I could not sit still. My goals were reached, my time well earned at hand, but I could not sit still. There was something that was on my mind which had been festering since early August that at this point had risen to where I could not ignore it. I got sucked into a pointless drama by the mother of my daughter through a phone call one evening from someone I did not know demanding personal information on my then14 year old daughter claiming that I would be in serious legal jeopardy if I did not comply. I think my reply singed her ears and my return call was to ensure I had it on record that she was not to bother me or my daughter in any way, shape or form.
See, and this is the part that I did not want to know but got sucked in to, my daughter's mother is an easy mark. She suffered a traumatic brain injury in the accident that brought my daughter to my house. That year was really rough for her as about 4 months after her accident, her brother passed. Then, late January, her 20 year old cat passed and I had to bury it. A month and a half later, just as I was getting ready to drive back up to Prescott, we get news of her father passing and that led to a few years of me taking care of his properties and helping to sort 4 generations of stuff out... 'cause she can't. Then, well, mid-April, her dog dies. Yup, it was a rather rough year.
The next year saw a frozen pipe flood her father's house and she was taken advantage of quite quickly by a "contractor", her critical thinking skills and her emotional state being very weak still. I have a photo of him as he was walked in cuffs from that house explaining the pants he was wearing were not his but he found them at the job site the night before and he has no idea why there was that meth in the pocket... or why he had taken to living in this house and selling the property of this disabled woman. When I drove down from Prescott the night before to check on her concerns and found his sleeping nest and what he was doing, I set the place up as a trap and the next morning sent him to jail.
I speak this not to disparage her, but to note that this is an ongoing issue, one which, as she is the mother of my beloved daughter, I am bound to forever be on guard for. She suffered a loss in her accident, one which she tries to push past but she falls easy to the kind words of those who would take advantage of her. She is an easy mark and up to this point, I had saved her property, both the house she had owned for 20 years as well as her father's property, from attempts to scam them out from under her. It was about to happen again only with a concerted effort from a pair who I would discover had a long history of litigation over properties, including between each other.
I am not certain if it was set up this way or if this guy was really just this low, but his guy meets my ex through a dating site and hounds her... good looking guy with flashy car and owns a couple houses. After seeing him about a month, a woman calls her and tells her to back off and that he's her fiance. This has my ex baffled and lost as this guy keeps pursuing her and this woman keeps threatening her. I am uncertain whether this was their game or this was their relationship, but the next thing I know, I'm getting this strange call one evening demanding I relate ever instance my daughter has been at her mother's over the last year, to start. That was when I asked what was going on.
It turns out this couple were filing suits against my daughter's mother with an aim on acquiring her properties. The claims of damages were outlandish with one such being that this woman, who fancies herself a Romance Novelist, lost out on a million dollar book deal because of harassing non-stop phone calls she claimed were coming in during her meeting. Um, a million dollar book deal for an unpublished author? She claimed she lost her job and that her 20something son spends his nights in fear of this disabled woman who doesn't drive and can barely walk. I drove her to her legal counsel. The suits were dismissed with damages. My daughter's mother and her property were safe once again and hopefully my karma pool...
Fuck it! I was pissed! The scam they were playing was one thing and I am glad I was able to intervene. As soon as I was told the details, things got set to rights. I'm not claiming all credit here, it's just that she was floundering alone until I helped point her and, well, keep her calm. That feeling of good though was not in any way satisfying after receiving a call such as I did. I'm sorry, but hearing someone claiming they are representing themselves in a court case and threatening you with legal action if you don't divulge personal information about your minor child is just not something that was going away easy. It ate at me. It really did.
Okay, I saw a shirt once as I was seeking a seat at my preferred local Starbucks. Occasionally amongst those who would sit with their computers doing either work-work or school-work or just screwing around, there would be one that it was easy to identify as a writer working on his stories... aside from me, that is. See, I have a cap, not a baseball style, but think of Samuel L. Jackson only without the limitless cool. This guy had a fedora... big give-away! The other big give-away is the t-shirt I usually see him in with a legend on it reading "Don't piss me off - I'll write you into one of my stories". Going on that, I figure he's doing what I'm doing only less subtly. That shirt though, that sentiment...
I traded in some of those karma points.
I had, after that call, become familiar with who was behind it. The claim of losing a million dollar sale for a first time romance novel got me to take a look at this work to see just what a million dollar first time sale of a ... misspelled title and a synopsis? Oh, look, of course that name is spelled that way...
"Tears in Green Satin" is not what you just pronounced in your head while reading. It is not "tears", but "tears". Got it? Good... that's all the explanation that needs 'cause one makes sense and one just doesn't regardless of how neat it sounds. You can still play the Moody Blues in your head while reading, though I'd recommend some Procol Harum with maybe a dash of Iron Maiden as well, you know, in keeping with the theme.
This was a cathartic rush to write and it did exceed the 5,000 word limit by 507 words. I tried to whittle it down further, but couldn't squeeze it any tighter. It works though and I decided right away I wasn't going to beat myself up over a mere 507 words. Besides, it was November and during my two months of slack, I found myself failing in the simple fact that this story appeared. I mean, I was at 13 for the year and standing strong in strange new territory. I'll take that little victory over a paltry handful of words any day.
I found a terrible person and terrible people make good templates, especially in Tales designed without the hope of a happy ending. I excised the boil that had been festering in my mind since that night, allowing a release without repercussions. I take it this is one of the unspoken advantages that comes with being a writer of weird fiction, that grievances can be turned into something positive by simply, well, following inspirations. In this case, I got a nice little character study into greed and pride as well as a spot in What Monsters Do For Love Part II by Soteira Press,
One fun little thing, this character existed before this drama came into my life. In "The Fairies of Esmy" appearing in The Monsters We Forget Part II by Soteira Press, there are some glimpses seen such as the woman in the green dress. "The Fairies of Esmy" was written six months before "Tears in Green Satin". All throughout these stories are such hints dropped and with each story written, more things are left lying about. It is through picking up these lost things that I believe this valley of mine shall ever be rich for that which I mine. This is how this is working... these hints just need the right nudge to blossom full.
No comments:
Post a Comment