Excruciatingly Long Story

I never intended to publish here any story I have written.  My purpose is to share my experience so other new and renewing writers can better understand their own journey, share their thoughts, as they make their own unique path.
After some nagging general encouragement (thanks Don), I decided to demonstrate what for me is my most complicated effort after 18 weeks of practice.  Many thanks to Paul for his editorial comments, all welcome.  Just ran out of energy to implement them.  Didn't disagree with anything.

Below is the story I invested my head and heart in.  You might well say "All this fuss about that?" Or: "Send that to the New Yorker right away."  I don't know.  I do know I'm headed back to shorter forms.  I got too hung up on structure with this length of story at this point of my efforts.

BUGS IN THE GRASS

PART ONE – THE BEGINNING

He had been told by his Field colleagues in the Service that it was funny, not ha ha funny, you understand, but peculiar funny, how different things look when you have every reason to believe your brains are about to be splattered to smithereens all over the new not-even-paid-for-yet kitchen cupboards.
Jim was standing spreadeagled and semi-upright, his legs kicked apart, his hands wired behind his back, his head pushed half over the sink, sweating, yes, looking wide-eyed over the top of his glasses, through the large kitchen window, at the garden in back. This was an unplanned interruption, fr certain not how he’d planned to spend his Saturday. To put it all in priority order, he would rather, you know, contemplate gardening possibilities on the internet where it’s clean and interesting, not crawl around the garden out there, where it’s dirty and creepy among the bugs. On the internet, you could just, you know, look it up. But, he would far rather, you bet, be crawling around in the weeds than be held hostage.


“This situation in here”, thought Jim “was a lot more dirty real than out there, by a long shot.” The chunky one, the one with the big gun, nattered on and on about next steps and what he referred to as tactical issues. The skinny one munched on a Snickers bar, and provided an unconvincing impression of listening. Jim felt maybe he had, at least a moment or two, or maybe not, to think about what his original Saturday plans had been before he thought he’d be, you know, dead. Expired. Defunct. “D-e-d” as his father used to say. “D-e-d, Jimmy boy. D-e-d.”

Jim’s next thought was about the gun pushing cold against his head. Naturally, and stupidly enough, he recalled Dirty Harry saying, “This is a.44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question:
“Do I feel lucky?”     “No”, thought Jim, “Nope. Negatory. Not lucky.”


Speaking of dead, if he twisted just a little without annoying his visitors, over to the far left Jim could see the place where he had removed the two dead juniper bushes a couple of years ago. He had meant to replace them right away. Behind that spot, closer to the street, stood the three white pines all in a row, He always wished he could describe them as ‘majestic’ but they were mostly skinny. And precariously slanted. Still, they stayed standing and green in winter.
Then, just past that, a peony bush that blossomed faithfully every spring. Jim couldn’t remember if this one was the peony bush with the red flowers or the pink ones. Would he be given the opportunity to find out? More than likely not, he thought.
He decided, not for the first time, true enough, to focus. He should, you know, concentrate, focus, get some discipline into his life. “Think, my Jimmy boy, think.” Well, for instance, he thought, of his brains as one of his best features when they were all together in one place, inside his skull and not splattered all around, hither and yon. Likely his very best feature.
The chunky guy with the gun, yanked Jim’s head so he was looking directly in front of him again. “Stay freakin’ still, my friend, if you want to see tomorrow.”
Now once again straight ahead in front of him, yes still there, was the long stretch of garden backed by the tall whitewashed stockade board fence. This was the section of the garden over by the sandbox. I would be fair to say that Jim’s memory of even this familiar slice of the garden was mostly about weeding, and about finding a place with enough sun to grow the tomatoes, for himself, and his wife, and the pumpkins for their four-year-old grandson. The weeds did just fine in the shade, thank you very much. Their leaves were dotted with holes, food for the caterpillars, who in turn were food for the birds. Not many caterpillars had the chance to become butterflies.
Next, around what was euphemistically called the ‘water feature’, the ground was covered in periwinkle. This was the only part of the garden plot that Jim’s wife liked and but which Jim thought was expendable. Forgetting that she liked that area just the way it was, Jim kept suggesting alternate uses for it. You can get to a certain age together and still disagree on so many small, but still irritating, things. He wondered if after his, as they say, passing, she might plant forget-me-nots there in the middle as a kind of memorial. Not likely. Sentimentality was never one of her primary attributes. Up until now, he had hoped there was still time left between them to work out more of their nagging differences.
He wouldn't bet on it now. ‘Tempus’ was ‘fugitting’.tempus fugit. Time flies. Life ebbs. “Tick tock”, Jimmy my boy, he said, half out loud, “Tick tock”.
Over on the other side of the house, past the struggling crimson maple, was the pathway the two had used, running from the street to Jim’s back yard, then to the deck, where they sliced through the sliding screen door into the house. Jim regretted chopping down the waist-high thistles that had been along that side path earlier until just early that morning. That would have given them pause, you bet.
Amazing. Chopping the thistles, a gardening project he had actually completed, OK after many reminders from his wife, and it was killing him. “There’s a memorial for you,” Jim thought. Life mostly droned on and on but then so much could change in just a few minutes.

Gentle Reader:
Here’s a tip. Too late for Jim but here’s a tip you may be able to use for yourself. A locked screen door means nothing when encountering a Bowie knife, especially the deluxe model. Cuts open that screen like tissue paper so, for instance, two insignificant nickel-and-diners can escalate their otherwise mundane little adventure to a lights-flashing sirens-sounding symphony.
And then where would you be? Well, if you’re like Jim, you’re bent over the kitchen sink looking out the window with the muzzle of a handgun at your temple and the point of a Bowie knife in the small of your back.

PART TWO

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

“This time the eagle had really pooped”, thought Tom. “This freakin’ freaker’s really freaked” He turned his eyes toward Jerry, pressing his Colt Cobra 38 Special harder against Jim’s misérable freakin’ head. “Look at you. How can you eat at a time like this?” How many of those have you eaten, anyway?”

Jerry paused his chewing for a moment, stared off into the middle distance, and reflected. “Three”, he said. “I think. This could be number four.”

“Jerry with a J” even though, what he calls. his real name is “Gerald with a G”, a long string bean of a guy. Jerry with a J had a dreamy heart, maybe a brain in there somewhere, and a beautiful voice. Tom often said, “That bugger could fit right into heaven’s angel choir.”
Also, the man could eat Snickers, and freakin’ well did, until the cows came home and never gained a pound. Not an ounce. Not a, whatchamacallit, not a gram.
Jerry often sang and ate Snickers, while he checked out The Shopping Channel. Tom showed him how to make 900 calls and, just the other day, watched Jerry order what he said was ‘this neat Bowie knife’, along with a bunch of other ‘really neat’ Collector knives.

This morning, together, the two of them, had robbed a convenience store, waving the Colt 38, and that Bowie knife. They had scored a grand freakin’ total of $47 plus a twelve pack of Snickers, and two packages of cigarettes tucked up the sleeves of their T-shirts.

$47, cigarettes, Snickers, now a crowd of police cars with flashing lights, loudspeakers, a gun, a knife, Jerry and Tom, and a hostage in the kitchen. That about summed it up.

Gentle Reader

Here’s another tip for you. Free of charge, no cost, no obligation, If you ever decide to rob a convenience store, not that I recommend it you understand, but if you do decide to do it, do not, under any circumstances, take Jerry,

PART THREE

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

Jim’s back was starting to seriously hurt. He thought of his wife and the way she corrects his grammar. His wife would tell him to say “starting to hurt seriously” but that way didn’t sound emphatic enough. He’d mention that to her next time. 

Then he heard the loudspeaker and saw the lights. Maybe this was a good thing, he thought, maybe not. If it was a good thing, it would be the first good thing for awhile. If he could just shift a bit to relieve his back without, of course, losing his brains.
“Come out with your hands up”, there was that announcement, sounding just like in the movies that Jim streamed. “We know you’re in there. You have been surrounded. You can’t get away.” There were throbbing red lights, loudspeakers crackling with threats, and yelled conversations. Jim was suitably impressed but his bladder betrayed him a little. More than a little. On his way back from the bathroom, he noticed the footprints on the new carpet. Somehow this will be my fault, Jim thought.
Next thing Jim knew, Mr. Chunky was whispering to Mr. Three-Maybe-Four, then the gun and knife stopped poking his head and back. Jim could slip the wire off his wrists and move back forth and around for relief. He looked out and saw movement on the lawn, just in front of the periwinkles.
Jim blinked. Yes, there they were all right, the two arch-criminals spread out on the lawn, just beyond the patio with the ant hills that appeared every night overnight between the chipped stones and on the clipped lawn.
Jim had dug and scraped and poked and sprayed again, again, and then some more. He tried piling icing sugar around the semi-legal killer ant spray he used. They ate the sugar all right, gobbled it right up, but continued merrily breeding without pause. Maybe the spray was the ants’ Viagra. No mention of ant aphrodisiacs when Jim looked it up on the internet.

Gentle Reader:
Here’s a little unexpected education, on the house. Bear with me.  Ready?
By using non-lead bullets hunters can make sure that ants and other bugs who feast on the blood of wounded things won’t ingest poison. It is also true that non-lead bullets do not typically break apart on impact, so they smash further through flesh and bone and often leave an impressively large exit wound.
Here’s why it matters to our two desperadoes.
Officer Kay, the police sharpshooter, used non-lead bullets when hunting deer, which she was doing that very afternoon, opening day of the season, right when she received the call. She had a choice to make. Either stop off at her house to pick up her police-issued firearm or simply take along her single-action long-barrel hunting revolver that could drop an elephant at 100 yards with its non-lead bullets.  Officer Kay chose urgency.  She headed straight for the crime scene, heavily armed, steely-eyed and flush red angry about losing her favourite day off.

PART FOUR

THE END

“Could it get any freakin’ worse than this?”, Tom said. They’d had a hard time for a long time, the two of them. No money. No house. No garden. No drugs, though. That’s one thing. Not anything serious anyway, thanks for that. Mostly beer. A little marijuana. Hash a couple of times.
This time, though, it was more than one of life’s little fender benders. This time it was them together in the grass with the other bugs.

He looked over at Jerry, lying there in the freakin’ grass. With lights flashing, sirens whooping, and cops threatening something or other on their bullhorns, Jerry, in his galloping stupidity, was, can you freakin’ believe it, eating more Snickers and playing with his new knife. Flipping it up higher and higher in the air to see how many times it would turn over and still stick in the ground when it landed. He was, Jerry said, up to four.

Except, this last time it stuck in his freakin’ thigh. And when he took it out, it made a gash that bled like a son of a gun.
Tom stared and sighed and wiped his eyes and said, “You’re not going anywhere with that, except the hospital.” Already, there was a trail of ants trooping toward the wound. “I’ll look after you somehow. Promise.” He gathered himself and ran. Just ran. Jerry, surrounded by dirt, blood, ants, noise and chaos, that lovely loving man waved, reached for his half-eaten Snickers bar.
“Wonderful beautiful stupid man,” Tom said. “Love of my life,” Tom said. “Love of my eternal freakin’ life.”

Gentle Reader

Just a few final notes.
Kay’s hunting pistol managed to blow away most of Tom’s left arm below the shoulder except for a bit of hanging skin holding it in place. He did not look so much surprised as resigned. He joined Jerry in the Emergency Ward, together again on Earth for a short time.

Tom died, no surprise there, and Jerry was going to sing at his funeral. He had the hymn picked out:

Going up home to live in green pastures    Where we shall live and die never more    Even the Lord will be in that number    When we shall reach that Heavenly Shore

Kay, now Sergeant Kay, received a reprimand and a promotion. She took Jerry’s Bowie knife and Tom’s Colt 38 to be stored in custody, but they both disappeared and the court never was able to locate them.

Jim’s wife Pamela, not Pam, Pamela, hugged him hard when she arrived home. “Boy”, thought Jim, “She is really strong.” Sometimes he forgot just how strong she was. True, she glanced at the dirt on the rug, OK twice, but she didn’t say a word about it. Just hung onto him harder.
Jim’s tomato plants didn’t do any better or worse this year than last year, or the year before last for that matter. Once again, his pumpkins were more vine than pumpkin. The ant hills returned. The peony’s colour turned out to be something called coral.
The convenience store owner became something of a local celebrity, with people in the neighbourhood having their pictures taken with him. For years he was pointed to, as the man, unarmed mind you, who stood up to the wrong end of a gun and a knife.
Yet, believe me, you can search the internet for a very long time, with every combination and keyword you can think of, and find no reference at all to the incident in Jim and Pamela's grass, or to Jerry and Tom. It’s as though they never existed. Enter Tom and Jerry and you will find something totally completely one hundred per cent different.
You could look it up.