David's Rules

David's rules for aspiring writers. (I paraphrased from his recent blog post. Hope you don't mind, David.)

1. Write more.
2. Read more.
3. Trust yourself more.
4. Open up more.
5. Listen more.
6. Meet more people.

Update on the Parking Lot Incident

The police contacted one of the witnesses over the weekend. We know the guy personally, and he's always seemed like the model of conscientiousness. He's beside himself that he froze and left Rhonda alone to handle things. But then, so did two other grown men.

An online buddy, Algernon, questioned a comment I made on the previous post. I tend to value this guy's opinion, even when I disagree with him.

"What's this 'high-minded' and 'low-minded' concept you're carrying around? You can just feel mad at the guy. No one's going to talk you out of having your own feelings about what this man did."

I wrote back, "What it betrays, really, is a bit of self-conflict, as well as a preemptive reaction against a couple of friends who will urge me to put aside my anger and find compassion for the S.O.B. The thing is, I believe in compassion, and I believe that violence too often begets violence. But hey, for the time being, I need to fantasize about repeatedly kicking that so-called 'father' in the scrotum."

"Fair enough," Algernon answered.

I continued, "I still feel disbelief over the whole thing, too, as does Rhonda. That 'dad' didn't react with a momentary flash of anger. No, he gave his helpless son a prolonged beating. Rhonda said it looked as if he wanted to kill his son."

Algernon again: "I would be willing to bet you dinner this man was himself an abused child. In other words, he is ANOTHER abused child. And if his 14-year old son does not get access to therapy, there is an excellent chance he'll grow up to be a domestic abuser as well. This is something we know about domestic violence."

I answered, "No argument from me there. And my God, I hope that fourteen year-old does get therapy. How does one so young process the reality that his own father may have been trying to kill him?"

Algernon: "Throwing him in jail or perhaps doing worse things to him in order to "punish" him satisfies an emotional need for vengeance, because what he did revolts the conscience. We want him to pay for what he did."

I answered, "That's true, and I'll admit that that's part of my motivation. But there's more to it than that. I suspect this 'father' is a genuine threat to society, and may very well be a out-and-out sociopath. He's probably intelligent and willful enough to get through any court-mandated counseling program with his violent tendencies intact. It would be wonderful if he could be 'cured,' but I suspect the only real solution is to put him away for a good while."

I had a little fun with Rhonda a few nights ago while talking to her on the phone. I reminded her of a conversation we had back in '94, when we were getting back together. We'd talked through the night, and at one point, from out of the blue, she said, "I think I'm missing something as a woman." "How's that?" I asked. "Well, I don't think I have maternal instincts."

I started laughing. "What's so damn funny?" I just pointed to her two dogs, surely among the most pampered creatures in northern California.

When Dylan gets older, I suspect he'll find that story funny as can be. Maybe a certain fourteen year-old would as well. And, I'm hopeful that a certain sorry excuse for a father will learn a harsh lesson when he gets slam-dunked in court by my better half's testimony.

An Incident in a Parking Lot

I’m away at work in Louisiana as I write this, doing my offshore helicopter pilot thing. Last night, my wife Rhonda called at the usual time. There was something in her voice that sent up an alert flag.

She told me about that “something.” That morning, she’d dropped Dylan off at his first grade classroom, chatted with a couple of parents, and walked back toward the car. Dylan attends a charter elementary school that shares buildings and a campus with a charter high school, and it’s built atop a broad, rounded hill. The back parking lot sits behind the campus below a small bluff, with a stairway leading down from the campus to the parking lot.

As she reached the top of the stairs, she heard a commotion below. Several people were standing in the lot, looking at a nearby BMW. In the BMW, Rhonda saw a man swinging his fists. Several people were standing nearby, including three grown men and a female teacher. They weren’t moving; they were simply staring at the BMW with mouths agape.

Then Rhonda got a better view of what was going on inside. A well-dressed man was atop his prone high school aged son, pummeling him with closed fists. Again. And again. And again.

None of the bystanders moved. Rhonda screamed out, “HEY!!!” and went flying down the stairs to the parking lot. She ran to the car. She couldn’t get close to the open door because as the man punched his son, his feet kicked out, and the door of the BMW slammed into the car parked next to it.

“STOP IT!! STOP IT NOW!!” Rhonda yelled out. “HEY, STOP THAT NOW!!” The man finally quit punching his son. He backed out of the car and stood up. “He’s my son,” he said with a sneer. “I’ll do what I want.”

“You’re committing a crime!” Rhonda replied. The man spat back, “Bullshit! He’s my son, and I’ll do what I want.” Rhonda locked eyes with the man. “I’ve worked in law enforcement, and I’M TELLING YOU THAT YOU’RE COMMITTING A CRIME!”

The boy, meanwhile, had escaped from the car. Rhonda went to him and put her arms around him. He was shaking. Rhonda would learn that he was fourteen years old.

The boy’s father drove away. Rhonda noted his license plate. The boy cried and trembled as Rhonda held him. He kept saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Rhonda looked in his eyes. “Listen to me. No matter what you did or said, you did not deserve what your father did to you. He was wrong. He’s the one who needs to feel sorry.” The boy stopped crying, but continued to shake. His lip was split open, and a tooth was nearly knocked out.

Rhonda got the boy up the stairs and across the campus to the office. When the school officials learned of what happened, they spoke of contacting Child Protective Services. “That’s not enough,” Rhonda said. She picked up the phone and called the police department. Armed with a license plate number and the man’s name, she told an officer that she wanted to proceed with a citizen’s arrest.

I haven’t yet spoken with Rhonda today. I had a flight early this morning, and now I’m wondering if she’s at the police department headquarters.

Rhonda gathered, from the man’s car and his clothing, that he ranks among the privileged set. And, the sad fact is that justice is very often more a commodity than a right: come from a place of privilege, and you stand a good chance of literally getting away with murder. But, those coming from the poor, undereducated, and chronically unemployed set tend to find that the judicial system seems primed to slam-dunk them into jail.

So, maybe the man will get away with viciously assaulting his own son. He’ll look for the best lawyer money can buy, and that will greatly lessen the chance that he’ll spend even one night in jail.

And, perhaps the high-minded view would allow that the man really needs therapy more than jail time. After all, it almost seems obvious that the guy is disturbed, right? How can you assume otherwise?

Well, I say bullshit on that. The guy hurt a child. The guy hurt his own child. I want him to pay for what he did, and if that’s not high-minded enough for some, too freakin’ bad.

So, I have one message for that well-dressed dirtbag: I hope you regret what you did yesterday for the rest of your life, and I hope the judicial system installs said regret, in spades, on your sorry ass.

I also have a message for my better half: You go, girl.

On Writing

In my life, writing has been a funny thing. Since the age of twelve, I've wanted to be two things: a helicopter pilot and a writer. I've succeeded with the former (although that might be disputed in some quarters), but as for the latter . . .

Well, let's just say that I'm hesitant to call myself a writer. No, I think of myself as a guy who writes occasionally. Largely, that's because I'm simply not prolific enough to feel deserving of the tag a writer. I want to be as faithful a contributor to my own blog as Bob or David; the idea that I could be a writer doesn't necessarily rest with getting paid for it. Despite my aspirations, or because of them, I've usually found it frustrating to try to dip into my own creative well unless I was solidly in The Mood. Without The Mood, I'd sometimes engage in a stare-out contest with a sheet of paper, and the paper would almost always win. There were many things I could do without benefit of The Mood, including eating, drinking beer, riding the Harley, and engaging in certain horizontal activities. With writing, though, it was usually The Mood or nothin'.

But when the The Mood was there, it was so fulfilling. Better than eating. Better than drinking beer. Better than riding the Harley. (Better than sex? Hell no. Are you kidding?)

Part of the problem, as a younger man, rested with writing long-hand. My handwriting speed is . . . Well, let's just say that a trained chimpanzee under the influence of narcotics could probably long-hand legible copy faster than ol' Hal. But then, back in the early eighties, I bought a Barron's learn to type book, borrowed my sister's old electric typewriter, and learned to type. I don't burn up the keyboard, but writing on the keyboard is one heck of a lot faster, for me, than writing longhand. So much for that excuse.

Again, I've long been interested in the craft of writing, and even edited our high school literary magazine my senior year, although I was dragged into it kicking and screaming. (There's a future blog post there, involving a guy named Kerry Kelly. I'd pigeonholed him as a dumb jock until I saw his poetry.) Then, I went into a twenty-year plus choke. I started a few journals over the years, but never stayed up with them. (I grieve over that failure now.) When I got married in '94, it opened the spigot of my creative juices a bit, but when my son was born in 2000, I began to feel especially in touch with the creative well inside. I think much of it had to do with getting in touch with feelings, especially sentimentality. Heck, I cried more during the first two years of my son's life than during my entire previous (allegedly) adult life.

I do want to become more consistent with my output, and I have, although it's a two-steps forward, one-step back kinda process. The thing is, when I'm in the right frame of mind, writing can be a joyful escape. When I'm not, the creative muse can feel as wedged as a spiked bracelet up a duck's ass. And that, to me, illustrates the difference between A Writer and One Who Writes Occasionally: A writer writes regularly, not satisfied to wait for the muse to find him or her. That's been my failing, ya see. I tend to wait for the muse to find me, instead of doggedly pursuing the muse.

I'm going to work on that.