Scott Colbert's Blog, page 9

Read, Rate and Win!

Here’s your chance to win a $10 Amazon digital card! Entering is pretty simple, just read my novella Barbed Wire Kisses (either Kindle or Nook), leave a review, leave a link to it here and we’ll pick a winner. Whether the review is good or bad, won’t make a difference as it will be completely random.

Contest will be open from 7/3/12 until 8/10/12, with a winner being determined by 8/15/12.

You can leave a review either on the Amazon website or the Barnes and Noble website only.

http://www.amazon.com/Barbed-Wire-Kisses-ebook/dp/B008771Q60/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_t_1

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/barbed-wire-kisses-scott-colbert/1111319725?ean=2940014700627

Father’s Day

This past week was the 23rd anniversary of my dad’s passing away.  He was 48.

I’ve been thinking about him a lot as Barbed Wire Kisses was released and I had dedicated the book to him as well as basing the character of Eddie McCarthy on him as well. While not a carbon copy, there’s enough of my dad’s essence in their to make it very personal for me.

See, my dad and I never had what you would call a close relationship.  I can’t blame him -he tried.  I was just a selfish, unrepentant asshole. My depression and all that that entails hadn’t been diagnosed.  I was off course, out of sync and refused to believe that I was the problem, everyone else was. 

Still, when I got the message on my answering machine from my mom, then called back and found out a part of me died.  All the anger and resentment I felt slipped away like an old skin.  I can’t explain it better than that.

I only wish he was here to see how much of an influence he turned out to have in my later years.  He is still missed.

Sex, violence and saying naughty words

This will be a bit interactive-I hope-so what follows will make more sense. If you would, click on the link and then click on the look inside to the left of the web page and read the first couple of chapters of BWK.http://www.amazon.com/Barbed-Wire-Kisses-ebook/dp/B008771Q60/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_t_1

I’m not going to ask you to buy it, hopefully that bit whetted your appetite to find out more of the story-I want to talk about those first two chapters. Originally, The book opened with Chapter two. The very first line I wrote was “Eddie’s god was dead.”  The entire second chapter was written, and then the  first chapter came right after. As I revised, I switched them for a couple of reasons. 1) Starting a story in the middle of action is always a great way to get a reader involved. 2) I was thinking of David Cronenberg’s movie Scanners, and how shortly into it, a man’s head explodes. I know I spent the rest of the movie wondering how he would top that, and the tension of not knowing what to expect enhanced the terror. I had hopes, my opening chapter would do the same.

It’s certainly the most violent, profane and disgusting bit I ever wrote. I’m not sure if I would have written it that way if I had to do it all over again, but nonetheless I’m glad I did. I wanted something so over the top, so gruesome and nauseating that you would have no doubt that that these two would deserve whatever may come their way. I let myself go unfiltered, and I think I did a decent job of creating a scene of such violence and grotesque behavior you’d want to know what makes them tick.  And as with my Scanners experience, I wanted that sense of dread to permeate the rest of the book, make the reader how I would top the opening.

Of course, along with that comes the language I use. I will admit I have a propensity for gutter language when appropriate, but also know when to keep it out of a conversation (like a job interview). 

But how much is too much? BWK is dark, profane, violent and hopefully disturbing. In the context of the story I had in mind, each curse had its place. And yet, even as I revised and edited, I did find some of it excessive and cut a bit. for some it may still be too much, for others it may not even register. I think some of the excessive swearing suited the story. These are uneducated people, they spoke the language of the rough and wild. But they were words, without the stigma attached to them that we have today. In that sense there’s almost a purity to them. If you’ve seen the HBO series Deadwood, or done some research, then you know what I’ve written was very much in the vernacular of the time. People used cocksucker as freely as we use the word, dude, or bro. 

Did I have to do that? Wouldn’t a “good” writer be able to get his ideas across without resorting to cursing? Perhaps, but it wouldn’t be nearly as flavorful, or true to the time period, and I really wanted to make BWK as authentic as possible (given some of the supernatural elements later on in the book).

There’s a fine line between authentic and gratuitous, few do it successfully (though David Milch makes it pure poetry in Deadwood) and I hope I did it well enough that people don’t see it as excessive or gratuitous, but as the seasoning for a very spicy chile. 

 

In my next post I’ll talk about the origins of some of the characters. 

From Conception to Birth

Talk to any writer, and they’ll say that the number one question posed to them (either right before or right after, “Can you read this?”), is where you get your ideas.  Sometimes this is easy to answer (as with Barbed Wire Kisses), other times it’s not (as with my short story “Killer Weed” found on this blog).  It’s always a frustrating question because it means having to explain how your mind works, and there’s never a ready and stock answer for that!

In the instance of BWK, it started simply enough, I wanted to write a serial killer story.  My original thought was having the killer find his victims through his job at a call center. After all, how easy would it be to get addresses and all sorts of information about a prospective victim than working for one?  What proved not so easy, is dealing with today’s technology.  With the advent of cell phones, smart phones, tablets, laptops, the constant internet connection and proliferation of cameras everywhere, it wouldn’t be as easy to get away with a murder spree for the length of time I was thinking about.  Also, given the amount of info collected about CSR’s and who they talk with on a daily basis made it not quite as easy.  At the same time, I was also thinking of who my killer would be, and the thought came to make the villain of the piece, not a lone killer, but a pair: brothers. At this point I didn’t know if they worked together, or if they acted separately; hell, I wasn’t even sure if it was believable. Taking to Google (a writer’s best friend), I searched for brother serial killers, and to my amazement, found that the US’s first reported serial killer was in fact brothers (cousins actually but referred to as the Harps Brothers).   While certainly an anomaly in serial killer  lore, it gave me the spark I needed.

There was one problem: their exploits were in the late 1770′s, a time frame just foreign enough to me (and requiring a bit too much research for my own comfort level), that I wasn’t sure I could pull it off. As I was reading a slush pile for the Dead West anthology at the time, the idea to fictionalize them a bit (okay a lot), and plop them down in the Old West, suddenly seemed a no brainer. And it was with that , that BWK finally began to take shape and the process of writing it came (not always easy, and still far more research than I anticipated) to fruition finally.

Over the next several months, I lived, ate and breathed with Micah and his brother; I wrote passages that even made my stomach turn, and had them do things that I didn’t expect. In the end, the final published work is still pretty close to the first draft story wise. I’m very proud of it, and hope those who choose to read it, enjoy it as well.

Coming in my next blog post, the excesses of the first chapter, use of profanity, and how much is too much.

BWK Now available!

Get it from Amazon, and coming to the Nook soon. http://www.amazon.com/Barbed-Wire-Kisses-ebook/dp/B008771Q60/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338410402&sr=1-8

BWK Cover!

I’m very happy to show off the cover for my debut novella “Barbed Wire Kisses”. I think Karen Koehler did an awesome job.

Halloween Redux

Since I’ve been unable to write a proper Halloween entry, or any for a substantial amount of time, I thought I would reprint my gay, stoner zombie story Killer Weed:

Killer Weed

by

Scott Colbert

When you kill your best friend, then he ought to stay dead.

If he had, I might have a better than snowball’s chance in hell of surviving. I didn’t pay much attention to him at first; after all he was never right in the head. I can say that, because, we’ve known each other since…well hell I don’t remember not ever knowing him. When I call him my best friend I don’t say it lightly. We’d both been through life’s grinder one too many times, and the shit storms we survived, brought us together. We were survivors, so it was a goddamn shame what I did but there was no choice. The bastard tore off my nut and ate it like it was the most natural thing in the world to do. I’m getting ahead of myself though, let me start at the beginning while I have time.

Like most summer days in Phoenix it was hot as fuck. Even my cat wasn’t demanding to be let out. Any other day, you would have found me at work around that time but I’d gotten suspended for excessive lateness. See, that still doesn’t make sense to me; not that it matters since there’s no job to go to anymore.

I was lying on my couch, half asleep and half listening to Montel kiss Sylvia Browne’s fraudulent ass. “It won’t be like anything else…” I heard her declare in that raspy smoker’s voice.

Looking back, I can say that’s the only thing she got right. Anyway, I’m in that twilight area of awake and sleep when the coffee table begins vibrating. I reach over, knocking the overflowing ashtray over as well as some empty packs of smokes and God knows what else onto a carpet that’d seen better days.

A blinking light. A text message. I mutter some random obscenity, flip open the phone and read the only two words on the screen.

U awake

One contemptuous sigh later I text back

NO.

I’d barely snapped the phone shut when an a familiar knocking came from the front door. Detta, my cat, hightailed it to the bedroom to cower in the corner. I yelled for him to come in while I sat up and pushed my erection back into my boxers.

The door opened slowly. Johnny boy peered in. “You awake?” he asked, stepping inside.

“I’m smoking’ ain’t I?” I said, lighting a Camel to prove my point. This earned me his patented eye roll. Shrugging off his backpack, Johnny boy coiled his too thin frame into the rickety rocking chair he’d built. Sweat trickled down his long face creating a glossy sheen.

“Didn’t wanna wake you up.”

When I caught him looking at my crotch, he glanced away.

“So what’s up?” I asked. Then just to be a prick I added “Besides me.”

Johnny boy smirked. He reached over the right side of the rocker and lifted his back pack as if it had nothing in it. I knew better and would have bet dollars to donuts there’d be some clothes, a day timer, books and whatever secrets he didn’t want anyone to find, including me.

Before he could play show and tell, I smelled the cloying earthy scent of pot. This wasn’t just any weed though; this was some primo shit.

All I could manage was a whispered “Holy fuck.” What he pulled out was not one but two Ziploc freezer bags filled with the greenest pot I’d ever seen. My first thought was luminescent emeralds.

“Stick your nose in that shit.” he said with a grin, tossing a bag over. Fact is, I didn’t need to stick my nose anywhere, the odor was so potent. “My brother Donald got these at work.” Already his fingers were poking and prodding in his bag, searching for the perfect bud.

“Lot of good this’ll do me,” I said, setting the bag aside, which caused Johnny boy to give me a weird look. “I have to go for a piss test tomorrow before I can go back to work…” The annoyance and frustration were getting stronger.

“What the hell? They suspended you for being late all the time, not for smoking a one hitter. Dude, that’s fucked up.”

All I could do was shrug. “I know-HR is full of douche bags, what can I say?” I picked the bag up again and kept turning it over and over. “Keep that one,” he said rolling and then licking the joint closed. “Donald said the shit’s growing like weeds.” He laughed. “Weed growing like weeds, that’s funny.” This was said more to himself than to me, so I didn’t bother correcting him. “You mind?” he asked lighting the joint anyway…

“Guess not.” I stood and stretched enough to pop my back. My hard on had subsided a bit, but still made a tent in my boxers. As I walked past Johnny boy I brushed it against his shoulder, just to watch him tense up. Despite all the years that had gone by, he never could forget the night we got drunk and he begged me to fuck him in the ass. We were barely 18 then and approaching 30 now; yet it still bothered him. Anytime I tried to bring it up he’d either change the subject or just walk away from me.

None of that means a handful of monkey shit now.

I went to the kitchen to make some coffee as Johnny boy created a cloud in my living room. “Want anything to drink?” I called out.

“No man, I’m cooo….” he trailed off before finishing.

“You baked already?”

“No man I ain’t no lightwei…” he trailed again. Detta came charging into the kitchen as soon as she heard me open a cabinet, meowing, and winding herself around my legs. While the Mr. Coffee came to the end of its brewing cycle, I poured some hazelnut creamer and a sweet n low in my favorite mug.

As I reached for the carafe, daggers of ice sliced their way down my back.

“My brother got these from work.” Johnny boy had said. I picked up the glass pot with a trembling hand and managed to pour a full cup despite the palsy shake.

Something wasn’t right. I made my way back to the couch where the zip loc stared up at me. I jerked back, splashing myself, not noticing the heat. Johnny boy’s eyes were a blazing red, barely more than slits. A small strand of drool hung from his upper lip. “Hey Johnny boy,” I said mostly to see if he could hear me.

“Yeah,” he said eyes opening up a bit.

I took a sip. My hands still shook and I couldn’t get them to stop. “Doesn’t your brother work at the graveyard?” I put the mug down as I began to put things together.

The quivering had strengthened.

On TV, Judge Judy replaced Montel..

Johnny boy perked up considerably. He liked nothing better than talking about the cemetery. “Hell yeah,” he said with a bit too much enthusiasm for my taste. He leaned forward, taking a hit then stubbed out the joint on a days emptied beer can. “Been there since he got out of prison.”

“That was like five years ago, he just now found it?” I asked. Sometimes talking with Johnny boy was like doing a puzzle made by a nitwit. When he got in this mode, it was better to listen, and then put things together and hope there were no missing pieces.

“No one ever goes there anymore, it’s closed, you know that,” he reminded me, though I honestly didn’t know it was closed. Being it was on the far west side of town, I very rarely went there outside of the keggers in college. “It’s gotten way overgrown so Donald got told to clean it up. “This,” he nodded in the direction of the baggie, “was growing wild all the way in the back where the crypts are.”

I lit another cigarette with the blue bic Johnny boy had. “There’re crypts back there?” I asked, intrigued.

He rolled his eyes. “It’s the fuckin’ desert, Eddie. Back in the day before bulldozers and shit, they couldn’t dig graves. Ground was too fucking hard. “Johnny boy relit the joint, took a long hit, and let it settle in his lungs, before blowing twin plumes from flared nostrils.

I looked at the bag again. Where I saw emerald green earlier there was now mold ripped from corpses long forgotten about.

“Dude, ” I said, not even trying to hide my disgust, “this was growing around dead people!”

“Donald says they make the best fertilizer.” Johnny boy sucked down the last of the joint, then leaned back with his eyes closed. A stoned grin plastered his face. With a quick kick I knocked the plastic bag off the couch, where it made its new home under the coffee table, with some other garbage and stains. It could stay there until Johnny boy picked it up and took it home for all I cared. I shuddered one time and lay down on the couch. The second hand smoke made me a bit drowsy. Even thoughts of rotted gardeners with sharp pruning shears, dripping blood couldn’t keep unconsciousness at bay.

It was only when Johnny boy began tearing my nut sack with his teeth that the real nightmare began.

The first sensation was of an ice cube being run down my inner thigh, which stirred me a bit. The sound of ripping cloth stirred me even further. The rough clutching at my balls woke me completely. My eyes opened in time to see Johnny boy with my nut sac in his mouth. Then he began whipping his head back and forth like a dog playing tug of war. I kicked him in the face, and as his head jerked back, my scrotum went with it.

I realized I’d probably made a mistake. I saw the skin stretch, heard it rip, saw the blood. I screamed as I clutched and clawed between my legs. Blood flowed down my thighs, over my hands and drenched the couch. Johnny boy held my nut between his teeth as if he’d caught a bullet. With dismay and anguish I watched his teeth sink slowly into the white, pulpy flesh, prolonging my agony as long as possible.

“That’s for fucking me in the ass.” He smiled then, showing red gristle covered teeth. We held eye contact for only a split second; enough for me to see that Johnny boy was history. Sure his eyes were red, but not from the pot; this was a viscous crimson that seeped from ducts and pores. Blue veins pulsed beneath peeling translucent skin.

The stench of decayed flowers and fresh dug graves hit me. I had no time to gag as Johnny boy lunged at me, his fingers digging into my shoulder; deep enough and strong enough to begin shredding my flesh. At least it drew attention away from the pain in my crotch. He slammed me down on the coffee table hard enough to send pieces of it flying. Something in my back popped and I added a new pain to the growing list. The god-awful stench from his mouth filled my nostrils, as he leaned in for another bite. I was able to punch him in throat with my right hand; flesh came away on my knuckles as some of the fluid from his eyes flew onto my forehead. I used my left hand to find something to hit him with. Anything, just to get the stinking grease bag off me. Something rough and sharp, jabbed my palm. I grabbed whatever it was and aimed the sharpness at the base of his neck. The broken table leg sunk in with a sickly wet sound, as blood oozed from around the wood. Johnny let out a sound, not really a scream but enough to make me shit myself just the same. I could only get to my knees as the pain in my groin and shoulder was proving too much. Snot flew from my nose while trying to catch my breath.

Johnny boy lay still, with blood pooling around his neck.

In time I was able to get to my feet and leaned heavily on the TV for balance. “You stupid motherfucker.” I spit at him, still gasping for breath. “Assholes! You and your brother, just stupid fucking assholes!”

Anger can be the angel or devil on your shoulder. This time it was an angel. In spite of the aches, pains and punctures, the anger seemed to sedate my injuries. I took a few tentative steps forward not sure where I was going, only knowing I had to keep moving. The living room made me nauseous as I surveyed the damage. Blood soaked my sofa, carpet and walls.

The baggies.

I stepped over Johnny boys’ body, grabbed the one on the rocker, and strained to reach the one trapped in the aftermath of the table. A nail had torn a hole in the plastic and a couple of small buds escaped. I left them where they were for the moment, and limped my way to the bathroom. As I hit the light switch by the vanity, Detta nearly knocked me over by racing through my feet, yowling all the way. More muttered curses. I grabbed the scissors I used to cut my hair off of the counter and stabbed one of the bags over the toilet. I could have opened the Ziploc, but slashing like that made me feel better. Bud after bud plopped into the bowl like grassy turds. After a few flushes both bags were empty, but my body was full of new and motivating pains. I dropped the bags in the tub, turned on my heel and saw Johnny boy standing in the doorway.

He was pulling out the table leg and I let out a scream out of surprise more than fear. I brandished the scissors and swung it in an overhand arc planting it in his left eye. It didn’t so much pop as deflate, releasing even more vile liquid that had the same smell as the dope. I pushed the blade in further. Not once did he try to stop me. I let go of the handles that were slick with god knew what and Johnny boy crumpled to the floor. What could have been an exhale, sounded more to me like he tried to say “love you…”

I stepped over him, said a silent prayer to an invisible god I had no belief in and stumbled into the vanity sink, with the mirror just daring me to look at my reflection.

I couldn’t. All I had to do was glance down at the blood drying on my legs, chest and stomach. My boxers were nothing more than an elastic band with a bit of fabric hiding the ruin. Everything hurt. I reached for the bottle of vicodin I had left over from an abscessed tooth, and dry swallowed the remaining four bitter pills. I slumped to the floor, in a haze of pain and exhaustion, with no idea how long I’d been leaning against the cabinet beneath the sink when I heard something that returned me to consciousness.

Music.

Loud and jarring.

I ignored Johnny boy for a moment, stood up and slowly made my way into the living room. One of the local anchors with a look of urgency broke into whatever had replaced Judge Judy. I missed the beginning but heard enough to know things were fucked.

“…reports of cannibalism in the metro center area…” I dropped into the rocker and it gave a warning creak.

Cannibalism,

Metro Center area.

Where I lived. My stomach churned. This was my doing. I had flushed the shit. Donald sold some, gave some away, of that I had no doubt. But I flushed that shit.

My big toe nudged one of the buds that’d jumped ship. I bent over to pick it up and noticed several small bites were taken from it.

Over the loud clatter of the a/c and the blaring TV came the sound of sirens. Underlying all this was the low predatory growl of an unearthed animal.

I don’t care who gets to me first.

(This story is the sole property of Scott Colbert and may not be reproduced in any form without prior consent.)

Also, for shits and giggles, another Halloween entry originally appearing on Louise Boehmer’s blog a couple of years ago.

Autumn.

Just writing that word brings me countless joys. Brittle leaves crumbling under foot. A nip in the night air that makes you want to zip your jacket up. Barren trees with their extended, arthritic branches that seem to reach out for you with malevolent intent.

The first fire in a fire place to warm your feet and nourish your soul.

The days shrink, as the night takes control.

And the creatures of dark and blighted imagination take center stage. Thoughts turn to that one day of the year when we embrace our inner monsters. That one twenty four hour slice of madness and mayhem where we face every devil and demon; every ghost and ghoul; every vampire, werewolf, zombie and undead who make their presence known, demanding their due. We do the Monster Mash as Bobby Pickett instructed, we bob for apples in a tin tub of water, we roam candle lit neighborhoods dressed in our soul cleansing costumes in hopes of confusing the real monsters.

If you grew up in my neighborhood (Islip Terrace, NY) you avoided the high school kids who loved egging the younger kids. For those not familiar with this ritual of childhood, it involved older kids throwing raw eggs at the younger kids. Sometimes they took your pillow case full of candy, sometimes not. I suppose it depended on if there were any adults with you or not. Without exception, I remember trick or treating with friends and my sister, well, at least until she got too old to do so anymore. Yes, that’s right, when I made the rounds it was with friends. My Mom or Dad would drive us to the beginning of a block, and wait in the car until we went down one side of the street and up the other until we got back to the car (a ’74 blue Gremlin, but that’s another story). There was no fear of being lured into a stranger’s house never to be seen again, now did we worry about razors in the apples, poison in the candy, or any other deed most foul. Everyone knew everyone in the neighborhood and it was also a more innocent time, I think. In fact, the worst thing that could happen would be missing “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” on our floor model Zenith with aluminum foil wrapped around the antenna. Aside from that and rain, the worst thing that could happen was being egged.

One of the last times I remember going out in my frayed, ill fitting pirate skeleton costume provided the biggest scare of my young life. I was with my friend Steve on his side of town (which was merely across the main drag), and it was only the two of us. I could be wrong about that, but it’s how I remember it. I know we were close to the railroad tracks, and Main Street High School, which was maybe a mile or so from my own home. It was pitch black, windy and cold. Some houses had their lights off-you know, the ones who pretended not to be home, even though you could see a tv set flickering inside. Others had plastic pumpkins with a flashlight tucked inside set out at the start of the driveway. A couple had some toilet paper strung like a spider web from trees (not surprisingly the same homes with no lights on), and many had no decorations at all-apparently oblivious to the holiday.

There was one house though, which defied all others. It stood as a testament to the owners love of all things black and orange. There were cotton cobwebs cocooning the dried tree limbs. Two dozen or so real pumpkins lined each side of their driveway, all with a candle planted firmly in the center. Each had a different and equally scary face carved in a crude, demented style. A skeleton hung from one tree, his eyes lighting up as we passed it on the way to the porch. On the porch was one of the biggest pumpkins I’d ever seen, bright orange, and all malevolent glare. There was no candle in this beast. Instead it was overflowing with candy. Not the cheap little boxes of dots, or plastic wrapped sour balls, no sir, here was the granddaddy of all mother lodes. Mini Snickers, 3 Musketeers, and Milky Ways fell from the opening. Steve and I looked at one another, jaws down to the ground.

“We could take the whole thing!” one of us said, with the greedy delight only a sugar deprived preteen could muster.

That’s when we noticed the scarecrow. It sat obscured in a dark corner of the porch, where candlelight couldn’t reach. I already had my hand in the treasure, Steve was getting ready to dig in, when it started to move. Slowly.

At first I thought it was simply a trick of my the eye, combined with the wavering shadows thrown from candle flames, but it continued to stand. Ripped jeans with hay protruding like broken bones, a flannel shirt with the yellow straw poking out. Leather gloves, grimy with dirt and god knows what else-it all came together as the scarecrow began to move in our directions. It’s arms were held out as if it were Karloff’s infamous monster, reaching, stretching, ready to claw at the kid flesh which had defiled it’s trove of chocolate.

“Take one, and only one,” it said in all too human female voice, though to me it sounded like it came from the pits of hell. “I’ll haunt you and chase you forever if you don’t!”

That was all we needed to hear, as we ran screaming down the driveway, flinging our pudgy little bodies to our respective homes as fast as we could. For weeks afterwards, I dreamt of that damn scarecrow, chasing me in my dreams, and trick or treating lost its appeal. I don’t think I ever went again.

That was over 30 years ago, and yet that one moment in time is still etched in my memory as if it happened last night.

I write about it now, to exorcise that childhood demon, and also because when I woke up this morning I found a piece of straw on my pillow.