever the Scorpion, he deceives and romances. He’s changed. He realizes what he lost and how much of a fool he was. If she’ll only give him One. More. Chance.

Guess what she does?

Since he is living in a state now halfway across the country, he drives up that summer and visits the daughter with whom Lesa is staying. He plays with the grandkids, the perfect granddad, brings gifts and wondrous stories of his life in that other state. John really seems to have gotten it together and learned his lesson.

But the family can tell the stinger is still in the poised tail. All of them except Lesa, that is, who maybe has simply gotten old and lonely and given up on her life. Who knows? Whatever the case, she returns to his home with him

Not long after pictures arrive of Lesa in her new environment. In a premonitive Polaroid that is a bit murky, she is holding a vase with lilies before her and one of her eyes is horrendously black and blue. On the back John has scribbled a cheery little note about how clumsy Lesa has been of late. She ran into a shelf. Isn’t that funny? He wanted everyone to see the silly girl and her plumb-colored eye. But blackness isn’t the only thing marring her eyes. No, in the photo one can see emptiness, resignation, impotent realization. They are mirrors of lost chances and tragic mistakes.

They visit during the summer the next year, then something goes wrong and though Lesa won’t say what it is she somehow finds the strength to leave John and return to the daughter. She takes a Greyhound one day while he is out fishing.

It’s immediately apparent Lesa has become an alcoholic during the past two years with John. Perhaps things weren’t as blissful as he was letting on. Perhaps the Scorpion still possesses the same nature. And that is a surprise to exactly no one.

She also swallows handfuls of medications, Darvon and other addictive pain killers. One night she chokes on one and has to be turned upside down by the son-in-law to dislodge it. This occurs in front of one of the grandchildren, who carries it in his memory the rest of his life, along with the sobs he hears coming from Lesa’s room.

A year later, John starts calling again. He’s changed. He knows he made a mistake and regrets it oh so very much.

Sound familiar? It should. It is the clarion call of all abusers. The sugary poison.

Lesa, now in her early 60s, a drunk and pill addict, a four-pack-a-day smoker, a beaten, lonely woman…goes back to the Scorpion.

For the last time.

It’s only a year or so later when, John, high or drunk—those close are never certain which—beats up Lesa a final time. Lesa, unknowingly suffering from an aneurysm, does not survive the attack. Cause and effect of her death are a little blurry, to all but those who know better. She is gone. Her life pitifully wasted. Her life taken and destroyed by a monster of a human being who never cared about living thing other than himself, never considered anyone’s needs save his own. Selfish. Despicable. Pick your word. Pick them all. Perhaps the most accurate would simply be:

Evil.

True evil. The evil not of some vampire or werewolf in some horror film, but the vile nature of a sick human being and his abusive legacy.

How can another person do something like that to someone they profess to love? When does love become some depraved craving for domination, repression, possession?

For what little consolation it might be, John dies a short time later of stomach cancer. If anyone ever deserves such a hideous fate, it is him. But even so, it fails to make up for a beautiful life lost, and for the damage done that will reverberate through his progeny and relations perhaps for generations.

Bless you, John. I’m giving you the attention you so desperately craved. I can only hope that somewhere…you are getting the punishment you so rightly deserve.

Anatomy of an Abuser Part 3

To his friends, John is just the nicest guy. He tells a joke like no other, helps a pal out of a bind (though the moment he is home he bad mouths them for asking, calls them names and schemes about how to take advantage of them). Most cannot see through John’s façade and can’t understand why anyone would say anything uncomplimentary about such a sweet man, especially that shrew of a wife of his. John, however, is the Scorpion seeking a ride across the pond on the back of the frog.

Somehow he is blessed with the ability to hold his temper in check with those he works with, or rather bank it for those he is closest to. Whatever distressing incident may occur at work or in public, John takes it with a smile and a casual shrug…until he gets home. Then he rapes his wife, despite the fact he has relieved some of his tension on local whores, beats her, swears at her, and turns his ire towards the children.

John needs to feel in control. He has little over his work life, over his public life and as I have said he feels everything bad happens to him. God has made John his personal toilet, in his estimation. But at home that craving for control, for absolute power, translates into a perverted domination over anyone or anything weaker than himself. He destroys Lesa’s possessions, refuses her simple hobbies, such a reading, or anything that might better or enhance her self-esteem, like getting her GED. It certainly wouldn’t do to have her smarter than he, would it?

Holidays, of course, are no joy. John cannot stand his wife or children being happy. Because then the focus is not on him, it is on the occasion. And if John is not happy, nobody is. So he starts fights, makes her weep, makes one of the children cry by explaing to her how much of a fat cow she is and denying her Christmas food. At one Christmas Eve gathering in later years he pulls a gun a starts threatening Lesa’s now grown children. Then of course he apologizes. He doesn’t know what came over him. He’s so very sorry.

No, he’s not. Because this is a pattern designed to tear down Lesa’s will, subconsciously batter her into submission. A perverted system of punishment and reward. Always apologize. Always shed a tear and make her believe that this time, yes, this time just maybe he really has changed and things will be different.

But he hasn’t changed. He’s simply tricked her into taking a step farther onto the rug before he pulls it out from beneath her feet.

And if there is even the slightest chance that his woman starts to recognize what is going on, the tiniest notion that she has decided to step out of the pattern…John creates an emergency. Sometimes it is minor crisis; sometimes it is something far more pernicious. At one point John “forgets” to lock a cabinet the smallest child is fond of trying to get into. That cabinet contains bottles of chemicals John uses for cleaning or work on his car. And kerosene in a pretty blue color.

John, though Lesa does not realize it really, is sociopathic. He allows the child to drink the kerosene so he can play the hero, rushing the child to the doctor in the nick of time. Lesa doesn’t suspect, but other relatives do, though they remain silent.

Contrarily, when the youngest daughter falls off a large blow-up ball and slams her head into a coffee table, he refuses to allow the mother to take the child to the hospital for treatment. Despite the fact the child is projectile vomiting. No, he insists she needs a nap and there is no need. There is no need because the child already has suspicious bruises all over her legs from John’s special brand of discipline. With enough protest from relatives, the mother finally takes the child in. A concussion. John was right, nothing serious…

But after they are home alone, Lesa pays for that. And pays hard.

John’s need for control and violent outbursts grow exponentially. As the days pass, the years fade, every second reduces Lesa to something less than human. She’s an object, a possession, and she has accepted, through relentless conditioning, all his lies--that she is worthless, a nothing, with no other future than to bow to his command. Her life is over, though she really doesn’t know it yet.

Then one day, miracles of miracles, John does not come home from work. It seems John met a sweet young thing and for once in his life he is not the Scorpion. He runs off with this girl, files for a divorce and Lesa goes to live between her daughters. Her nightmare is over.

Or is it?

Anatomy of an Abuser Part 2

Years go by. A second child is born. A third. John really doesn’t want children, though he finds swearing at them and hitting them to be quite a pleasure. Something weaker to control, to hurt. Yes, that feels empowering. Although John really doesn’t want them, he refuses to let Lesa take any type of birth control. The more kids she has to deal with, after all, the more she is tied to the house. He refuses to let her work. He tells her she’s a whore and working would only give her more chance to meet other men. But what he really fears is someone might give her the strength to leave him, bring her to her senses. And that she might talk, admit to someone John’s true nature. Part of the power of the abuser lies within their isolation of their victim.

On occasion neighbors call the police because of shouting, slamming, swearing. Lesa, afraid not only for her own life but those of her children, says nothing to them and they go on their way. No charges are ever pressed, no complaints filed on her part.

On a trip to the in-laws John slams her in the mouth for some perceived slight. Of course, she backs him up when he tells the relatives he stopped suddenly and she hit the dashboard. Just a freak accident. Yeah…the freak who hit her.

John’s temper is growing ever more violent, if that is possible. He carries a bat in his truck, exhibits numerous incidents of road rage, though he makes sure he’s got that weapon when he chooses whom to harass. Can’t pick on anyone bigger, someone who might just fight back. Like most abusers John’s a coward at heart.

He forces Lesa into perverted sexual acts, all designed for his pleasure alone. It doesn’t matter whether they hurt her--as long as he enjoys it. She is brave enough to knee him once for one of those acts, but he makes her pay for that. More bruises to explain away to anyone who might see them. Lesa has developed a sudden clumsiness, it seems. Silly girl. She’s always running into something.

Most often that something is a fist. But lies are an acceptable alternative when you’re afraid for your life, or the lives of your children.

The children. Ah, yes, the children. They seem out of control, but why wouldn’t they be? After all, their example is not a man who is capable of discussion, or understanding, of compassion. No, their example is only that of a man who screams and threatens, cusses and cajoles. Love and hate have no boundaries, not demarcation. Passion and hurt are one and the same. Caring and manipulating are Siamese twins. No right, no wrong; all right, all wrong.

John teaches his children well. Their personal interaction with friends at school, well, that’s a series of fights and suspensions, even a rape investigation for one of the boys. There’s underage alcohol, drugs aplenty. The loss of any sense of loyalty or moral border. There are cruel pranks on mentally challenged children, the constant taunting of a sister who has become emotionally retarded under the barrage of anger and violence at home. Yes, John has taught his son well, indeed, so well he has become a carbon copy, and perhaps on his way to something worse because he now joins in the fun when it comes to crushing his mother’s fragile psyche. It’s heartwarming, really, don’t you think? To see a father and son bond that way. Very Mr. Rogers…if Mr. Rogers had advocated serial killing.

This is the same boy John taught not to turn on a stove burner by placing his hand on the flame. Second degree burns; lesson learned. The same boy who John hit with a two-by-fours as a punishment. Hit with belts. Hit with words that demolished any hope of self-worth.

John wonders why the boy is such a problem child. He learned that kid right but the child don’t have the sense of a damned mule. The kid must be an idjit. It was surely nothing John could have done to make him turn out that way. No, not John. He’s Parenting Magazine’s Father of the Year. Surely, he is. Or should be. Just ask him.

Yeah, yeah, good for John. Why burden yourself with any culpability or responsibility for your actions? That would just complicate things.

Because everything happens to John, to hear him tell it. The world is out to get him. God is out to get him. Poor John. Nothing ever goes right for him. He’s the victim.

And Lord knows he’s got to take that out on somebody…

(To be continued…)

Anatomy of an Abuser Part 1

(The following series describes an amalgam of incidents and persons, and though names have been changed to protect those involved, the events are all true. Through friends, relatives, personal experience and stunned disgust I have witnessed them and I hope by relating some of what goes on it these situations it will help at least one person. Some of those who have experienced these incidents realize what has happened and have done something to stop it, while others repeat the pattern…and one other is, unfortunately, no longer around to have a choice. It’s not my intention to shock or be overly morbid, simply to bring awareness.)

Her name is Lesa and she was barely 15 when she met John. She was young, naive and came from a family where the father was an alcoholic and given to fits of temper. He swore, belittled, hit and manipulated. The mother, well, the mother may not have exactly condoned his abusive behavior, but she did nothing to stop it, either. In fact, she abandoned her two children to grandparents, which is actually a plus in this case, and chased the husband, who beat her and the kids, into bar after bar until one day he died early of cancer. Then she suddenly found religion, a fundamental kind that became nothing more than a drug, or an addiction, to rationalize and assuage her own guilt and complicity. She also deserted both children in favor of a new man and her all-powerful God, a God whom she presumed to speak for and judge with.

The mother, eschewing any maternal reasonability, gladly forsakes Lesa to John, knowing by this time full well who John is. Or perhaps it would be better to say “what” John is. For John…John is a monster. A human monster. One whose actions are nearly unimaginable and cravenly despicable.

Oh, at first, he’s the sweet guy, the good friend, the all protector. Really he is. He does all the right things. He brings flowers, he talks sweet and promises the world. But the world he promises, unbeknownst to Lesa, is a world of darkness, continual pain and debilitating depression. In front of others (except the parents), John is the perfect gentleman, the everyman friend. He can fool people, John can. He is a Janus.

Not long after meeting John, who is five years her senior, Lesa becomes pregnant. A blessed event perhaps, were she not 15 and about to embark on nearly a lifetime journey of physical and emotional suffering. They get married, with the parents’ blessing. After all, who wants a knocked up 15-year old daughter around complicating Sunday Service with all the non-judgmental good folk of the Church of Do What You’re Told or Go to Hell? It just wouldn’t look good for a fine Christian woman to be toting around a pregnant kid. No, indeed.

It’s not long after the pregnancy, John’s true colors emerge. Seems dear John has a bit of the temper. He likes to hit things. Things that cannot or will not hit back. Women, especially. He likes to control things. He likes to brandish his shotgun and stick it in the young girl’s face when she refuses to do something he wants her to do, usually of a sexual nature. Because while their marriage may remove statutory rape from the equation it does not remove plain ol’ everyday rape.

A shotgun in the face certainly takes away any incentive to report the incident. And John apologizes. He sincerely does. “Oh, I love you, honey. It was for your own good. I’ll never do it again”

Until the next time. When he forces her into things again. Punches her while she’s pregnant. Cannot have a conversation that doesn’t involve, swearing, belittling, frightening. “You’re a whore. You’re nothing. Slut, tramp. You’re stupid. Now be a good little ho and get down on your knees and open your mouth.”

It isn’t all that hard to crush the self-esteem of someone who has had little. Hell, it isn’t hard to crush it from someone who has an adequate amount, if you have the right tools. And tools for destroying a psyche, John certainly had an abundance of. His new wife is terrified to leave, because she is pregnant and because John promises to blow her head off if she does. And kill her brother.

He decides she would be better off without friends, though he can have them and do what he likes. After all, if nobody’s around to witness something then it never happened, right?

John enjoys hurting more than his new wife too. He strangles her grandfather’s dog and threatens the old man. He “accidentally” runs over stray cats Lesa has chosen to adopt. He threatens any animal she has that dies he will simply put out with the weekly trash. He likes to take things away, sometimes in a horrible sense, because it reduces her to tears and that, my friend…that feeling of utter power and superiority is what John craves most. It is his drug, his high.

It is his nature….

(To be continued.)

www.howardhopkins.com

Step on a Crack...

I like cleavage as much as the next guy. In fact, I love cleavage and the mysteries still to be unveiled it promises.

But that OTHER cleavage…not so much.

You know the kind I mean. The Maytag repairman type cleavage. That’s right. Butt cleavage. Bum canyons. Rear Creek.

It wouldn’t be so bad if the cleavage in question was perky and, well, you get the idea. But it virtually never is. No, it is usually a mile wide, as dead white as would be the Pillsbury Doughboy had he swallowed a barrelful of bad steroids…oh, any hairy. Really hairy.

It befuddles me why some people can’t seem to get the right pants size. Or don’t notice that cold draft back there in the netherbum world. I s’pose maybe all that hair protects them from the breeze.

Then there are some who do it on purpose. The other night at a store a teen girl probably carrying a good hundred pounds extra apparently thought dorm pants without underwear was a good idea. Fine, in itself. But when she got up out of her seat the pants didn’t. And everybody standing nearby got to see the pastiest big ol’ moon over Maine in ages. I am not even sure in this case there was cleavage. Just lots of…white.

Same thing in another store, though this particular person was at least wearing a thong. Or at least I think she was, because the string quickly disappeared into a region I had no wish to follow.

Maybe we should all just walk around in loin clothes. Ok, maybe not here in Maine in the winter, but certainly during those summer months a Tarzan clout and occasional ear-splitting yell would be appropriate. We do have a topless donut shop here, so heck, why not Butt Cleavage Bagel shops? Or thong-wearing hot dog venders. Oh, wait, we had those. Too much bun for local police apparently.

Ah, well. It kind of cracks me up. I’m sure the fad will bottom out sooner or later. Till then I guess it’s just grin and bare it…

Driving Miss Birdy

So…I am on my way to pick up my niece at school when I glance into the rearview mirror...

And see a guy playing with his bird.

I had one of those Marty Feldman eyes moments and a brief wonder about upping my medication. Or maybe not taking as much.

It’s not everyday you see a guy playing with his bird in public.

Nooooo, get yer minds out of the gutter! Not THAT kind of bird. I mean a real honest-to-Baretta kind of bird. Some type of big white-feathered thing just sitting there on this guy’s shoulder while he, er, stroked it.

And just when I thought cell phones were the big driving hazard. Nope, it’s birds. Big birds.

You don’t see a lot of that here in southern Maine. I mean, this isn’t Venice beach where anything is liable to be perched on a shoulder.

Well, we used to take our dog out for ice cream, so maybe a guy’s entitled to take his bird out once in a while. Not entirely sure what he’s taking it out for, but it’s his bird and I am sure he has a durned good reason.

You have to wonder about people in cars. As I said in a past blog I have seen some strange things: Nose picking, reading, putting on make up, making rubber face in the mirror. It’s almost like when somebody gets behind the wheel they think they’ve entered some alternate dimension where nobody can see what they’re doing. After all, the vehicle only has GLASS on all four sides. Nobody can see through THAT. At the very least it makes for interesting conversations:

Hey, I saw you contributing to the green movement in your car the other day…

Huh?

On the highway. Had your finger up your nose.

You saw me?

Yep, looked like you lost an entire finger. Didn’t realize it was possible to get it up there that far.

Why, no, that’s simply not possible. I was in my CAR. Nobody can see me when I am in there.

But there’s glass on all sides…

Glass? What? Oh, no, no, no, no…that’s not GLASS. That’s trans-dimensional polyplexadelite…I can see out but no one can see in.

Well, with all that green stuff smeared on it that’s almost true.

Eew. Ok. Maybe taking your bird for a drive isn’t all that bad. But you’re still going to have to clean stuff off the windows…

The Chloe Files #2: Trailer World Premiere

Welcome to the brand spanking new Chloe Files book trailer for Sliver of Darkness. An incredible amount or time and work went into this video by fellow writer and friend Betty Sullivan LaPierre, as mentioned in a previous blog. What you see are the results of that work and we hope your enjoy it.

Chloe Everson, Detective Sergeant Arlo Grimm’s plucky stripper girlfriend, was never supposed to make it past the opening chapter of Grimm. She was conceived merely to serve as an informant for Arlo and meet her doom by sacrifice at the closing of “A Serious Error in Judgment”, the short story that eventually became Grimm’s opening chapter.

But a curious thing happened as that story built to its conclusion—Chloe didn’t want to die. Not only had Arlo become attached to the headstrong exotic dancer, but the dancer herself had become attached to her fictional life.

Before long she took on an ever-growing dimension and capability. She became her own person, an equal to Arlo, perhaps even surpassing him in many ways. Before long, Chloe was clamoring to tell her own tales. And frankly I couldn’t stop her.

Her adventures in New Salem grew into her weekly journal postings on The Chloe Files blogsite, which was supposed to be a one-time story arc designed to promote the Grimm novel. But again Chloe wasn’t content with just one measly adventure. There was enough Evil in New Salem, Maine, for further tales from The Chloe Files, the result of which is the second installment, Sliver of Darkness. And there are still unanswered questions in Chloe’s life, her search for her long-missing sister, just who the enigmatic museum curator is (and whether she’s a help or hindrance) and the riddle of Chloe’s own destiny now that some mysterious entities have chosen her for their avatar. Ooh, and scary stuff. Plenty of scary stuff.

I hope you’ll join Chloe as she begins her journey into the macabre. And remember, there’s Evil out there…waiting…