Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 10

BA is happening

I spent much of today lounging in my bed, writing on Blood Angel. This section, titled Franz, will be where Léonidès is told he may not turn Franz and, while trying to figure out why begins to see the man is not as perfect as his amazing looks suggest. 

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The Oiym said no. 

I’d sent them a simple telegram: Nethys, have found a mate. Congratulations? Leonides. 

Nethys was the de facto head of the Oiym Council, and I needed their permission to make the beautiful Franz Sebastian Giselher von Bergren my mate. 

I received the following response:Denied. We will arrive soon. 

Denied!?I could not believe it. The rules that I had developed and convinced the Oiym to follow were now being used against me, and they were coming to make certain I followed their edict?I was livid. 

And terrified.Because this was new territory for me. What I’d heard from others, all simple vampires, was they had to feed until true death, no turning without permission. Anything less would be considered a violation of the edict and bring about imprisonment in their fortress. An edict I had helped arrange. 

That made me fear for Franz. If I was not allowed to bring him into my world, I wanted to make certain he would be well in his own. But the fact they were coming to see me...and, probably, him...was surely to question him and make certain for themselves that he was not a danger to us. Why else would they depart Alexandria to enter a war zone? It wasn’t just for the cuisine. 

What little he knew about me was...well, he thought I was a fellow German, and never mind my Norman lineage. I’d spoken to him as if from Hamburg. I’d helped him and his mount, Grünnald. I’d treated him with full politeness and probably saved his life. Anything he might remember about my removing the bullet from his shoulder or carrying him to my chateau could be explained away as delirium from his injuries. 

But the Oiym were less understanding than I, when it came to humans. Less forgiving or flexible. And if they had even one iota of concern about his awareness of our world, he would be ended. Better safe than sorry, as the phrase goes.I could not allow that. 

But how could I prevent it? There were seven of them, all much more powerful Blood Angels than I. No question, if I went against them I’d wind up in one of the cells in their Alexandria, and my pack would be left to fend for itself. 

Or worse—handed over to my sister, Gabrielle.Another possibility I could not allow.

Blood Angel returns...

I worked a bit on Blood Angel, today. A section that takes place in the early years of WW2, where Poland is being overrun by Germany and Russia. Léonidèsis on the side of the Poles so limits his pack of vampires to raping and feasting on the Russians. Which they have fun doing.

I also have a large part written that's set in 1871-72, where Léonidès tracks down his sister, Gabrielle, in Korea and asks her to swap Dmitriy for Franz. Each man is bound to the one who turned them, and Léon really likes Dmitriy. He thinks a swap would be beneficial to them all.

She agrees because Franz is a Blood Angel who is very heterosexual, and he is being an asshole to Léon, but she keeps Dmitriy for not telling her he was gay before she turned him. Never mind that he didn't know, himself. She's punishing him and tormenting Léon just for the fun of it...and there is nothing he can do about it.

I actually had fun with it, because it's a wild fantasy of a story about special vampires with some history mingled in. Gabrielle was in Korea because she was obsessed with a young Naval officer who's of the Blood Angel line, who embarked for Korea in the US quest to force the country to open up. But he winds up getting killed before she can turn him. So when Léon connects with her, she's not in a good mood. I think this is what I'll finish, now.

I also went out to do laundry, today, because I wanted to wash my bedcovers...and reminded myself why I prefer to use the building's washers and driers. It was hot and expensive. $33.20 as opposed to about $20 in-house. The only issue is we only have 4 machines for washing and for drying, so I'd have been going all day.

Seems I'm losing my tolerance for hot weather. It was up to 91, today, which is hot but in Houston it would be around 100 with high humidity and I could function in that. Today wiped me out. So it's that or I'm growing old.

I refuse to accept the latter suggestion.

Almost...

I don't bask a lot in my achievements, but having A Place of Safety-Derry get Third Place in the Book Fest Competition is pretty good, considering it's only the first third of the story. Seems symbolic.

This was a nice, long, quiet day...for the most part. Did some cleaning up on my laptop. Got rid of about a thousand emails I no longer needed. Managed to avoid getting into too many fights online with the MAGAt Class idiots. Had a potential packing job in London vanish, dammit. Balanced my checkbook and updated my daily minder. Even started reading.

I also watched an episode of the new Matlock on Pluto because Kathy Bates is in it. As were ads. It's like watching TV. I don't know what's going on in the program; some kind of conspiracy thing about somebody. I finally realized the service doesn't have episodes 1 & 2; I'd started with 3. A bit irritating.

I'm considering signing up with the Criterion Channel because they offer so many of the movies I want to see...as well as a bunch I already have DVDs for. At $11 a month? I could live with that. There are several foreign films they have that I'd like to see.

Overall, it was a nice relaxing day. Tomorrow is laundry, but I'm going to a laundromat for it, this time. I want to wash my blankets and mattress cover as well as pillows, and I need bigger machines to do it right.

PvSH is still nudging me, hoping I'll change my mind and try something new. But I just can't. Dealing with that story has damaged my self-confidence, since I've been all over the place with it and still don't have its voice or know what it's about. Not really.

I'm done...

The People v. Simon Halloran or Harper or Charlie-Baker or whatever is no longer on my plate. The second I think I have some kind of handle on it and where it's headed for, it explodes in my face and I'm left with nothing but chaos. I'm tired. I don't need that shit, right now.

I'm spending tomorrow reading, no writing. I've never read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce. And there's Durant's Story of Philosophy and The Book Thief. I'm finally getting into Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. And there are so many others.

I may curl up in bed, all day, and doze when I feel like it. Stay the hell away from social media. It's only driving me insane. I'm caught between anger at Felon47's vile administration and the abject cruelty of those people, and heartbreak at realizing nearly half the country thinks this brand of evil is just plain fine.

Hell, more than half, if you take into account the selfish beasts who stand by and do nothing. Their attitude seems to be, If it's not affecting me then it's no big deal. And that sickens me.

Maybe part of how I feel about PvSH is the growing belief that civilization is sliding into a dark age, when stupidity reigned supreme and the few intelligent people were hammered by the church if they dared suggest anything the Christo-fascists didn't like.

Religious assholes are saying, out loud, that people like me should be executed...and no Christians are really firing back. So it may start happening, soon. The LGBTQ+ community has already been targeted by ammosexuals more than once.

Me being 73 helps. I won't be around for a whole lot longer...maybe 10 years...15, if I'm lucky. I'll probably miss out on the worst of it.

Whimper-whimper-whine. Shut the fuck up, Kyle, and find a new direction. Shit.

Side-tracking...

This was not a good day, for me. Simon led me into another side alley that I didn't really understand but found intriguing enough to waste hours seeing where it went. 

The whole opening bit that I posted over the last couple of days was going to be like an interview of Simon by a police psychologist...but doing it was throwing the whole rest of the story off.

I couldn't figure out how to get back to the storyline and have it make sense. The indecision messed with my focus and made me angry with myself for not being able to work the damned thing out...until I concluded it's not workable.

I sometimes wonder if he doesn't really want me to tell his story. If he has a case of cold feet and that's the reason for all the fucking chaos.

Fortunately, my screen saver is a thousand foot high drone shot slowly passing over London. It starts around Wapping just west of Canary Wharf and gently glides in a straight path past the Shard, over the Thames and Tower Bridge, with The City and St. Paul's to the right of frame while the Globe Theatre and Tate Modern are to the left.

Then come Waterloo Station, the London Eye, Big Ben, and Parliament to the left with Charing Cross Station to the right across to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens before jumping back to its original starting point.

It's close to five minutes long and is so amazingly soothing, to me. I can watch it a couple of times and remind myself of the size and scale of the biggest city in Europe. The photo I posted is of the City from Primrose Hill, which also reminds me.

God, I wish I was there instead of here.

Second half...

Here is the rest of the first chapter, now at 1700 words...

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 “There’s a private library I’ve bought in Barrington,” he said, “not so very far from you.” Not even a word of Hello or How are you doing? So like him. 

“Um, Olivier,” I replied, “It’s over three-hundred miles.” 

“Well, you’re a great deal closer than I am.” Spoken in his posh West End tones, which I’m told isn’t an honest accent. “All I need is for you to work up an itemized list. You know the drill. Title, author, date, where published. It’ll be coming as a collection so no need for individual values. Though I am declaring it as six-fifty...” 

“Six-hundred and fifty thousand?” 

“They belonged to Tannen Northridge’s wife.” Spoken as if he were shocked I didn’t already know. 

That name raised issues. I’d worked at Variman's Antiquarian Book Shop for two decades, and I'd had to deal with the woman on several occasions. My first time was when she had loudly complain that the books I’d shipped her were not packed well-enough. She wanted them wrapped in tissue, then in Kraft paper, then with bubble wrap around them and put in a box with bio-degradable peanuts. All of which I'd done. But on top of that, the box should have gone into another box and, since the value was exceptionally high, that box into another. Rather like a Russian Doll. 

I'd done it that way thence forth, when she had ordered online, but no compliment was ever given. Of course, no further complaint, either. About that. Instead, she would snarl about how incomplete the description was. And the three times she set foot in the shop, she'd complained the air conditioning was too cold, and there needed to be better climate control...and so on and so on...

She also took her time paying, usually sixty to ninety days instead of the usual thirty, and then only after our accountant, Arnell, had given her two reminder calls. She was not someone I wanted to deal with. So there was another red flag telling me to not agree to do this. 

“There are only about a hundred titles,” Olivier said. 

“Mrs. Northridge is selling her books to you?” I asked. “Not to Variman’s?”

I thought she'd got on with the two men who owned it...Tomas Varisç and Harold Harman. They looked so much alike people thought they were brothers, but one was from Oregon and the other from Atlanta. Though they did like to bicker like an old married couple. They were now well into their eighties, but the store was still going strong so I'd have thought that would be the first place she'd contact about selling.

Then Olivier sighed and said, “She’s passed away.”

Mrs. Northridge? Gone? That surprised me. I'd thought her impervious to the laws of existence. “I hadn’t heard.” 

“Her husband kept it low-key. I knew her well-enough to be informed of her passing, so got the jump on it. Now I’d also like you to make a condition report on the books...” 

“Oh...oh...Olivier, that is so time-consuming...” 

“Nothing major. Just make certain she took care of them and they haven’t been trashed. These are antiquarian books, and you know how to handle those. Her? I halfway suspect she may have broken a couple of them to remove illustrations.” 

“Oh, God, it’s good she’s gone.” That burst out of me before I could even think to stop it. 

“Well, Simon, I had no idea you were so judgmental.”

“When someone tears apart a book just for the pretty pictures...” I hated people who destroyed books.

“Understood.” 

“Olivier, I don’t know that I’d be right for this.” 

“No, you’re perfect...” 

“But it means traveling to another state and hotel nights and...” 

“It’ll be easy, Simon. I promise. Shouldn’t take you more than a day. Wait, you do have a laptop?” 

“Of course I do.” 

“And Excel?” 

“Yes...but...” 

“Then the list will be easy.”

“You only say that because you’re not doing it.” 

“Simon, please. I would do it myself but I’m nearly four-thousand miles away and the Chelsea Book Fair is happening, next weekend. And Tanner wants this done as quickly as possible, or he’ll have someone just come take the books.” 

“This is so odd. I haven’t heard anything about that collection being up for sale...” 

“Told you, I got in before anyone even knew about it. She’s got some nice editions of Brontë and Austen, a lovely Rubaiyat bound by Sangorsky-Sutcliffe.”

Which I had heard about through the bookseller grapevine but hadn't seen. “Well...I am familiar with a nice set of Fielding’s Amelia she bought from Variman’s.” 

“I didn’t know about that one. So it’s a hundred-and-one books.” 

“You mean titles. That one’s four volumes in a slip-case.” 

“See? See?! You know exactly what needs to be done.” 

I was still unsure. But he was being his usual cajoling self, referencing how I’d already done a couple of similar jobs for him. One of which included air travel. So I sighed and said I’d head down Sunday. 

“Can’t you go, tomorrow?” he asked. “Start Thursday? Finish Friday?” 

“I have to make plans and...” 

“C’mon, Simon. You could head out tonight, if you wanted.” 

“That...is an absolute no. Why are you in such a rush?” 

“Not me. Tanner. I mentioned, he’s pushing to have it gone ASAP. I'll pay you for your drive time.” 

“You would, anyway. But all right; I’ll drive down, tomorrow.” My thought being it would be an excuse to break from that artwork and think about the final touch. I wasn’t due to ship it off till next week.

“Thanks, mate. You’re a life-saver.” 

What an ironic comment, considering the damage he did to my world.

New opening...

I couldn't sleep, last night, so about 3:30am I got up and started writing the first chapter of PvSH. Just let it out, and worked until about 5. It's chatty...but it's leading to something. I did a polish and it's now just over 1600 words, total. Here's the first half:

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I did not want to go.

I'd been called and asked to catalogue a small book collection and I don’t know why, but something inside me said, Refuse the job. Do not do it. Stay home and deal with the myriad other things you have to do.So many...things. List of things. To do. Make a list to...to prove you have a list of things to do.On top of that, do not forget that every time you’ve ignored this feeling, you’ve regretted it. So do not go. 

But reality has this cold manner of bringing you back to a simple understanding...that sometimes you have to be one with the world, whether you want to or not. And in this case it simply boiled down to...I needed the money. Repairs to my little CRV had depleted my savings below a level I was comfortable with. The payment this job would bring promised to rebuild it well enough to ease my concerns. 

I should have listened to my voice. 

I should have said, No. 

I was working on a new painting when the call came. A commission I’d agreed to for a client who already had two of my works. He’d sent me a photograph of himself and his lover, and this would make it a triptych. I was close to completion, so normally I would have just let the call go to voice mail.

Except I was stopped by uncertainty as to where to add the final touch on the piece.It was in my stark black and white style, on canvas. Kodalithic. Two men in an embrace, from the hips up, front three-quarter angle. My client with his back to the wall, left arm dropped to his side, his shirt open to reveal a full chest with hair, his face open but turned away from the other man. Whose shirt was buttoned and who was trying to kiss him. His right hand was around the man’s waist and his face lost in darkness. 

The shadows were sharp against the white of their shirts and highlighted areas of their bodies. To me, the pose offered up an interesting tension. Want on the part of the one kissing; rejection on the part of the other. Lovely and sharp, awaiting my signature...a dash of blood red. Like on all of my paintings. But nowhere seemed right for it. 

If I put it on the man who was looking away, at the base of his jawline, it could look like the kissing man’s nose was bleeding. Not what I wanted. If I put it along his lip, it would seem as if they’d had a fight. Also not my preference. His eyes were focused away from the other man and sad. The dash of red there would offer the same impression. So on his chest? No. That would be seen as a stabbing wound, and I did not want it to be linked solely to violence. 

So when my phone buzzed, I accepted the call as a welcome distraction, since I knew the caller. Olivier Deskin, an antiquarian book dealer in London. 

It’s no surprise he would call me. I’d worked in book stores my entire life, especially antiquarian the last twenty years...well, almost twenty-five. I’d recently retired to live on Social Security, supplemented by the sales of my artwork or, as noted, commissions. Of which I’d received three, prior to this one. But I was finding the cost of living was far greater than I had expected. And that’s with me already being a very frugal person. Then with my car needing new brakes...any additional income was welcome. 

Initially, Olivier’s call seemed to be an opportunity to cushion my financial situation. 

Oh, to clarify, my name is Simon Halloran, and I look like someone you might expect to see in a book store. Quiet. Slim. Normal height. Still a full head of hair but more silver than brown, as it once was. Plain features and good posture, with no facial hair.And I still had all my teeth. Dental health had been drilled into me since a toddler while living with my grandmother, in San Antonio. 

Olivier was a short man born into relative wealth near Wimbledon. He was very trim, like a tennis player, thanks to always being in motion, and a bit on the posh side. He had a very nice profile with a Roman nose, thick wavy hair, and when he learned I was gay made certain to let me know he was not interested in the lads, just the lassies.His words, not mine. 

As if I were planning to molest him, or something. It was silly.

We’d met when he came into the shop where I worked and I sold him a nice East of the Sun, West of the Moon illustrated by Kay Nielson as well as a Grimm’s Fairy Tales done by Arthur Rackham. He also came close to purchasing a framed leaf from Rackham’s Das Rheingold.

I ramble here because this information is important to the context of what happened, after Olivier called.

Shifting sands...

I feel like something is changing within me, and I'm not sure what it is. But I don't want to go out into the world unless I have to. Don't want to explore like I used to. I just want to stay home.

I have a doctor's appointment on Wednesday and cannot see myself leaving my apartment till then. At which time I'll get some groceries I need...especially DPZ. Then come home and stay the fuck away from people.

Thanks to social media, I'm growing to really dislike humanity. Not just the ridiculous MAGAt Class who are slavishly devoted to Felon47, but those who ignore the whole situation that's building. As if they think so long as they aren't affected it won't matter.

It will, eventually. The country is sliding into a form of theocracy, something that's already taken hold in too many states, and now is verging into totalitarianism. For example, Greg Abbott threatening to arrest Democrats in the Legislature because they left the state to kill his ability to redistrict Texas for the MAGAt Class. All to gain 5 more seats in the House. Now California, NY and Michigan are threatening to retaliate, for Democrats.

Abbott has no legal basis, but that doesn't stop those people. What matters to them is force and, like Felon47, a willingness to ignore the courts and do as they damn well pleases. Tearing people's lives apart as they go.

Like Paley's and Walstead's actions in PvSH do Simon's. In response, his poems have become more angry and threatening. His art is growing more extreme. He's 69 and lost and wondering how he wound up where he is. What his reaction will be when, as he expects, he will be found guilty by the court.

We've walked that followup back from murder...maybe. I think. But too much is still locked in Simon's shadows and I'm only catching glimpses of it, when he doesn't want me to.

And if this sounds fucking crazy, you're right; it is. But these are becoming crazy times and that affects me and my characters.

Scary me...

I'm sitting here trying to figure out what the fuck is going on with Simon and myself, and I wind up making the attached artwork (cropped to be SFW) and then writing the following poem.

I think it's in free-form...

Blood is coming.Hear it flow Closer. Cruel. Unstoppable. As furies laugh And beg me cry. I cannot. It was long ago. 
No midnight shrouds it In love. No careful step To soften echoes. No prayers or dreams To stay its spread. The pool of crimson Will be met By life of one So filled with dread. 
The silence Deep with screams Lies where it fell And all one knowsIs three cold words Softly echo In your head... It is done.
I don't know what it means and Simon is being no help. He's pushing to kill Paley at the end of the story. Despite my own feelings about it. He hates the man, and that builds as the city keeps demanding he surrender to their claims against him.
That adds to his emotion, increases his anger, but basically he wants to do it because the man took away the one thing he had left to himself--that he'd never been in trouble with the law. Despite living for years in a state that would have jailed him, given the chance.
He now knows that he's spent his life in the shadows for nothing. A crazy way to view it, but that is what's eating him up.
I don't know how to handle this. I mean...well...how would he do it? No, I...I do have an idea as to how. It's getting Paley close enough for it to happen that's the problem...
Man, I really do not like the direction this is going...

Psycho-me...

I read back over some of the posts I've made on this blog regarding The People v Simon Harper and I am all over the place with it. Totally out of control. Which only means I have no idea what the intent of the story is...or about...and the characters aren't working together, yet. Even the outline I did, initially, is scattered everywhere.

It really startled me, because I thought I was honing in on PvSH's through line...but that is nowhere near the case. After a dozen comments regarding Simon and his actions, I was completely confused about what was going on, and why. So I did what any normal red-blooded American gay male would do in a situation like this.

I made hot tea and ate two small Marie Callendar's chocolate pies. 88 calories. Totally killed my diet...hell, the structure of my existence...but it comforted me enough to kick back and reconsider why this story is coming to me, right now. Why it won't let go, even as it refuses to give me a reason to hold on. I think I need to know that, first.

All I have right now is questions.

Is Simon filled with a rage he's fighting to keep control of? Is he depressed about how fucked up everything is? Is he hurt about being arrested for the first time in his life? He's 69 years old and lived in a state that would put him in jail for loving a man, especially in the 70s, yet he never once had to face that. And now he does, over nothing.

Is he resigned to the hatefulness of the world against people like him? Where even people who claim to be allies will support those who want to hurt him? Something he honestly can do nothing about...except not let them get close to him.

This also leads into does he really hate Alain so much he wants to see the man die? Why would he feel that way if I take out the sexual abuse? Is emotional abuse enough to trigger it? Or is it just him being too weak to reject Alain and thinking the man's death is the only way to truly end his relationship with him? That sounds pathetic.

For a moment, I thought I'd reverse the situation at the end and have Simon kill Paley...but I hate the thought of writing a killer queer. And don't point out that Dirc set men up to be killed, in DDB; he had justifications and enough cover to avoid feeling responsible in any way. If Simon killed Paley, it would be at close range and without excuses...and would strengthen the impression in people's minds that queers are dangerous.

I won't be part of that...even though I have been. I just...I won't with Simon's story.