by Boo Walker
Locking up, she descended the steps and climbed into her car. Almost out of habit, she reached into the glove box for her latex glove. But as she began to snap it on, she shook her head. David would forgive a lot of things, but not smoking.
With a guilty little smile, Claire took a detour from her usual reggae and found a salsa playlist. As the rich Latin beats filled her convertible, the welcome taste of hope hit the tip of her tongue.
Chapter 10
I HEAR THUNDER
After a brutal Wednesday dealing with needy clients, Whitaker came home with every intention of writing. Something about his father offering him a job made him desperate to find his words again. It was no secret that it was his father who’d given him a story in the first place. It didn’t take much effort shaking the napalm tree for the Vietnam vet to fall out. In other words, post the release of Napalm Trees and Turquoise Waters, everyone knew the Grants a little better. Of course, Whitaker’s characters only mildly resembled those in real life.
“I stole a few things from friends and family,” Whitaker would say in interviews, “but it’s just my imagination hard at work.”
“How about the father in the story?” they’d asked. “I know your father was a vet too.”
“The father in the story is a completely unfair, diminished view of my dad. It’s who he could have become after the war, but thankfully he returned intact.” For the most part, Whitaker would always add internally.
That father was a PTSD-riddled tiger of a man who was relentless in life and work. He was still fighting the Vietnam War every single day. Jack Grant, however, had dealt with his demons in a much more impressive way. Whitaker would always end his interviews with, “Jack Grant is my hero. The man in the book is an antihero. It’s just that . . . knowing a vet so intimately as you would when you’re raised by one, it’s easy to let your imagination run with how much worse it could be. That’s where the palm trees are poisoned with napalm and the turquoise waters are dyed red with blood.”
Jack Grant was Whitaker’s hero in a lot of ways, but when it came down to it, no man in the history of business could remove a suit and tie like Whitaker Grant. The moment he closed his front door, his tie was flying in the air and his suit jacket was falling to the floor. He kicked his polished loafers toward the wall and shucked his ironed black pants into the corner. Letting the suit wrinkle and leaving the businessman in the foyer, Whitaker dressed in basketball shorts and a T-shirt and headed toward his office.
Entering his writing space always felt like he was jumping out of a helicopter into a Vietnamese jungle. Never did going to war get easier, and that was exactly what sitting down to fill a blank page was: war.
I Hear Thunder (the working title of his newest work, the one that began with “I want out, Matteo”) had led to many more words and sentences. Like Napalm Trees, he’d begun to feel the character, starting to see through the eyes of this man.
The problem was Whitaker kept getting in the way of himself. Napalm Trees and Turquoise Waters had been a thrill to write. He could remember countless times when he was pounding the keys with his foot tapping and heart racing, and he could barely wait until he could share the story with the world. Where was the joy in this one?
The warrior typist sat in his chair, rebooted his computer, and stared at the movie poster until the final beep sounded. He couldn’t help but take a quick peek at Lisa and him at the premiere again. She was still his cheerleader, even after leaving him. That was, in fact, the last thing she said to him. “I’m pulling for you, Whitaker. I can’t love you anymore, but I’m your biggest fan.” No one could imagine how hard hitting her last words were.
Stalling, he checked his social media accounts. A fan had posted on his Facebook wall, telling Whitaker that he’d rewatched the movie again and absolutely loved it. The fan suggested writing a sequel.
Not for the first time, Whitaker bounced that notion around in his head. The producers had made the same request. Being the prideful artist that he was, Whitaker had answered the publisher the way his heart wanted him to. “It’s not a story that has a second piece to it. It’s done.” His agent disagreed, but Whitaker had assured him, “I’ve got more stories. Let’s not chase sequels. It’s a path that doesn’t always go so well.”
“Mario Puzo didn’t do that bad of a job.”
“I’m no Puzo. These characters have had their arc; they’ve already faced their worst nightmares. To revisit their stories would be a travesty, even if it filled our pockets with gold.”
His agent had said, “Let’s worry about more money now and travesties later.”
Whitaker responded to the man on Facebook’s post with: Imagine if Pat Conroy had written The Prince of Tides, Part II: Tom Wingo Goes to Disney World. No, not going to happen. Before he officially posted his reply, Whitaker realized he had no business comparing himself to Pat Conroy. Instead, he retyped his response: Have you ever seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Two? Me neither.
Not quite ready to tackle his next masterpiece—and not for the first time—Whitaker tossed around title ideas for a sequel. Napalm Trees and Turquoise Waters II: Hunt for a Cool September. Whitaker smirked, enjoying a moment of flexing his creative muscle, which seemed to thrive more in the absurd. Or better yet: Agent Oranges Dangling on Citrus Trees. Even Jack Grant would laugh at that. The title was almost good enough to write a book around.
Whitaker came up with one more that satisfied him: Napalm Trees II: Attack of the Viet Cong Snowbirds. Considering snowbirds and the Viet Cong both came from the north, Whitaker decided that he did indeed still have some wit left in him.
With that out of the way, Whitaker opened up I Hear Thunder. He scrolled down to see how far he’d made it: 543 words. Three days of work. An amateur effort.
“Saul Bellow could type five hundred and forty-three words while he was brushing his teeth,” Whitaker mumbled.
He looked at the cursor flashing on the new line. The engulfing white space below. “Just start, you damned typist. One word after the other.” The cursor taunted him with each flash, like a big middle finger telling him he had nothing important to say. “C’mon, Whitaker,” the cursor said. “Are you scared, you little weenie? Do I put the fear of God in you?”
As if he were stabbing a flag into the top of Mount Everest, Whitaker brought his index finger down onto the “R” key with a triumphant, thunderous jab. The cursor revealed an r and then moved to the right, flashing once again.
With the little bastard taking the upper hand, Whitaker sat back in his chair and laughed at the idea of writing for a living. Even if. Even if you could get past all the doubt in your head and put together enough letters and words to make up the necessary word count for a novel, you still had to create compelling characters who either grew or were broken by their choices. And the plot needed to grip the reader like it was grabbing their testicles or their female bits. Above all, the story needed to move quickly. Pacing, pacing, pacing! People didn’t have the attention span they used to.
Even if you’d done all that once, and succeeded, you had to do it again, but better. The readers expected every sentence to sing. No such thing as trying to make the new one as good as the last. You had to do better. You had to one-up yourself.
Feeling a rush of anger at the cursor, Whitaker hit the “R” button again.
He jabbed it several times in a row.
rrrrrr
“How about that, you twinkly little shit? I’ll r you to death. You’ll be singing pirate songs all the way to the landfill. Rrrrrrrrr, you ugly blinking bastard!” He mashed the R key again, this time holding it down.
rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
“Damn, that feels good!” So satisfying that his other fingers wanted to get involved. He set them free.
D;hfiwejf;kjewkfjkewjfkwjdskfj
dfkjsdlkfjkladsjf;kj
Dlfadskjfkljasd9uweiroujq
Dfhoi23ejiqjeoir
“There’s your fucking word count! Let’s keep goin
g.” He let his fingers dance again, another burst of word graffiti.
A staccato piercing sound came from the other room—two chirps. Probably one of the smoke alarms. Ignoring it, Whitaker took a deep breath and reread his work. There was no gold to be mined from his burst of inspiration. His agent would shake his head. His publisher would shut the door. His dad might spit on him.
One last irritating chirp sealed the writing session’s fate, and he pushed away from his desk. No way would he get anywhere with this nonsense screaming at him. Barreling out of his room in a fit, he opened the utility closet in the hallway and was surprised at his organization. Amid a stack of cardboard boxes crammed into the closet, he found one labeled “Batteries and shit . . .”
In the living room, Whitaker eyed the fire alarm above the sofa. A bag of Doritos had been left open on the coffee table. The zombie game he’d been enjoying lately was frozen on the television. He hopped up onto the sofa and changed the battery on the alarm. With a green light and chirp of acceptance, the fire alarm seemed to be satisfied.
It was too tempting to collapse onto the sofa for a quick few minutes of game play. He unpaused the game and dropped back into an alternate reality where he was a meathead Special Forces soldier well equipped with several futuristic guns, trying to save the planet from the zombie apocalypse. He moved to the edge of his seat as he rained down terror.
The guilt of not reaching his writing goal hung over his head, and he eventually paused the game. Returning to his office, Whitaker faced the mostly blank page again.
“I don’t get out of this chair for five hundred words. Period.”
Another chirp from the living room.
His teeth ground against each other, and he resisted the urge to slam his fist into the keyboard. “Now I truly know that there is a God. And he’s a sadist who likes picking on writers.”
Whitaker looked up through the ceiling. “Are you enjoying yourself?” Thinking of Russell Crowe in Gladiator, Whitaker raised his hands, palms up, and asked the popcorn ceiling with all the fury he could muster, “Are you not entertained?”
This time, Whitaker stomped back to the fire alarm, screaming obscenities. How could anyone accomplish anything with the interminable curses of being human? He ripped the battery out and returned to the closet, where he found a tester. Sure enough, it was dead. Why would he put a dead battery back into the box? What an idiot. Testing several more, he finally found one 9V battery with a bit of fight left.
Whitaker plugged the battery into the fire alarm and—voilà!—a green light, a satisfactory chirp.
Weary from his battle and feeling creatively listless, Whitaker retreated to the kitchen to plan dinner. As he opened the fridge, he heard movement in the living room.
“Anyone there?” he asked, looking for a weapon to protect himself.
With a quickening pulse, Whitaker extracted a knife from the butcher block. It was a paring knife, the smallest in the block. He quietly set it down and drew one much larger. Butcher knife in hand, he crept across the kitchen and entered the living room, prepared to fight the intruder.
It was indeed an intruder, but the knife wouldn’t be necessary.
“Good afternoon,” his mother said, while folding his business slacks.
“Mom!” he said, trying not to yell. “You can’t just come in here.”
Sadie Grant, dressed as if for a ladies’ luncheon, looked at him like he’d said something absurd. “Whitaker, you should be ashamed of yourself.” She looked around the living room. “I didn’t raise you to live like this.”
“I’m serious, Mom. You can’t just walk into my house. I’m forty years old.” He raised the knife. “I was about to stab you.”
She looked at the knife and then back at him. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous? It’s the twenty-first century. There is crime in this neighborhood.” Whitaker set the knife down on the coffee table. “I’m tempted to call the police.”
Sadie ignored him and continued to fold. “Please pour me a glass of chardonnay. I’m parched.”
Chapter 11
ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER
Returning from the kitchen with her wine, Whitaker joined his mother in the living room. Ashamed of the digital slaughter paused on the flat screen, he found the remote and turned off the television.
The Doña Quixote of Florida was humming to herself and folding clothes from the pile of laundry on the chair. Her bulbous gray hair was styled the exact same way as he’d last seen her. And the time before that. “The door was open. I knocked.”
“I was writing. What if I were in here with a woman?”
“Oh, are you dating again?” She turned to him with such enthusiasm that it was almost as if he’d told her of an impending grandchild.
“No. I mean, I’m open to whatever comes my way. But I haven’t met anyone lately worth pursuing.” He questioned those words as they exited his mouth.
Sadie shook out a wrinkled polo shirt. “You should get out more.”
Whitaker drew in a breath. He reminded himself that she meant no harm and there was no point fighting back. He had to let her be a mother and grandmother.
Sadie was humming as she continued folding the clothes. “How’s the writing coming along?” Only his mother had the guts to ask, and only she could get away with it.
Taking a pair of boxer shorts, Whitaker joined his mother in helping fold the clothes. “Every time I think I’m getting close, the words stop flowing. It’s a game of persistence, and I’m struggling right now.” Whitaker shook his head. “The strife of an artist.”
Then good ol’ Sadie cut to the chase, the reason she’d graced Whitaker with a surprise visit. “Did you give your father’s offer another thought?”
Whitaker laid down the shirt he’d folded. “I had a feeling you had an agenda today.”
“A mother can’t come by and see her son?”
He took another pair of boxers. Something about his mother folding his underwear didn’t feel right, so he tried to stay ahead of her. “I know when you’re up to something.”
She folded in silence, waiting for his reply.
“Though I’m going through a difficult phase, I’m not sure I’m ready to hang up the writing gig. And you know as well as I do that taking that job will consume me. The money would be nice—”
“Not to mention the security,” Sadie interrupted while straightening the collar of one of his short-sleeved button-downs. “You’d have a guaranteed job for the rest of your life. Can you say that about working for the bank?”
“If I took the job, I might as well rip out my soul and bury it in the backyard while I’m at it. Look at Dad. He works too much and is miserable half the time. With the bank, I can at least leave my work at the office.”
“Your father is not miserable. He might still be dealing with stuff from the war, but his job gives him a reason to get out into the world.” She united a pair of socks. “St. Pete wouldn’t be what it is without your father and Grant Construction. You did a great thing for this city with your book. You’ve both given to your community. Imagine if you joined him and continued to write. The Grant Powerhouse.”
Whitaker shook his head. Why was it that the Grants felt this need to take over the world?
Sadie whistled a short melody. “It doesn’t take ten years to write a book. I know you’re trying, but . . . trying to make a living with your art can sometimes cause problems.”
Whitaker gave up folding and walked to the window. A green lizard missing half its tail was doing push-ups on the sill. The reptile dashed away when it noticed the typist approaching. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s the dangers of mixing business and pleasure. But I don’t want to be defeated. I have another book in me. I know I do.”
Sadie ignored him. “Let’s face it; you need a woman, and you need to consider starting a family. It’s not all about you anymore. Selfishness is the business of men in their thirties.” Clearly she and Jack were in agre
ement.
Indecisive on which bait to take, he finally chose her most consistent argument. “We all know you want more grandkids.”
While taking a break from folding to sip her wine, Sadie replied, “Of course I do. I also happen to think you would be an amazing father. Look at the way your nephew looks at you.”
She was slashing open the wounds of his failed marriage. Lisa had told Whitaker the same thing about being a great father. “Just let me get one more book done, and then we’ll focus on babies,” he’d promised her.
“My body is ready now,” she’d replied, and then dramatically stuck a finger in the air to emulate a second hand on a clock. “Tick, tick, tick.”
As much as Whitaker had loved Lisa, that little movement of hers might have been the most exasperating gesture on earth—not to mention an added impediment to his writer’s block. The selfishness of his thirties, indeed. No question that he and Lisa would still be together if he’d been on the same page about parenthood. Tick, tick.
Sadie was still going. “You have a way with kids, and you owe it to the world.”
Whitaker heard his brother scolding him about the birthday present. A buck knife?
“I really appreciate your life advice,” he said, “but, seriously, I’m going through a rough patch, and I need to deal with it on my own. I know you want me to have a serious job and a family, but I’m not there. Did you ever stop to think about the poor woman who would have to put up with me?”
“Who hasn’t had a total collapse?” Sadie asked. “You post-baby-boomer generations think you’re the only ones who have struggled internally. The only way to learn to live is by crashing hard a few times.”
He collapsed onto the sofa. “Then I’m learning well, believe me.”
Sadie sat in the comfy chair next to the sofa and set her wine down on a coaster. “I only have a few more minutes before I need to get to the club to meet Joe and Nancy. Let me just say this. Don’t turn down your father yet. Keep mulling it over. Think about living a more normal existence.”