Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 77

Chapters 4-6

Awareness

Brendan tears Scott's jeans climbing the gate and the gravel drive sets rocks in his sandals, still he pushes forward. He is overwhelmed by the wide residential street and sizes of the homes and cars. It's so peaceful and calm, it's like he's in a whole different universe. Aunt Mari returns and has to honk at him to make him move out of the driveway. 

She has a massive Chevy station wagon packed with groceries. He helps her take them inside and as she puts them away, she reminds Brendan he has a doctor's appointment. He had forgotten but then has a flash of a memory of a woman toying with him, at the office. He shakes it off and works on the iron to keep his mind busy. 

Aunt Mari points out that he hasn't been listening to her as she talked to him, and he's apologetic. Then she reveals Eamonn was one of three men arrested for the bombing and others are unhappy with him, so he is not returning home anytime soon. If ever. Shaken, he passes out, hitting his head. Aunt Mari tends to him, then he goes up to change. He considers what probably happened and comes to believe it was his fault Eamonn was arrested. But he is also overwhelmed by the realization he's been set free from Derry and her past...and is ecstatic. He asks Aunt Mari to explain how she got him into the US, but she's reticent, making him believe he was snuck out of Ireland and into the US. 

Houston 

Brendan is taken to the doctor's appointment and is amazed at the size of Houston, the building going on, and how flat the land is. He is told, en route, his uncle contacted people in NORAID and Aunt Mari flew to Northern Ireland to bring him back to the States. He was hidden outside Strabane to give him time to heal before travel. His rucksack having clothes in it cushioned his fall enough so he was only injured -- broken arm and ribs -- but he was also the beginning of a heart attack due to a congenital heart defect. The doctor he's going to see is a heart specialist. Father Jack drove them to the airport in Manchester, and he was brought into the US under his own passport. Ma was shocked he had it. He was under sedation when passing through Customs, and they were told he was simple. 

At the doctor's office, Brendan has flashes of an uncomfortable memory about the doctor's assistant, Carla. But she tends to his injury, gives him a tetanus shot in his butt. Then she points out he's torn his jeans just before Dr. Gilbert comes in. The elderly man is so kindly Brendan tells him of his confusion over the memories and reveals more than he intended to about himself, including who Joanna was, thanks to her name tattooed on his shoulder. Dr. Gilbert offers him a referral to a therapist, then says he is healing well and everything will get better. 

Dr. Gilbert leaves and Carla comes in to tell Brendan he can go...and to watch him pull on his shirt. She touches him, suggestively, and he grabs her hand, angry at how she could mess with him knowing his condition. She claims she meant nothing by it, but he wipes his fingers over her lipstick, then smears it on his face and gives Aunt Mari the hint something happened. She reveals Carla got him to answer question so she was the one who always handled him. Alone. He knows she did something to him and hates the woman...but wonders if he wants to see her, again. 

Catch Up 

Brendan reads letters from Mairead about how rough things are in Derry. Ma and Rhuari were arrested for a short while. Eamonn was tried under the Special Powers Act and sent to prison for 20 years. But Colm and Danny have not been touched. Ma is getting a phone, thanks to Mairead, and Mai is happy her family lives in a forward-thinking town like Toronto...and about to have child #4. 

Brendan starts doing repairs around the house and then for the neighbor's housekeepers and gardeners. He learns Uncle Sean has had visitors from Ireland, once of whom was Da's brother. He can find out nothing more and Aunt Mari is tight with information now. But Brendan overhears them discussing a position at a bar Uncle Sean just bought, called The Colonel's, and asks if he can take it. He's to restock, keep the place clean and, since he cleaned up the kitchen in the back, cook as need be. Three nights a week for $20 a night, paid under the table. 

The main waitress is Raquel (Rocky), who is all business but whose twang Brendan has a hard time understanding; a second waitress is three nights a week, Lorraine, who speaks with an easier drawl. He gets along with Todd, the bartender, who gives him a ride home, buys him a beer and lets him smoke some of his pot. Then Brendan finds out Uncle Sean has plans for a row of shops next to the bar, and he feels settled enough to wonder if he might be able to take one over as his own shop, even though he's still just seventeen.

Posting the outline, from the beginning

I'm posting the full outline of New World For Old, to let people see how the story's planning out. I'd started to do this the beginning of the year but stopped. Now I'll be going all the way through. Here are synopses of the first three chapters, out of what has grown to 29 of them.

Rebirth 

Brendan slowly emerges from a stupor. He does not recognize where he is or understand why everything is so different from Derry. He is at an upstairs window and a half-eaten sandwich is on the sill. Memories crash in on him and send him into a painful panic mode. He has a mantra to calm himself and has to use it, over and over, then his mood grows angry and he destroys a line of ants that were taking away the remains of his sandwich. 

He realizes he is in the attic of a house. Below are the back yard, pool, pool house, and a separate garage. He focuses enough to go into the bathroom and recalls being tended to by a couple of men. Looks in a mirror to find his hair cropped close, his beard patchy and himself haggard. Overwhelmed, he collapses. 

Aunt Mari finds him, takes him back to his bed and lets him know he was brought to her house in Houston. He has been in an akinetic catatonic state. Hit with memories, he realizes Joanna is dead and now food for ants...and passes out. 

Rejoining 

Brendan wakes late in the day. Lying in the bed, he forgets where he is, for a moment, then hears voices and smells food and is very hungry. He makes himself get up and go to the bathroom to brush his teeth. It exhausts him, and the taste brings brutal memories of Joanna kissing him at the circle fort. 

He finds he is in an attic room that is somewhat hidden. There is a large space filled with boxes and junk, and a hallway winds around to the stairs. He quietly winds his way down and is met near the bottom by his uncle Sean and the family dog, Angus. Brendan has a memory of Uncle Sean bathing and dressing him, and finds the man has a slow Texas way of speaking. He's taken to the family room to meet his cousins, Brandi and Bernadette, both around ten years of age and always arguing. He remembers them complaining about his crying, and recalls a son named Scott, who helped Uncle Sean.

Brendan learns he was brought to Houston in late October, and it is now April, 1973. More memories jolt him until Scott returns with a friend, Jeremy, whose family lives close by. Both have a hint of pot's aroma on them. Jeremy leaves and dinner is served. The girls mess with Brendan by claiming to be each other. Irritated, he snaps at them that he's mad as a march hare so be careful. They grow quiet. He's given a small amount of food on his plate due to not having been eating much, told he has a doctor's appointment in 10 days, accepts what has happened and says a prayer for those long dead. 

Moving On 

Brendan explores the attic but mainly stays in his new room, clinging to memories while slowly assimilating to the family and their relative wealth. Scott is off to University in Austin, soon. Brandi and Bernadette are 10 months apart, in age, and agree on nothing except that Brendan is a carnival attraction for their friends. He calls them the B-girls and is wary of them. Aunt Mari runs the house and refuses a maid. Uncle Sean owns three Irish bars in town that are very successful and is considering buying a fourth. Jeremy is like a second son and is headed for a kibbutz in Israel, for a year. The B-Girls think he and Brendan look like brothers. 

Brendan reads books he finds in the attic, which helps make the slashes of memory fewer and farther between. He is always in pajama bottoms, then one day he is drawn outside to help Uncle Sean work on his old Volvo. It won't start, until Brendan sees the issue and gets it going, surprising the man. While catatonic, Brendan had automatically repaired a fan that was squeaking in his room but Uncle Sean and Aunt Mari had shrugged it off as unexplainable. Ma had never told them he could fix anything, once he'd seen how it went together. Brendan tells his uncle, "She thinks me simple." Then he heads back into the house. 

He fixes a sandwich, amazed at the wealth of food in the fridge, then naps. Finally he showers and dresses in some of Scott's old clothes, which fit him poorly. He explores the house and then the back yard, where he finds an iron Aunt Mari was throwing out. He plans to fix it then hears a voice comment on old habits but no one is around and realizes he was talking to himself. He wants to look around the front of the house but the driveway gate is closed and the walkway gate has a lock. He starts to back away but tells himself Joanna would not hesitate to climb it...so he does, still holding the iron.

Partial draft...

I added a thought regarding New World For Old into the midway point, dealing with how he's too pissed off to be afraid when he's been kidnapped. Things snowballed to where I would up polishing up the second half of this section. Mainly intensifying the emotional content and avoiding anything that's too derivative. While retracing the car's route when he was grabbed and taken to be beaten, Brendan finally feels the fear he ignored during the actual kidnapping.

I wound up increasing the page count to 542 and wordage to 122,427. I think this is all I can do, for now. I'm at the point where I'm changing punctuation and making some sentences smaller...so time to step back and let it percolate.

I've also got a solid friendship going between Brendan, Jeremy and Everett. A straight guy with two gay friends caught in a very 70s sensibility. Putting some of myself into that, mainly as Everett. All pre-AIDs, when things were wild and free and being gay wasn't quite the dangerous political issue it is, now...or that it became during the epidemic.

I'm letting Everett tell Brendan about an incident that happened to him when he was 19, in San Antonio. He accepted a ride from a guy he knew and the guy's two friends, but instead of taking him to his home, they took him into Breckenridge Park and raped him, then dumped him. He flagged down a cop and was talked out of filing a report because he was gay. It's illegal to be gay in Texas, the cop said, so you'll go to jail. Everett believed him and let it go. And it fucked him up for years. But it's also why he stepped in when he saw something similar about to happen to Brendan's cousin, Scott, early in the book.

A job outside Boston is back on the for third week of March, now that I'm Covid negative. Going into the office, tomorrow, to get paperwork for the San Francisco job and swinging by storage to see what we have for materials. Finish preparations. I'd already canceled my hotel and car, so rebook those. Dammit.

Fucking chaos...

I'm just now beginning to calm down after a day of craziness regarding preparing for upcoming jobs; canceling plans for jobs that got rescheduled; running to the bank to get a letter for my younger brother notarized, now that I'm Covid free; doing mounds of laundry; seeing my car's right front bumper is damaged and I don't know when or how that happened; getting a few more groceries; finding out it now costs $16 for a BLT, small fries and small drink at 5 Guys (but I'm starving so I pay it); working out the amount of packing materials needed for a big job in Chicago that has become ridiculous; getting home with everything to find not one cart available to take my stuff up to my apartment (other residents take them and leave them in the hallways to be collected, tomorrow) so had to go looking for one; then all out of sorts because I'm tired and still have a nagging cough from Covid and couldn't rest till everything was put away and I'm getting a headache...

Lemme tell ya -- if there was an Olympic event for whining, I'd have got a gold medal, today.

Now it's after 11pm and I'm scattered of brain, so no writing done. And while everything I need to schedule is scheduled, I haven't put any of it into my calendar, yet. That's for tomorrow. As is finishing up the materials planning for a big job as well as ordering containers for a job in Berkeley, next week. And washing out a nasty new medication I'd been put on by my urologist. It messed with my insides to where I didn't want to leave the bathroom, almost. But it's faded out. Why the fuck do they make meds that will give you cramps and diarrhea? 

Anyway, I did manage to at least do some thinking about APoS and realized I don't have Brendan doing what he usually does when he's upset and lost and confused -- work on fixing something. Metaphorically speaking, him shifting into punk mode is him taking himself apart and then slowly putting himself back together to work better...which fits in neatly with him learning his mother has cancer. By this point, he is capable of handling their prickly relationship.

And even if people don't see it, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Next...

I blew off synopsizing the last two chapters of APoS because more moments manifested themselves into it. I finished this draft, finally, and it's now 537 pages/121,019 words...and 28 Chapters. I added one more at the end and intensified some other aspects of the story.

Part of this was Brendan retracing the route of when he was kidnapped, brutalized and almost killed by some racist rednecks. I built up how he's now fully feeling the terror that he was going to be killed, something he was too hopped up on adrenalin to pay attention to as it was happening. It grows in intensity until he actually finds the place he was taken to...and it's a churchyard. Where he damn near died, and no one even tried to stop it. He explodes into anger, tears up the area using his motorbike while cursing the people in nearby homes who let him be attacked, and speeds off in a fury.

When he gets home, he shaves off his mustache and part of his scalp to careen into a punk phase. Then he talks Everett and Jeremy into taking him to listen to a San Antonio punk band called The Next play at Raul's in Austin.

They have a song written by Skip7, the guitarist, called Monotony that works perfectly with Brendan's state of mind. Ty, the lead singer, howls it with an amazing amount of fury. Legal issues may force me to change all of this detail, but I'm not going to worry about it till I get there. Right now, it sets up another moment that will happen in Book Three.

I helped a guy named Mark Rublee shoot a documentary of them for his final project at Trinity University's film school, and it turned out well. As I recall, I had a bit of a crush on Skip...the blond kid with the torn sleeves...God, that was in 1979.

Almost done synopsizing New World For Old

Brendan feels betrayed by what happened so once he's healed finds a bedsit room off Westheimer and moves there in the dead of night, to get away from his Uncle. He tells no one where he's going. It becomes almost idyllic, for him, until his sister comes to Houston, from Toronto, and he returns to see her.

I have three chapters of APoS left to summarize, then can go back through the book to make sure everything is consistent. Brendan's brother, Rhuari, is studying Gaelic and Brendan has introduced him to one of the people at the house he went to live in -- Eldon, who is a maven of languages. He's tall and thin and awkward, otherwise, but in this Brendan sees he's done right by them both. 

In one of his letters to Eldon, Rhuari includes this Gaelic poem by an anonymous monk in the 9th Century:

Pangur Bán

Messe ocus Pangur Bán, · cechtar nathar fria saindan bíth a menmasam fri seilgg · mu menma céin im saincheirdd.

Caraimse fos ferr cach clú · oc mu lebran leir ingnu ni foirmtech frimm Pangur Bán · caraid cesin a maccdán. 

Orubiam scél cen scís · innar tegdais ar noendís taithiunn dichrichide clius · ni fristarddam arnáthius. 

Gnáth huaraib ar gressaib gal · glenaid luch inna línsam os mé dufuit im lín chéin · dliged ndoraid cu ndronchéill. 

Fuachaidsem fri frega fál · a rosc anglése comlán fuachimm chein fri fegi fis · mu rosc reil cesu imdis.

Faelidsem cu ndene dul · hinglen luch inna gerchrub hi tucu cheist ndoraid ndil · os me chene am faelid. 

Cia beimmi amin nach ré, · ni derban cách a chele maith la cechtar nár a dán, · subaigthius a óenurán. 

He fesin as choimsid dáu · in muid dungní cach oenláu du thabairt doraid du glé · for mu mud cein am messe. 

Translation:

I and Pangur Bán, each of us two at his special art: his mind is at hunting (mice), my own mind is in my special craft. 

I love to rest—better than any fame—at my booklet with diligent science: not envious of me is Pangur Bán: he himself loves his childish art. 

When we are—tale without tedium—in our house, we two alone, we have—unlimited (is) feat-sport—something to which to apply our acuteness. 

It is customary at times by feats of valour, that a mouse sticks in his net, and for me there falls into my net a difficult dictum with hard meaning. 

His eye, this glancing full one, he points against the wall-fence: I myself against the keenness of science point my clear eye, though it is very feeble. 

He is joyous with speedy going where a mouse sticks in his sharp claw: I too am joyous, where I understand a difficult dear question. 

Though we are thus always, neither hinders the other: each of us two likes his art, amuses himself alone. 

He himself is master of the work which he does every day: while I am at my own work, to bring difficulty to clearness. 

Blogger went wonky...

For some reason, Blogger shut me out of my blog and I couldn't get back in until now. I don't know why, but I had to finally change my password in three different ways to get it to work. Which is irritating. I now need to update my password hints on my reminder page.

It's also messed up my links on Chrome. All I did was make sure my mike is working for a video call to my doctor, tomorrow, but apparently that was too much. God, sometimes I hate technology.

What's especially irritating is that this comes just as I'm working on updating a serious part of APoS. Because he's dating Vangie, a woman who's half black/half Cajun he's jumped by some racists, a pillow case is rammed over his head and he is taken to Deer Park, bound to a tree and viciously beaten. Initially, I had him left there to make his own way home. He's seriously injured and doesn't know where he is, so he calls his uncle to come get him, and events lead him to believe the man knew what was going to happen.

Then it hit me -- Brendan has a heart condition. If he's being attacked like this, he would have issues...which changed everything. I tossed out 6 pages and he wound up having an episode of some type. He floats in and out of consciousness, so he only hears snippets of what's happening...but knows the men who attacked him are shaken and arguing over what to do. Can't take him to the ER; too many questions. 

So he's given a nitroglycerin tablet and taken home in the back of a huge station wagon, where he is carried into the pool house and tended to by Aunt Mari. Because of things said and not said, he comes to believe Uncle Sean was actually at the beating and probably the one who stopped it when he collapsed. He's also pretty sure Vangie's cop brother, Lon, was there, too.

This is what I worked on, once I got some of my internet crap settled and corrected. There's still more to do and I need to pass through it, again, to make sure it holds together, but at least it's workable.

Still dealing with a light version of Corona virus. Barely a line showing on the test, but visible and my sinuses are agreeing with it. Dammit. Taking another one, tomorrow.

I will arrive...

I got two more chapters reduced to three paragraphs, each, telling what's happening. Seems that's all I'm able to do, at a time, before I zone. I'm still not 100% but also still better than yesterday. And I'm seeing spots in the chapters that I've written where I can deepen the story even more.
Something I've noticed is Brendan isn't as OCD in this book, and that may need to be changed. Granted, he's had a brutal shock, so maybe that could alter his personality...but it's not feeling right. He'd still have his habits, and they do show up, now and again.
When he returns from the New Orleans trip, he gets into a huge argument with his Uncle because he didn't tell the family he was going. He didn't even think about it. That is how he learns he's overstayed his visa and they're just letting it ride because he's white. But running around with a group of black and Cajun people is just begging for the cops to start nosing around, wondering what's going on.
His uncle's casual racism hits him wrong...and snarls back at him...then the man punches him to the floor. Aunt Mari has to intervene, and tells Brendan it's just better for all concerned if he keeps a low-profile. Even the IRA was pissed at him for ruining their plans, despite not meaning to.
Now Brendan feels like he's really a prisoner. He focuses on his repair jobs to help him settle his mind. As Joanna said in Book One, he likes to fix things when he's upset...and it does help him decide to just do what he wants, but quietly. Except he's about to learn there is no quiet way for a white boy to date a black girl in mid-70s Houston. Hell, there are people around even today who will disown their kids if they get involved with someone from another race. That's how little things have changed.
But this is a lesson Brendan will learn the hard way.

Glancing blow, maybe?

I'm already feeling better in this Covid saga. It's been crazy. Negative on Saturday. Full-fledged on Monday. Like the tail end of a sinus infection, today. Tempted to run a test just to see if it's gone, yet, but I told myself, wait to see what it says on Friday. Give it plenty of time to depart me, hopefully, forever. But from now on, I'm wearing 2 masks when I go out. Taking no more chances.

I got a couple of chapters each worked into a short 3 paragraphs on APoS, as it's going along. First is when Jeremy comes back from Israel, having fought in the Yom Kippur war, and the only person he feels any kinship to is Brendan, because he's also seen death. What follows is Brendan's turning 19 so Rene, his boss, throws a Cajun celebration for him, including the whole three pots, Falstaff beer and beignets.

New World For Old has 27 chapters in it. That seems like a lot, but I like where they break so not going to mess with them. I'm letting it just flow...but skimming through it for the synopsis is showing me places I can tighten and/or expand the connection to Derry's situation, in Brendan's consciousness. He's going to nearly flip out thanks to the Mardis Gras crowd in the French Quarter because the chaos becomes a combination of the Celebration Fleadh and Bloody Sunday.

Looks like my first job this month will be handling moving an archive from Berkeley to a university for someone very well-known. All I'm doing is overseeing the collection from where it's stored and then put into shipping containers to protect it. No physical labor, if I can help it. Hell, not even a day's work, but a trip to SFO and back...and maybe a stop in Chicago or NYC en route back.

Too bad I no longer like San Francisco. 

Covid, here...

After a rough night of coughing and aching, I took another Covid test, Monday morning...and it was positive. Took another an hour later, even more positive. Between Saturday afternoon and Sunday night, the damned disease caught me. I'm not flat on my back, like some people. Seems I have a mild case, but it's still taking its toll. Couldn't focus at all, yesterday. Barely managed to postpone my job in NYC and contacted my Doctor's office to speak with him. Guess who wasn't in, yesterday.

TBH, this really just feels like a case of bronchitis, which I've had before. I don't have it bad enough to require the anti-viral regime people like my sister have gone through. Just rest, isolation (no problem there), plenty of fluids and use Zyrtec to handle the sinuses and cough drops for the throat.

Unfortunately, I'd forgotten cough drops have a negative effect on me, especially the sugarless ones. Besides, gargling with salt water does a better job. Lots of tea. Lots of DPZ, which actually handles the tickle in my throat well. And Tylenol. I'm doing well-enough...but I'd much rather not have had this.

I know where I got it, from a woman at the office. She had Covid recently and came beck before I though she would. I walked into the office to drop off paperwork and there she was, and I wasn't masked. That was on Monday...or was it Tuesday, last week? Don't remember. Head is fuzzy. But within a day I was feeling out of sorts. I'm 5x-vaxxed so that is probably why I'm not in the hospital. Ugh, the one time I don't wear a mask.

Anyway, all travel is off for two weeks. If I can kick myself hard enough, tomorrow, I'll start in on the step outline of the book, chapter by chapter. Get that done. Send out more agent queries. Use the now-free time as productively as possible for APoS. I've spent too much time futzing around with it to kick back, now.