Research – even when it hurts!
Michael Haskins/ www.michaelhaskins.net
Writing requires more than sitting in front a blank page and finding that elusive first sentence. An idea has to be planted in the writers head, and God only knows how many ways there is for that to happen. Once the idea has fermented, most of us have to do research. Surprisingly, most writers don’t know it all, especially in the field of crime. If we aren’t ex-cops or military or special ops, there’s research; and there’s searching out people in the fields we need to know about.
But it can be simpler than that. Just because something was, doesn’t mean it is.
In point, I am writing a yet to be named, new Mick Murphy Key West Mystery. In the first 100 pages, I have Murphy going to Los Angeles in search of his cousin Cecil, an ex-IRA man. Murphy last saw Cecil, almost 20 years ago, when he bartended at an IRA pub in LA, Molly Malone’s. It’s fiction, of course, but I spent almost 20 years sitting in the real Molly Malone’s, singing rebel songs, picketing the British Consul a few block away, learning to do the Irish jig from the Sweeny sisters. There really was a bartender named Cecil. An ex-Catholic priest and a damn good goldsmith.
I wrote Molly’s as I remembered it. I searched the web and found out the same family owned it. I was excited. I knew Angela, part of the family that owned the pub, I knew many of the bartenders and could find my way to the men’s room with my eyes closed. The singer, Colm Gallagher played at my twin daughters’ christening. Backyard, Irish music, front yard the Mariachis tuning up, waiting for their turn to entertain. Irish-Latin, the most dangerous mixture of races there is. Think Che Guevara.
Yup, I was going back to make sure I got the ‘feel’ of Molly’s in the story. I wanted to smell the dark walls, the oil paint of the hundreds of paintings on the walls. Can’t remember his name, but a popular local artist did portraits of the staff and Irish figures in history and I think that’s how he paid his bar tab. Angela hung them all on the walls of the small bar.
My sister Patty and her friend Nat drove with me to the Fairfax district. There it was, the tri-color, flying proudly over the entrance. Nothing outside had changed. I would have cried with joy, but I knew the women wouldn’t understand. My misspent youth stared at me.
I opened the door like a lover caressing his woman after being away on a long trip. The brightness of the lighted inside blinded me! Patty and Nat walked in, I followed. I found out while I was away my lover had cheated . . . a lot it seemed.
The low ceiling had moved about 20-feet up and track lighting lit the walls and bar. And the bar! God how’d you allow such a thing. Someone had sandblasted it to show the brink, removed the mirror and old shelves and put up glass shelves. The stage was gone and no rebel music hummed through the hidden speakers – which weren’t there anyway.
Colm’s small one-man stage was gone and a dark board replaced it. The room was so bright I could see the floor and into the kitchen. I sulked off to the men’s room, smiled because it remained small and old. I came back out and had a Guinness. Patty and Nat had whatever.
Back when, the bartenders had brogues, this bartender spoke with a Spanish accent. We had come to have lunch, but the women never mentioned it. The paintings were still on the walls and I almost smiled when I walked by each one. My favorite had always been the portrait of the local actor portraying Brendan Behan.
We ate lunch at the Farmer’s Market, a few blocks up Fairfax.
Nat took photos of me on her cell and posted them on her FaceBook page. When I got back to my sister’s I saw the post and wondered if I really looked that miserable. Inside I did, but didn’t realized it showed.
I got on my laptop and wondered how to rewrite the chapters that had Molly’s in it. I thought about showing Mick Murphy’s disappointment, but finally chose ‘change’ on Word and made Molly Malone’s to another Irish pub and left it at that. I guess you really can’t go home again.
If I hadn’t done my research, I would have looked foolish to readers that were familiar with today’s Molly Malone’s and would have turned those readers off. Those that remember the pub for the 70s,80s and 90s, will know what I am writing about. I changed the name, but not the location.
So, research of things you take for granted is also necessary. Even when it hurts.
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