by H. M. Mann
6
He has to be a manly man, Johnny thought. He has to be an alpha male, almost a caveman because that’s what women really want. So, he’ll have to … smoke cigars.
Yes.
Gunn smokes Cuban cigars, and he smokes nonstop like Dickens-era London … or even like a 1974 Vega.
Yes.
He even chews on the nubs, doesn’t notice the flecks of tobacco stuck in his teeth or resting on his lips, and spits often.
Yes!
Gunn is a real man’s man that no woman could ever refuse.
Gunn appeared before Johnny’s eyes as he typed: “Kirk Douglas’s chin … Paul Newman’s piercing blue eyes … Will Smith’s ears … Brad Pitt’s nose and squint … Clint Eastwood’s fists … Arnold Schwarzenegger’s build when he was on steroids and wasn’t masquerading as a governor and “fitness expert” … Robert Redford’s smile … Sean Connery’s voice, complete with Scottish brogue … Johnny Depp’s “pirate” hair from Pirates of the Caribbean including swarthy mustache—but not the eyeliner …”
Johnny couldn’t make him too perfect. He had to make Gunn somewhat believable, so he typed: “Gunn has a scar on his left eyebrow and a broken nose from an errant javelin thrown by his American nemesis when Gunn competed for Great Britain in the decathlon at the Olympic Games in China in 2008. He has a slight gap in his top front teeth caused by a mountain-climbing (Mt. Everest) accident as a teenager. The gap easily holds Gunn’s cigars. His right bicep is slightly bigger than his left since he drinks right-handed. Gunn masks his strong body odor by bathing in copious amounts of Cool Water cologne. He has stale breath from cigars, cruel thin lips, and chest hair so thick his barber has to trim it twice a month with hedge-trimmers.”
Johnny was pleased at Gunn’s appearance, but Gunn still needed a personality. He decided to make Gunn a “bad boy” because he knew all women wanted a bad boy and a roughneck to reform: “Gunn is an alpha male, an ‘insufferable,’ ‘incorrigible’ jerk who flares his nostrils, sneers, and growls all the time. He never calls his current woman by name, preferring to use pet names like ‘minx,’ ‘doll face,’ ‘my little chickadee,’ and ‘baby cakes.’ Gunn distrusts women because of his mother, who force-fed him dry Ovaltine, and his exes who tore out his heart, stepped on it, and fed it to neighborhood guinea hens. At 6-3, 225, he is a martial arts master in every martial art ever. Sadly, he also is a tortured soul with a haunted past …”
What kind of haunted past can I give him? Johnny thought. Maybe he tortured defenseless kittens when he was a boy and feels guilty now. Maybe he set fire to the class gerbil. Maybe he left a Sherpa to die on Everest, or he had to eat the Sherpa to survive. Maybe he just secretly roots for the Chicago Cubs or likes river dance music or actually liked the taste of New Coke or wishes Rick James would have made another album.
Johnny sighed. The sun was rising, and he knew it really didn’t matter what Gunn’s tortured past would be. He doubted he would even reveal it in his book.
He shrugged. All I have to do is write, “Gunn had a tortured past.” I’ll just leave it up to the reader’s imagination to fill in that particular blank. I mean, after all, readers often have better imaginations than writers do. He typed, “Gunn had a tortured past, but The Settlement made him feel better.”
No need to write fifteen pages to explain. The reader will understand.
He looked over at his rumpled single bed inviting him to sleep. He saved his work, turned off the light, and fell into bed.
In moments he was asleep and dreaming, driving a Bugatti at breakneck speeds around mountain curves lined curiously with thirty-three defenseless kittens.
7
Johnny woke just before three in the afternoon, ate some Oodles of Noodles, and went back to work. He had an hour to create Gunn’s love interest before showering and going to his other job. He let his imagination run rampant, even allowing himself to fantasize a little.
In actuality, Johnny fantasized a lot.
She has to have red hair and green eyes, he thought. She is almost a chameleon at Christmas, able to hide behind a Christmas tree. She is buxom, with body hair covering her like Grandma’s goose down comforter. Virginal and innocent, she is twenty-five but looks eighteen, and has never been kissed. She has a flat stomach yet obsesses over her weight all the time. Ditzy, always in danger and in need of rescue, and helpless and mechanically challenged, she is petite and physically fit. She has morals, goes to church, volunteers in a nursing home, and gives blood once a week. Her voice is lilting like a nightingale that actually took singing lessons. She has one dimple on her left cheek, small feet and hands, is 5-2, 105 pounds, and knows karate. She can take down a man three times her size. Indecisive most of the time, she dresses like former vice president candidate Sarah Palin.
“Geez,” Johnny said, “I’m making her sound like Mary Poppins. I can’t have that. Who would believe it?”
I need to make her more realistic. She is pierced in all the normal places and has a diamond stud in her right eyebrow. She was once was a ballet dancer but quit when management wouldn’t let her spray Lysol on the other dancers during rehearsal. An incurable romantic, she has an insatiable appetite for flowers, candy, and moon-lit nights.
That’s much better. She’s now a believable modern woman. I just need a name …
He remembered the way the mouse reacted to “Cathair” the night before, so he typed: “Cathair Manson.”
He shook his head. Even Johnny had his literary limits. He deleted the name and typed: “Cat Mann.”
Johnny chuckled. “And Gunn is whom Cat Mann will do romantic things for.”
Johnny sang old Bob Seger tunes all the way to work.
8
Work, as usual, sucked harder than a DustBuster working on an un-popped popcorn kernel in deep shag carpeting. Johnny had made fifteen deliveries and only had $12.48 in tips to show for it. Gloria was off so he had to pay Gladys, the evil night cashier, before he pumped his gas.
He held up five fingers to Gladys, a chain-smoking matron with snake tattoos on her wrinkly neck, but she shook her head. Gladys wouldn’t even let him lay the dollar bills on the counter so he could go back out and pump his gas.
“Wait yer turn,” Gladys said.
Johnny went to the end of the line while Gladys smoked, cackled, and generally moved slower than raw undigested corn-filled sewage through a Krazy-Straw. When it was his “turn,” Johnny held out the bills and said, “Five on pump two.”
“Only five,” Gladys smirked.
Johnny didn’t like people smirking at him. “Yes,” he said, pleasantly balling up his fists on his side of the counter. “On pump two. If you don’t mind.”
“Okay, big spender,” Gladys said. “We might have to call back the big silver gasoline tanker to fill us up after you’re through taking all of our gas, heh heh.”
Hector was unusually critical as well.
“I have had to tell customers it will be up to two hours for delivery, Johnny,” Hector said. “Two hours! I have never had to say this before. I have had so many people call back to cancel their orders. I am losing business because you are so slow!”
“Sorry.”
“Traffic is not so bad here,” Hector continued. “The weather is nice. The addresses are not that far away. Why do you take so long?”
“I, um, I almost ran out of gas,” Johnny said, and it wasn’t a total lie.
“Fill up before you come to work,” Hector said, his eyebrows doing their evil dance again. “I do not pay you to go to the gas station on my time.”
Johnny nodded. “I’ll, um, I’ll do that from now on.”
“You go home now,” Hector said, waving his hands. “I tell customers to pick up only from now on because my driver is lost. I am sure I make more money without you anyway.”
On the way home, Johnny reread the notes he had typed during the night. Since he really didn’t think Cat and Gunn would have a lasting relationship because Cat was far too unintellige
nt to be trusted with any part of The Settlement, Johnny had busily created the “other woman,” basing her in part on Gladys, the evil cashier at Quick-E Mart.
“Gladys Sunday is a chain-smoker with stained fingers and a tattoo of Satan and his minions on her wrinkly, unshaven neck,” Johnny typed. “Gladys has ‘Yes, I am evil’ tattooed on her left shoulder, ‘Have a nice day’ on the other. Gladys stomps her foot a lot when she’s angry. She thinks men are dogs, pigs, pig-dogs, dog-pigs, ‘scum-sucking pigs,’ and ‘slimy, sneaky snakes.’ Gladys is a cop who cusses a lot. Gladys is tough, and though she’s only 5-1, 100 pounds, she’s an accomplished martial artist who once studied under a Zen master in Okinawa. She goes to the firing range to relax and unwind. ‘Shooting my weapon is good therapy,’ she says. Gladys can’t cook and eats take-out Chinese most nights in her wreck of an apartment. She broods over losing all five of her partners during her law enforcement career, blaming herself for their deaths since she refused to ‘call for backup’ each and every time. Blonde and petite, she has a mouth every man wants to kiss. Gladys only dates a man long enough to dump him—or arrest him. She owns an exquisite set of purple or ‘kaleidoscope eyes.’ Gladys cackles instead of laughs, coughs constantly, and complains of ‘lung butter’ caused by her chain-smoking. She believes there are rules for everything but love and playing computer solitaire. Gladys will become the perfect little housewife by the end of the novel. Helplessly and hopelessly in love with Gunn, she will still keep her job as a cop ‘in honor of my dead partners’ even though Gunn is filthy rich. Gladys is another tortured soul who cries a lot and has to have Gunn ‘shut her up with kisses’ every other page.”
She’s perfect! Johnny thought.
Johnny shuddered.
I am so glad no one could ever meet her in real life.
Johnny shivered.
I hope Gloria is working the next time I get gas. I will never look at Gladys the same way again.
9
Johnny then wrote the outline for his 100,000-word, 350-page novel:
1 Gunn and Cat meet by accident.
2 It is love at first sight (duh).
3 They kiss a lot (duh).
4 The other woman shows up.
5 Someone dies.
He then wrote on a Post-It: “Use ‘burn,’ ‘burned,’ and ‘burning’ often as you write.”
Johnny did no more planning because he believed romance was random. Romance has to be random, he thought, if it skipped me entirely.
In a weak moment after Marla dumped him, Johnny had looked online for love. He answered all of eHarmony.com’s 100-plus questions honestly, and eHarmony.com created a list of potential soul mates totaling exactly zero.
Johnny Holiday was matchless in cyberspace.
He had re-answered the questions, cutting himself some slack and asking for less from his soul mate. She didn’t have to be petite, buxom, athletic, or rich. She didn’t have to like fishing, watching sports on TV, or sleeping in late. She didn’t have to know how to do a valve job on a 1974 Vega.
Johnny had received ten potential soul mates the second time.
He had immediately sent them an email of introduction:
Howdy! You are one of my matches, but I must confess that I fudged a little on the questionnaire. I’m actually 5-9 when I stand up straight, which I don’t do because I kind of slouch and have rounded shoulders. I’m about ten pounds overweight, and I don’t make $150,000 a year. I’m really a pizza delivery driver and aspiring novelist. I write by day and deliver by night. One day I hope to leave this small, rat-infested efficiency apartment and move into a house in the country, “far from the “madding crowd.” Please respond if you are still interested. I hope you are, because you know I am!
No one had responded.
So much for honesty in a relationship, Johnny had thought, even in one that hasn’t even begun.
He stared at the blinking cursor and typed what he hoped would be a great grabber sentence to start his masterpiece: “Her eyes were as green as the traffic light she didn’t see in time.”
Hmm, he thought. She wouldn’t see a red light in time, but who has red eyes? Besides evil people, drunks, angry conservatives, Cubs’ fans every fall, and bunny rabbits?
He deleted his grabber and typed: “Her eyes were green lights panting ‘Go, go, go!’ as she beheld the manly man standing outside her window after his Porsche 911 ran a red light and plowed into her Geo Storm.”
Better, he thought.
“As scorching blood steamed and streamed from a literal crevice in her forehead,” he typed, “Cat Mann knew that Gunn Adhamh Glendonwyn was her soul mate.”
How? How does anyone know until much later? Cat will just have to be a quick study.
“By the way his wound matched her own,” he added.
Which Cat wouldn’t be able to see unless she checked herself in the rearview mirror, which the collision probably smashed to bits! The reader can see the scar, though, and that’s all that matters.
Johnny smiled. Matching scars. That’s how you recognize your soul mate. He typed, “Gunn tore off her door in a nanosecond, pulling her from the fiery wreckage.”
Wait. I didn’t set it on fire. The reader will just have to assume the flames and the smoke. I mean, racing Porsche 911 hits stationary Geo Storm equals fire, right?
Duh.
“Cat Mann melted into Gunn’s arms—literally—as flames licked her …” He flexed his fingers. Licked her what? Her shirt? Jacket? Blouse? Jeans? Should I be that specific? The reader will have to do some more work for me here. “As flames licked her clothes,” he typed, “giving her nasty, festering, oozing, second- and third-degree burns on over thirty-four percent of her sexy body. Their smoke-singed eyes met, their tongues did the tango, and their lips tasted like sin.”
And soot, he thought. Hmm. He deleted the previous sentence and typed, “Their smoke-ravaged eyes locked, their sooty tongues did the tango as if they were dancing in a smoke-filled bar in Brooklyn, and their lips tasted like burnt microwave popcorn and exploded airbag residue.”
Better.
“It was love at first sight.”
I don’t want to use that tired old cliché.
“It was love at first smooch.”
Still weak. Nobody smooches anymore. But if I have her car blow up …
“It was love at first fiery Geo Storm explosion.”
That’ll work.
Johnny sat back and read what he considered his best writing ever:
Her eyes were green lights panting “Go, go, go!” as she beheld the manly man standing outside her window after his Porsche 911 ran a red light and plowed into her Geo Storm. As scorching blood steamed and streamed from a literal crevice in her forehead, Cat Mann knew Gunn Adhamh Glendonwyn was her soul mate by the way his wound matched her own.
Gunn tore off her door in a nanosecond, pulling her from the fiery wreckage.
Cat Mann melted into Gunn’s arms—literally—as flames licked her clothes, giving her nasty, festering, oozing, second- and third-degree burns on over thirty-four percent of her sexy body. Their smoke-ravaged eyes locked, their sooty tongues did the tango as if they were dancing in a smoke-filled bar in Brooklyn, and their lips tasted like burnt microwave popcorn and exploded airbag residue.
It was love at first fiery Geo Storm explosion.
Yes! Johnny thought. That is exactly how bestselling romance novels begin!
Johnny chuckled.
“I’m going to be rich!”
10
Johnny grumbled, stumbled, and fumbled his way through his shift, wishing he could get back to his bestseller. He had left his laptop plugged in and on standby at home, his file safely saved, but in his mind, he saw the mice jumping up and down on the keys, opening his file, and ruining all his hard work.
He made his last delivery of the night to a tall, pale, skinny man with brown Brillo pad hair. The man held a glass of urine-colored wine and wore only a red, white, and blue Speedo swimsuit.
“Hello,” the man said. “I’m Randy.” The man laughed mostly through his nose, and his face was beat red. Randy looked like a white duck-billed platypus with an Afro. “Get it? I’m Randy.”
Johnny didn’t know why Randy was batting his eyelashes but decided that the pollen count must be high, which was unusual for November in the Roanoke Valley. He checked the order ticket. “That’ll be thirteen-fifty.”
“Would you like to come inside for a while?” Randy asked. “You must be cold. I could warm you up with a glass of wine and a nice backrub.”
And why is Randy lisping? Johnny thought. I thought only Hollywood starlets and child actors lisped anymore.
“Oh no, sir,” Johnny said. “It’s against store regulations.” Good thing I wrote that self-help book. He handed the pizza box to Randy. “Um, thirteen-fifty,” he repeated.
Randy smiled, reached his free hand behind his back, wiggled a little, and produced a twenty-dollar bill.
That’s … that’s not cool, man, Johnny thought with a gulp.
“Here’s twenty,” Randy said, the bill flapping in front of Johnny’s complaining nose, “and if you tell me your name, I’ll let you keep the change.”
Johnny did not want to touch this man’s money. Johnny did not want to be at this man’s front door. Johnny wished he had Dorothy’s red shoes to click together. A $6.50 tip, however, would double his total tips for the night, and Johnny wasn’t exactly rolling in the dough.
“I’m Hector,” Johnny said quickly with a weak Spanish accent. “My name is Hector. I am from Guatemala. Whenever you call, you talk to me.” He took the twenty, holding it only with his thumb and pointer finger, praying that any of Randy’s bodily juices would have the decency to evaporate and jump off Andrew Jackson’s face before he got into his car.
“There’s so much more where that came from, Hector,” Randy said.