Several years ago I wrote my first novel -- Uncertain Times -- and while it sold only about 1,200 copies, it gave me a check-off on my "bucket list' -- write and publish a novel. I learned a lot on how not to write a novel from "Uncertain," but did come away with a personal sense of accomplishment.
I also came away with a love for the book's two main characters -- Adnijio Benjamin Franklin Jones and his constant sidekick Bob. My PhD son, Dr. C .Jason Smith, a touted literary icon in his own mind (and mine) and publisher of two books and a hundred or more scholarly papers -- gave me the supreme compliment. "Bob is, as far as I know, unique in literary history."
Bob is Adj's inner voice, a stuttering conscience that keeps his host straight, or helps set his course as crooked as a Wall Street banker close to getting his bonus. After Uncertain Times was published and I had my first novel sitting in my hands, I promised to write a prequel of how Adj and Bob first became one and do a better job of writing their story than I did the first time.
For the past three years, I've been working on Uncertain People, a little story set in Mountain Home, Arkansas. Adj is a newspaper man working at the Baxter Bulletin and Bob is ... well, Bob. It has, like Uncertain Times, a cast of rich, unbelievable characters that pop up like the action figures in Whack-a-Mole games at county fairs.
Meet Thorburn Skeeter, a man who talks only in cliches.
“It’s
official,” Thorburn Skeetcher said, while digging in his right ear canal with
his right pinky. He was about two digits deep when he started up again. “The
situation is cut and dried. The High and Mighty Shurf is going to cut and run.
From the cut of his jib I can tell you his goose is cooked because he’s bound
and determined to cut off his nose to spite his face.”
Eh-If he’s not kah-killed by fah-flying
clichés starting wah-with the lah-letter ‘C’ first.
I
thought Bob to hush and, trying to egg Thorburn on, said, “His argument don’t
cut no ice with me. I think he’s trying to curry favor with his base
constituency and just crying over spilled milk. As far as I’m concerned, he’s
just crying in the wilderness.”
Jah-Jesus! Yah-you’ve walked into a
gah-gunpowder fah-factory with a lah-lit match!
Thorburn
fixed me with a look stout enough to etch glass. He took a sip of whiskey,
cleared his throat, shook all over like a wet dog, and twisted his neck back
and forth a few times.
“I’m
not sayin’ he’s crazy as a coot, just that he’s crazy like a fox, and will be
till the cows come home.”
He
paused and I started to tongue-jump in.
Holding
up a hand to stop my planned verbal intrusion, he said, “I’m just coming up for
air. Now, as I was saying, the High Shurf thinks he’s going to come up smelling
like roses, but I think we ought to call a spade a space and cast the bread of
reason upon the waters of discontent. In other words, before we commit the
cardinal sin of putting the cart before the horse and cast aspersions on his
character, we should understand the man can’t see beyond the end of his nose.”
Pausing
for a breath, Thorburn again held up the stop sign hand again. After a big
suck-in of wind and a forceful exhale, he put his tongue in overdrive.
“It’s
a fact you can catch more flies with sugar than vinegar, but we’re not looking
to catch flies here. We just want to get with the High Shurf and chew the cud, so
to speak, chew the rag, and make sure we don’t chicken out when the chickens
come home to roost. There’s not a Chinaman’s chance he’s as clean as a hound’s
tooth. Not clean as a whistle, neither.
“It’s
up to us to clear the decks and take this cock of the walk’s cock and bull
story and, come hell and high water, tell him not to count his chickens before
they hatch or cry wolf. He needs to cut to the chase and come on like
gangbusters telling the truth before he comes to grief.”
Thorburn
sat back in his chair, crossed his arms and let a grin skid on his face like an
eighteen-wheeler hitting a dumped load of Crisco.
Bob
thought me to close my mouth and then offered:
Gah-game.
Sah-set. Mah-match.
As
my Cajun cousin would say, “Cut to the quick, me.”
Two
hours later I was wrestling with the Percale and trying to unbunch the blanket
with the spurs, chuckwagon, and herd of horses on it. And I was mad. Real mad. I mentally pummeled myself.
What’s
the matter with me? I could have worked in that’s the way the cookie crumbles,
and cool as a cucumber, costs a pretty penny, crack of dawn, didn’t like the
color of his money, and even child’s play.
Eh-I can answer tha-that. You gah-got
knocked out of the cah-catbird seat because the cah-cat got your tah-tongue.
Yah-you’re
not helping, Bah-Bob.
His
stuttering laughter drove my funky mood ever deeper in the mental ditch.
Four days later, still smarting from my cliche smackdown, I
turned the corner, head down, checking to make sure I didn’t step on a crack .
. . and ran slap-dead, head-on into Thorburn Skeetcher.
He
gave a little woof as my shoulder hit him a good blow to the sternum. He
sounded like a colic-y collie.
“Jeeze,
Thorburn, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
“Right
as rain, I am,” he said, slapping on that hint-grin that I had come to know
mean that a slide down his own personal cliché chute was en route. “A little
accident like that don’t raise my hackles and not even if I rack my brain for
an excuse to rake you over the coals.”
I
blew out a little puff of air to calm me down and get my brain to working. I inhaled and girded my throat for battle. “I
was just thinking about the rat race I find myself in and I was ready to read
someone the riot act before you came along and I gave you an excuse to ream me
out. You’re the real McCoy, you know that, Tornburn?”
He
gave a slight nod, closed his eyes and gave his head a quick shake. “This is a
red letter day, Boy-o. Everything is right as rain and before we ring down the
curtain on this little happenstance, I want you to remember it’s not a good
thing to rob Peter to rob Paul, to risk life and limb, to travel the road to
Perdition, to rock the boat, to throw out red herring, to be rotten to the
core. You get me?”
“Right
as rai—you’ve already said that one. My bad!” He smiled serenely and Bob
started snarling.
I
took another deep breath. “While I’m not rolling in money, I do know that a
rolling stone gathers no moss, and that a person who has rocks in his head is
between a rock and a hard place.”
Thorburn
looked at me like I messed my pants in Sunday School class and he was the head
Christian care-giver.
“Roll
with the punches, Lad. Don’t rock the boat, be rough and ready without a
legitimate purpose, or rub salt in the wounds of those that don’t deserve it.
Things like that rub me the wrong way and, as a rule of thumb, you can’t run
the gauntlet of life by simply running off at the mouth. Your actions may be
run of the mill, but with age and gained wisdom, that will run its course. If
you want the red carpet treatment in life, you have to make ever day a
red-letter day and not rest on your laurels. If any of this rings a bell, join
the rising tide and roll with the punches.”
I
stood there, a wounded target, no counter punchline. Then, an inspiration:
“Right
on!”
Thorburn
gave a little bow and headed down the sidewalk. After about three steps he
started laughing and it only stopped when he was out of earshot.
Jah-Jesus, you’re pah-pathetic, you know
that.
Granted,
Bob. But what does that make you.
That
shut him up.
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