NaNoWriMo, part VIII
NaNoWriMo, part VIII
Damn, but I like Roman Numerals.
The whole idea behind this NaNoWriMo thing is to write kamikaze style without letting the inner editor take over. And I'm trying to do that, but it goes against every inclination I have. That inner editor's got a loud voice. I hope somebody understands that it's hard to post this first draft for the world to see.
Especially with little things like me not realizing that, suddenly, I have two characters with the same name
That may change if and when I do a second draft, but my thinking this morning was: How many people do you know with the same first name?
anyway. I'm rapidly moving towards ending the first day. We do have a funeral to get to, after all.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Here's part 8:
I sat there thinking. I noted the oddity of having known two folks named Willie, in this day and age where most would opt for William, or Will. Maybe even Bill. I chalked it up to living in the rural south, where what you’re called doesn’t seem to have as much bearing on your choice of career.
Hell, I’m thinking that with a name like Willie Walker, my young friend could go on to edit any of the finer sports departments in any paper in the bible belt. Failing that, he could own a great deal of finer used car dealerships in Southeast Tennessee.
You know, if he could get over whatever social issues seemed to plague him.
Willie Walker had turned from my narrative and was engrossed in the Tennessee/Alabama football game being played on the television.
“Hey Willie?”
“Yeah?” he said, turning his body toward me. He’d answered, but his attention hadn’t really wavered from the football game on the television.
“Willie,” I said one more time. Tennessee had just intercepted a pass. I let the play come to its end, and I asked one more time, a little more loudly than I’d expected: “Willie?”
He turned to me.
“Where’d the camera come from?”
“Japan, I’d say.”
“Where’d the camera come from this morning? How’d you get the pictures?”
Willie pointed to a camera that was charging on the desk next to his.
“Some campers found it. They were walking up to the falls. And found it off the trail.”
He got up, pulled the camera from its charger. “It still works.”
I got up, and looked at the camera Willie was holding. “May I?” I asked, holding my hands out.
Willie handed the camera to me. “Been left out in the weather all night. Still works. That’s quality, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I muttered, before finally thinking to ask: “How did one of your newspaper’s cameras get up into the woods?”
“Heather Baumgartner left it.” The name gave me a start. Heather was only the daughter of the Governor. I know it sounds hokey to drop the name at this point, but then, I’m not a great storyteller. Heather had done her schooling, had interned at the big papers, had done work up in Washington and Nashville. But when she went looking for jobs, she chose the Trainersville Herald-Frontier, hired by Cecil Reece, who was most likely unaware of Heather Gubernatorial connections.
I should maybe note here that it’s always struck me that one does not choose to work for a newspaper like the Trainersville Herald Frontier. A job at that paper is one you fall into after a seventeen year drunk, or a coke habit that knocks you out of a position at a larger paper. Even utter incompetence will warrant you a job at a large circulation paper, over in Cleveland or up in Lenoir City. But then, that was Heather, who cited simply “an ennui with the pace of other newspapers.”
I liked her instantly when I met her through Mike. She was the third person I’d ever known to use the word “ennui” in conversation, but the first who hadn’t felt the need to explain what the word meant. I never knew if it was because she thought I understood, or she just didn’t give a shit. Either way, it made me think a bunch of her.
“Left it...in the woods?”
“Yeah.”
“But she’s back?”
“Yeah.”
I raised my eyebrows. I probably had 9 million thoughts running through my head all in that moment. I pulled the last few pictures from the stack. Saw the shape, saw the red eyes. Saw the frantic, spasmodic picture taking. The natural progression, in my mind, was for the next bit of information to be give that Heather Baumgartner, the daughter of the Governor of the Great State of Tennessee hadn’t been seen since.
“Willie, isn’t that a little weird?”
“Yeah.”
These long pauses between everything Willie said were really starting to wear on me. That, and three quarters of his attention seemed to be focused on that television with the football game playing. I rounded the desk, and hit power on the teevee. This seemed to get the first rise out of Willie I’d seen in years.
“I’m watching that.”
“I’ll turn it back on. Have you talked to Heather?”
“Yeah. I was here when Cecil called her.”
There was another long pause. Even after having known the boy for years, I somehow expected there would be more to what Willie was going to tell me.
“And?”
“Cecil says she’s fine, and that she’ll be back to work Monday.”
I shook my head.
“Willie, why did you bring me in here, with all this cloak and dagger stuff, with these weird-ass pictures, telling me all this story about how Heather Baumgartner wandered into the woods, taking the scariest fucking pictures I’ve seen in my life, leading me to believe she’s been dragged into the woods by God-only-knows-what, only to tell me that she’s safe at home?”
“I don’t think Heather is at home. Her car’s not out in front.”
“How do you know?”
“I went by to check. After she wasn’t answering her phone. I called after Cecil left to see if she’d tell me what was in the pictures.”
“No answer?”
“No. And her car’s not out in front.”
It was my turn to pause. Finally: “Maybe she was out shopping. Or watching football,” I said, as I popped the teevee back on. “Neyland Stadium only holds 108,000 of your closest friends.”
Willie stared at the teevee, but I got the feeling he wasn’t seeing what was there. He chewed on his lip as he thought.
“Everybody thinks I’m stupid,” Willie said. Willie’s monotone kept me from realizing that this was less a statement of fact than a lament, although Willie always saw things in the third person...it may well have been a statement of some fact. “But I can put two and two together.”
He pointed at my phone, clipped to my belt.
“Call somebody on your phone.”
I pulled the phone from my belt, not used to being commanded by Willie. Make no mistake, I was being commanded.
“Call somebody,” he said.
“Who?”
“You can call anybody,” he said.
I flipped my phone open, and dialed without thinking much about it the number the local bank had sponsored with the current time and temperature.
As I listened to an ad telling me that Second National’s CD rates were the best on this end of the state, I saw Willie nod to himself. Without knowing it, I’d confirmed his suspicions.
“What?” I asked, while a computer voice told me the time was 3:57, and the temperature was 69 degrees.
“You and Cecil have the same phone, and yours lights up when you call somebody.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Cecil flipped open his phone, and acted like he was talking to her. I don’t think he ever really talked to Heather.”
“Why would Cecil pretend that he talked to her?”
“Maybe he didn’t want to worry anybody.”
“But he told you not to tell anybody, didn’t he?”
Willie nodded. I worked to keep Cecil Reece from becoming the villain in my mind, and did so without much success.
“Are you still worried?”
Willie only nodded.
“You think she’s still up in the woods?”
After a long pause, during which he was watching Tennessee take control of the football again, after a 4 and out by Alabama, and just after I’d figured he’d forgotten the question, he finally answered.
“She’s up there,” he said. “But I think she’ll be back soon.”
Damn, but I like Roman Numerals.
The whole idea behind this NaNoWriMo thing is to write kamikaze style without letting the inner editor take over. And I'm trying to do that, but it goes against every inclination I have. That inner editor's got a loud voice. I hope somebody understands that it's hard to post this first draft for the world to see.
Especially with little things like me not realizing that, suddenly, I have two characters with the same name
That may change if and when I do a second draft, but my thinking this morning was: How many people do you know with the same first name?
anyway. I'm rapidly moving towards ending the first day. We do have a funeral to get to, after all.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Here's part 8:
I sat there thinking. I noted the oddity of having known two folks named Willie, in this day and age where most would opt for William, or Will. Maybe even Bill. I chalked it up to living in the rural south, where what you’re called doesn’t seem to have as much bearing on your choice of career.
Hell, I’m thinking that with a name like Willie Walker, my young friend could go on to edit any of the finer sports departments in any paper in the bible belt. Failing that, he could own a great deal of finer used car dealerships in Southeast Tennessee.
You know, if he could get over whatever social issues seemed to plague him.
Willie Walker had turned from my narrative and was engrossed in the Tennessee/Alabama football game being played on the television.
“Hey Willie?”
“Yeah?” he said, turning his body toward me. He’d answered, but his attention hadn’t really wavered from the football game on the television.
“Willie,” I said one more time. Tennessee had just intercepted a pass. I let the play come to its end, and I asked one more time, a little more loudly than I’d expected: “Willie?”
He turned to me.
“Where’d the camera come from?”
“Japan, I’d say.”
“Where’d the camera come from this morning? How’d you get the pictures?”
Willie pointed to a camera that was charging on the desk next to his.
“Some campers found it. They were walking up to the falls. And found it off the trail.”
He got up, pulled the camera from its charger. “It still works.”
I got up, and looked at the camera Willie was holding. “May I?” I asked, holding my hands out.
Willie handed the camera to me. “Been left out in the weather all night. Still works. That’s quality, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I muttered, before finally thinking to ask: “How did one of your newspaper’s cameras get up into the woods?”
“Heather Baumgartner left it.” The name gave me a start. Heather was only the daughter of the Governor. I know it sounds hokey to drop the name at this point, but then, I’m not a great storyteller. Heather had done her schooling, had interned at the big papers, had done work up in Washington and Nashville. But when she went looking for jobs, she chose the Trainersville Herald-Frontier, hired by Cecil Reece, who was most likely unaware of Heather Gubernatorial connections.
I should maybe note here that it’s always struck me that one does not choose to work for a newspaper like the Trainersville Herald Frontier. A job at that paper is one you fall into after a seventeen year drunk, or a coke habit that knocks you out of a position at a larger paper. Even utter incompetence will warrant you a job at a large circulation paper, over in Cleveland or up in Lenoir City. But then, that was Heather, who cited simply “an ennui with the pace of other newspapers.”
I liked her instantly when I met her through Mike. She was the third person I’d ever known to use the word “ennui” in conversation, but the first who hadn’t felt the need to explain what the word meant. I never knew if it was because she thought I understood, or she just didn’t give a shit. Either way, it made me think a bunch of her.
“Left it...in the woods?”
“Yeah.”
“But she’s back?”
“Yeah.”
I raised my eyebrows. I probably had 9 million thoughts running through my head all in that moment. I pulled the last few pictures from the stack. Saw the shape, saw the red eyes. Saw the frantic, spasmodic picture taking. The natural progression, in my mind, was for the next bit of information to be give that Heather Baumgartner, the daughter of the Governor of the Great State of Tennessee hadn’t been seen since.
“Willie, isn’t that a little weird?”
“Yeah.”
These long pauses between everything Willie said were really starting to wear on me. That, and three quarters of his attention seemed to be focused on that television with the football game playing. I rounded the desk, and hit power on the teevee. This seemed to get the first rise out of Willie I’d seen in years.
“I’m watching that.”
“I’ll turn it back on. Have you talked to Heather?”
“Yeah. I was here when Cecil called her.”
There was another long pause. Even after having known the boy for years, I somehow expected there would be more to what Willie was going to tell me.
“And?”
“Cecil says she’s fine, and that she’ll be back to work Monday.”
I shook my head.
“Willie, why did you bring me in here, with all this cloak and dagger stuff, with these weird-ass pictures, telling me all this story about how Heather Baumgartner wandered into the woods, taking the scariest fucking pictures I’ve seen in my life, leading me to believe she’s been dragged into the woods by God-only-knows-what, only to tell me that she’s safe at home?”
“I don’t think Heather is at home. Her car’s not out in front.”
“How do you know?”
“I went by to check. After she wasn’t answering her phone. I called after Cecil left to see if she’d tell me what was in the pictures.”
“No answer?”
“No. And her car’s not out in front.”
It was my turn to pause. Finally: “Maybe she was out shopping. Or watching football,” I said, as I popped the teevee back on. “Neyland Stadium only holds 108,000 of your closest friends.”
Willie stared at the teevee, but I got the feeling he wasn’t seeing what was there. He chewed on his lip as he thought.
“Everybody thinks I’m stupid,” Willie said. Willie’s monotone kept me from realizing that this was less a statement of fact than a lament, although Willie always saw things in the third person...it may well have been a statement of some fact. “But I can put two and two together.”
He pointed at my phone, clipped to my belt.
“Call somebody on your phone.”
I pulled the phone from my belt, not used to being commanded by Willie. Make no mistake, I was being commanded.
“Call somebody,” he said.
“Who?”
“You can call anybody,” he said.
I flipped my phone open, and dialed without thinking much about it the number the local bank had sponsored with the current time and temperature.
As I listened to an ad telling me that Second National’s CD rates were the best on this end of the state, I saw Willie nod to himself. Without knowing it, I’d confirmed his suspicions.
“What?” I asked, while a computer voice told me the time was 3:57, and the temperature was 69 degrees.
“You and Cecil have the same phone, and yours lights up when you call somebody.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Cecil flipped open his phone, and acted like he was talking to her. I don’t think he ever really talked to Heather.”
“Why would Cecil pretend that he talked to her?”
“Maybe he didn’t want to worry anybody.”
“But he told you not to tell anybody, didn’t he?”
Willie nodded. I worked to keep Cecil Reece from becoming the villain in my mind, and did so without much success.
“Are you still worried?”
Willie only nodded.
“You think she’s still up in the woods?”
After a long pause, during which he was watching Tennessee take control of the football again, after a 4 and out by Alabama, and just after I’d figured he’d forgotten the question, he finally answered.
“She’s up there,” he said. “But I think she’ll be back soon.”
posted by Tommy at
10:41
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