C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m

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09/27/2010 • 2:45 PM 0

The Short Story: Find the Right Ending

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A novel is a long journey with many plot developments. In short stories, the major change is in character. It’s up to you to make the ending a satisfying, surprising and yet inevitable revelation.

But sometimes we get stuck. The story unfolds, but we aren’t sure how to end it correctly. When you get stuck for a last paragraph, I suggest you look to your first paragraph. Your ending’s seed often grows from the opening.

The right opening is intriguing, informative, gives a sense of place and introduces the problem. You may think of your closing as a callback (as comedians label a bit, perhaps a finisher, that recalls an earlier premise.) After the last word, ask yourself how your reader will interpret the story. How did the character change? What was learned (without being too obvious or moralistic)?

Short stories shouldn’t be too obvious in their endings, of course, but you have to find a balance between showing a situation and telling your reader what to think. Too often, in an effort to be subtle, writers veer off into the obscure. Sometimes people write arty endings. Some teachers even seem to encourage that. I don’t.

As a writer, a mysterious ending makes me think the short story author is trying to distract me from their muddled thinking. I am not distracted by flowery words that say nothing. I’m irritated by that. As a readers, unclear conclusions feel like camouflage for a place where the writer stopped the story rather than ending it.

Opaque writing is unsatisfying. You can be subtle without leaving the reader stunned into incomprehension. Good short stories, with a proper beginning, have a clear ending. Give it an interesting middle and you have a story.

Tall orders, I know. But that’s what it takes. I’m struggling with a short story ending now. However, I’m confident the solution to that tricky last paragraph will be found in the first.

Must A Novelist Begin With Short Stories? (advancedfictionwriting.com)

Filed under: My fiction, short stories, writing tips, fiction, Literature, short story, short story endings, writer, Writers Resources

09/17/2010 • 10:39 AM 1

Writers & Editors: Top 10 Editorial Considerations

Here’s the follow-up from yesterday’s post on appropriate use of tense:

Editing considerations (as I revised my short story, The Dangerous Kind)

1. One component I took care to delete were instances where the narrator says things like “I was surprised,” or when he made blatant judgements about his brother. This is overwriting and it’s easy to fall into. You want to give the readers enough to paint a picture but not so much that they can’t draw their own conclusions.

2. Try to avoid clichéd caricature. Don’t tell. Show character’s traits through their actions and dialogue.

3. Give your villains depth, so though the narrator of this story is the protagonist, he’s capable of evil and his mean big brother isn’t all bad, either.

4. This is a long short story at 8,500 words. The details are what’s going to draw readers into the slow build as the narrator discovers the evil of which he is capable. Show special knowledge along the way the reader might not know or detail that deepens the experience. (For instance, on the hunting trip, the reader learns or experiences details about the feel of moss underfoot, the sound of a rifle bolt slamming home, buck fever and what it feels like to be carried in your mother’s arms.)

5. Dialogue should advance plot, deepen character and, preferably, do so memorably. If the dialogue is neither of these things, it can often be summarized in narrative without quotes around it.

6. Revising means “seeing anew.” Evaluate what the story is really about. At first I kept present tense because I wanted to maintain mystery as to whether the narrator would survive the story (See yesterday’s post below.) As I unearthed the story, the plot took a turn away from that storyline. Instead, the stakes are not whether the narrator will survive, but will he allow his brother to die, get the inheritance and escape rural Maine for the bright lights of New York? Once the core of the story changed, past tense opened up to me so I could achieve a more subtle and nuanced story than I had originally intended. That’s okay for a short story. For a longer piece of fiction I’d do more planning, plotting and outlining ahead of time so as not to lose too much time backing and filling.

7. Vary sentence length and sentence construction.

8. Cut where you can without becoming terse or overwriting.

9. The most common failure of overwriting is to describe character features in detail. Don’t tell me in detail what anybody’s wearing and definitely avoid the trope of getting a character to describe him or herself in a mirror.

10. Dialogue should sound real, but without the ums and ahs of a transcript. Avoid dialect where possible as accents slow(and annoy readers.) Read your dialogue aloud to determine if you can believe someone saying your dialogue believably.

Below is the first-person present-tense excerpt from The Dangerous Kind and then the revision.

Compare these excerpts…and please ignore the formatting. That’s a text to screen issue 🙂

…I ask Jason if he cleaned the barrel. He shrugs and says he can still smell the gun oil so it is probably okay. He slings the rifle into the crook of his elbow and walks off toward the woods. I carry the pack, heavy with Jason’s beer. He does not have a hunting license. “Shouldn’t need one when you can get to the woods from your own back step.”

Halloween was the warmest I have ever known in Poeticule Bay, but this morning’s November chill cuts at my lungs. The forest goes quiet as we step into the tree line, as if the birds hear Jason coming and know they should be afraid. A squirrel rattles an alarm and skitters away as we push through a weave of dogwood.

The glass bottles give muffled clinks as I walk. We hike to the old logging road where trees bow and touch overhead. Grass fills the middle so high, the trail looks like two narrow paths, as if parallel by coincidence.

Jason puts a finger to his lips. Staying quiet is all Jason knows about hunting. I try to tread carefully so the bottles don’t knock against each other. When I start to fall behind, my brother curses me for falling behind.

The sun burns off the gray cloud cover. The trees cast another forest of shadows, adding another thickness and plane to the landscape. The pack’s straps pull at my shoulders. Despite the sun and the cold air’s green taste, my footsteps become heavier as we push on. The sweat trapped under the backpack sucks my shirt to my skin.

We walk another half hour and salt sweat burns my eyes before I ramp up the courage to complain. My breathing is heavy. “We’re going too far, Jason.”

Revision:

…I asked Jason if he cleaned the barrel. He shrugged and said he could still smell the gun oil so it’s probably okay. He slung the rifle into the crook of his elbow and stalked off toward the woods. I carried the pack, heavy with Jason’s beer. He doesn’t have a hunting license. “Shouldn’t need one when you can get to the woods from your own back step.”

That Halloween had been the warmest I have ever known in Poeticule Bay, but this morning’s November chill cut at my lungs. The forest went quiet as we stepped into the tree line, as if the birds heard Jason coming and knew they should be afraid. A squirrel rattled an alarm and skittered away as we pushed through a weave of dogwood.

The glass bottles gave muffled clinks as I walked. We hiked to the old logging road where trees bowed to touch overhead. Grass filled the middle so high, the trail looked like two narrow paths, as if parallel by coincidence.

Jason put a finger to his lips. Staying quiet is all Jason knew about hunting. I tried to tread carefully so the bottles wouldn’t knock against each other. When I started to fall behind, my brother cursed me for falling behind.

The sun burned off the gray cloud cover. The trees cast another forest of shadows, adding another thickness and plane to the landscape. The pack’s straps pulled at my shoulders. Despite the sun and the cold air’s green taste, my footsteps became heavier. The sweat trapped under the backpack sucked my shirt to my skin.

We walk another half hour and salt sweat burns my eyes before I ramp up the courage to complain. My breathing heavy, I said,“We’re going too far, Jason.”

There are a lot of small changes here. Aside from changing the tense, there are a few other tactical changes worth noting. There’s a lot of walking through the woods in this story, so where appropriate I looked for more engaging verbs than “walking.” Instead I used “hiking” and “stalked.” Don’t touch your thesaurus , though. That’s a sign you’ve reached too far.

Careful use of uncommon verbs (like “skitters”) can be used to light the reader’s imagination as long as you don’t go over the top. If you overuse uncommon verbs, it’s usually for comedic effect. In the larger document I found other economies which I condensed into today’s Top 10 list.

Writers: On Editing Yourself

RULE #1: Writers must have a product to sell.

RULE#2: Writers must keep submitting their work until someone recognizes their genius.

I repeat these rules to remind myself to put them into practice. I wrote a (long) short story that has bugged me. I did submit this piece to One Story because the length was suitable for them. Unfortunately, they didn’t bite (no hard feelings.) As I reviewed the story, I began to figure out why it wasn’t fully baked yet. I realized I needed to do another revision.

In editing myself, I hadn’t been as objective as I can be with others. I found some sentence constructions awkward. I reworked the opening paragraph to amp up the mystery and intrigue. I added some here and there where characters needed fleshing out. I cut some sentences down for economy and easier reading.

Editing yourself is difficult (Yes! Even for people who are also editors!) If you aren’t going to hire someone to help you with writing issues, the second-best option is time. Put it in a drawer and give yourself time to fall in love with the next project. That way, when you pull out the manuscript again, it’s kind of like being clear on the faults that plagued your ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend.

I have found new places to submit the piece and this time I’m submitting with more confidence, not with the giddy frisson of a drunk at a Vegas craps table.

Today’s book recommendation:

The Artful Edit by Susan Bell.

Beating Writers Block (teachstreet.com)
10 Writing Lessons From Spaghetti Westerns (writinghood.com)
How to Get Published: Take the Leap of Faith (blogher.com)

Filed under: Books, Editors, My fiction, rules of writing, short stories, Editing Yourself, short story, The Artful Edit by Susan Bell, writing, Writing and Editing

08/31/2010 • 11:17 PM 1

Short Story: The Sum of Me

I read this story at the open mic at the CanWrite conference in June. It was received very well though I was the only one who saw fit to drop the F-bomb (twice.) Please note this is a work of fiction. All through the rest of the conference people came up to me and looked concerned. “Uh, no, it’s okay. It’s fiction. I’m not that big a loser. Also, all those stories I wrote where somebody is tortured or killed? That’s uh…well, yeah, that research was just hell for the victims…” Wicked smile.

Next Post: Issues in Titling and Marketing Manuscripts will slide in a little after noon.

Filed under: My fiction, audio post, CanWrite, Post by Voice, short story

06/22/2010 • 3:44 PM 0

The Sum of Me by Robert Chazz Chute

This is the short piece I’ll read at the Canwrite welcome gala. It’s five minutes and I can perform it rather than just read it, so I hope it will go over well. Enjoy.

Stay-at-home dad.

40.

Broke.

This is not the future I failed to plan. The future I thought would somehow would take care of itself, is not taking care of itself. Squeegee kids aren’t broke like me. They aren’t still paying for a shirt they bought last Christmas. Credit card debt is kicking my ass. Worse, Dad knows.

My father learned his financial skills counting pennies into a mason jar every night. He says in the Depression, he learned how to “live for a month off a greased rag,” He now gambles his ample retirement fund with various Vegas casinos and heart by-pass specialists. Dad owned three men’s clothing stores in dusty Okanogan towns. Early each morning he went off to work freshly shaved and optimistic. Each night he shambled home miserable but resolved that tomorrow would be better. The tomorrow he was thinking about was the long tomorrow, that arthritic future in which he’s a rich widower limping along a Floridian beach.

Retirement is not in my future. I have dreams of being a writer, the same mirage I saw on the distant horizon when I was eight years old. In moments of clarity, I compose eagerly. Then I turn on the TV and a quick break becomes another hour that slides away. I am not a bestselling author whose book is soon to be a major motion picture. I’m not even a grown-up yet. I am smack in the middle of middle age on the brink of last chances and halfway between those early promises and the sum of me.

Dad invites us to Miami. I make excuses why I can’t load the whole family in a jet so he can see his grandsons. Then I let slip that I can’t come because of credit card bills. I say too damn much.

My debt gnawed at my father through the night so he called back at seven the next morning. Why don’t I have call display on the phone by my bed? “Time you got up, boy! I suppose Cecilia was at work an hour ago!” Dad’s not big on preambles.

I don’t tell him I was up writing until three. That would just be another admission to bring up at Christmas. “Is that book done yet? How much will you be paid? How much, boy? That doesn’t sound like much. Pass the cranberries.”

Merry fuckin-Christmas.

I consider telling him the kids are painting each other with Elmer’s glue again and hanging up quick. Instead, I listen because he’s talking about giving me money. His generous offer is an interest-free loan to kill my debt. I won’t have to pay VISA any more interest at 30%.

I’ll owe him.

Instead.

Again.

If my boys want the latest robot dinosaur—and, of course, they will–will my card be maxed out this time? Will my kids remember me as The Guy Who Always Said No We Can’t Afford That? There is the soul of shame’s pain.

Each New Year’s Eve, Cecilia and I say this will be the year we “get some breathing room.” We’ll save money…somehow. We’ll win the lottery or I’ll sell my novel or…something. What’s likely to change since we aren’t doing anything different? This is a secret we both know but, like a magic curse, we never dare say aloud for fear it will be made true in the speaking.

“How much do you owe exactly?” Dad’s asking.

“$10,000.” There is a short silence in which my organs are skinned with rusty carrot scrapers. Ten-thousand is actually only half of it, but that’s the most help from him I can bear to take.

“Okay. But promise you’ll cut up your credit cards? You really need to cut those fuckers up.”

The next startled pause is mine. From the bed, I stare up at the ceiling’s brown, spreading stain. How much will new eaves troughs cost? Do roofers even take credit cards?

“Can you stop sucking that poison tit?” Dad says.

“Yes,” I say. I could try to explain what my real life is like. That’s definitely what I should do, but he will never understand why I will never cut up my credit cards. I’ve got to have that safety net for emergencies, even if it hangs me

“Um, Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

I hang up the phone. My wife won’t be back for awhile. The kids are watching SpongeBob. I could steal a nap. Instead, I sit down. I dream big.

I write.

Filed under: My fiction, Canwrite Conference, My fiction, short story

06/22/2010 • 3:25 PM 0

The Migraine Train by Robert Chazz Chute

This is a draft of the first chapter from my novel Romeo, Juliet & Jerome. I’m pitching it to whoever will listen at the Canwrite Conference this week. I hope you enjoy it.

The headaches began when I was six. I don’t remember anything before that. It’s as if zero to five is a dream that pulls away as we wake. Or maybe God gives us a rare free pass so we can better let go of the time we were most at everyone’s mercy.

In my earliest memory, Moms giggles and rolls on the floor. I’ve just asked why she always has a glass of blood in her hand. “It’s just wine, baby boy,” she said. “I drink it because red goes with roast beef. And everything else.” I can still see her looking down and saying, “Oh, shit. You made me pee myself!”

We lie to ourselves so much we have no business thinking we can tell the truth. For instance, when I’m a movie star, my fans will say that Bio-Dad took off as soon as Moms got knocked up. That little is true. Then they will say my parents named me after the escapee. False.

Moms told me the truth about my name eight years ago last April 20. “Your birthday’s the same as Hitler’s.” Moms pointed that out every year. It was my eighth birthday. I wanted a black forest cake but Moms said it was too late to go out again. She forgot the birthday candles, too, so she lit a cigarette and stuck it in the top of a stale cornbread muffin. I tried to blow it out. She cheered. “Blow! Harder! Harder!”

The cigarette paper glowed and sank as the ash rose. The smoke stung my eyes. My cheeks hurt. Moms laughed and finally pushed me away. She popped the cigarette nub back between her teeth, brushed gray flakes off the muffin and handed it back to me.

“Thanks, Moms. This must be what birthdays are like in prison.”

Her eyes widened and her thick lips went to a thin line. “I already said I was sorry,” she sulked. “Sorry, sorry, sor-ree!” She eyed me and took a long pull of wine. She used a water glass.

A breath. Her shoulders pulled back. “You know what time it is?”

Oh, no.

“Truth Time!” she announced. She showed too many teeth for a kind smile. I held my breath. For Moms, the cost of admission to Truth Time was a five-drink minimum. For me, the cover charge was death by embarrassment.

“I didn’t name you after your father,” she said. “His name wasn’t really Romeo. But he was a Romeo.” Moms explained what that meant. I noticed a familiar aura around the red light on the hot plate she used to heat the apartment. Moms’s voice boomed off the yellowed apartment walls. Any sound was too large for the small room. The light bulbs got brighter and brighter. My eyes were slits. The Migraine Train was coming.

“Here. Try again, Einstein. Make a wish.” She handed me a lit match. The flame’s light stabbed the back of my left eye. I made a wish and blew it out. She did not drop dead. Instead, she toasted me with more thick red wine. That birthday migraine lasted two days.

The doctors drew blood and poked and prodded and X-rayed and scanned. They guessed and surmised. By the time they were finished, I was disappointed I didn’t have a brain tumor.

Our family doc back in Maine—we had one then—mentioned to me that red wine could cause migraines. “But you’re a little young for that.” He stopped chuckling when he noticed my frown.

“What if Moms drinks a lot of it?” I asked. I didn’t know that I should have asked to see the doctor alone. I sat on the examination table. She stood next to me, eyes flat and hard as nail heads. I kept my eyes on the doctor while, with one hand, I picked at the sheet of paper under me. I made tiny tears along its edge as Dr. Chuckles’s eyes shifted from me to her cleavage. Me to her light mocha skin and dyed blonde highlights. Me to her full lips. This was before the booze and the cigarette smoke worked her over. She stuck her jaw out and crossed her arms. A beautiful woman capable of sudden, sharp anger is a striking sight. Moms looked like a pissed off goddess.

I’ve talked to the children of alcoholics since. We all tell the same story. Living rooms aren’t for living. Everyone uses the same word. “Minefield.” All you can do is breathe and sometimes you can’t even do that. Home is never home. Home is house. That’s where the useless pleading and empty promises of atonement happen. House is the crime scene where the threats and punches and beatings with hairbrushes occur. It’s where you don’t want to go, even after the cold makes your breath plume yellow under florescent streetlights. Eventually you come back. You never know what will happen next. All children of alcoholics want the same thing. We yearn for boredom.

If I was a little younger or Moms was a little older, Dr. Chuckles might have been my hero. Instead, he shook his head. “Wine migraines don’t happen unless you’re the one doing the drinking, kiddo.” He grinned at me with the widest mouth in Maine that wasn’t smeared on a scarecrow. “Migraines are a hormonal thing…though, stress can also kick off a migraine.”

Causes of migraine can include cheese, ice cream, chocolate, caffeine and your mother shrieking “Henry! Henry! Henry!” in time to the headboard thudding against a criminally thin bedroom wall.

“But you’re a little young for stress, too, aye-uh?” Dr. Chuckles said. “Your diagnosis is idiopathic migraine. It means you get migraines and we don’t know why.”

Yes, people in Maine who say “aye-uh” are not confined to Stephen King novels. At least one idiot doctor says it in real life, too.

When experts fail, they blame you. That’s how I got trapped in a tiny IKEA-stuffed office with the Psycho Therapist. He doodled while I blamed my mother. That’s how therapy works. Or doesn’t.

Dr. Moto said he could help with my “me-graines.” (Decreasing them, I had assumed.) He was a Japanese-British transplant who was pretty smug about spreading mental health among New England colonials. In the first minute of our first session, he told me his treatment style was a mix of Freudian and proto-Jungian. I was ten.

The first few sessions were the usual. As I said, I blamed Moms for everything, which, in my case, was one of those clichés that happen to be true. He would nod and ask me what my responsibility was. I shouted back, “Nada-colada esta manana, baba!” It felt good to shout since my nonsense confused him and he was the sort of prick who never lets on that he is confused about anything. I’d shout. He’d nod and try to look wise. He looked like Yoda trying to hold back on a ripping fart.

Dr. Moto plucked his eyebrows so thin they could have been a faint pencil line. He talked much more than I did. I stared at the empty space above his eyes to pass some of the fifty-minute hour. Whenever I said anything about Moms, he wrinkled his forehead really hard to yank those almost-eyebrows up toward where his hair used to be.

He asked if I thought it was significant that I used the plural, always Moms never Mom.

“Yes and no,” I said. “No, because I’ve always called her Moms since forever. Maybe yes, I s’pose…” Then I shut up. “Actually, no and no.”

I didn’t want to explain Drunk Mom and Sober Mom but I’ll lay it out here so my biographers of my humble beginnings don’t mess that up, too. Drunk Mom yelled a lot. Sober Mom woke up and baked cookies made with peanut butter and sweet regret. She always stirred promises to do better into the mix. Eventually, when Moms moved on to Dewar’s, she started blacking out. Whenever she fell asleep on the bathroom floor, she could not remember shouting at me the night before. No cookies for me.

The Psycho Therapist’s answer to my cookielessness was lists. To-do lists. To-dream lists. To-be lists. “I will Moto-vate you,” he said.

He told me stress caused the chemical cascade that cranked up my headaches. “Chemical cascade” sounds kind of good, like a gentle pink and purple waterfall might be involved. If he’d described it the way it felt I might have taken Dr. Moto more seriously. Something like “You’re tied to railway tracks and the Migraine Train runs over your head with steel wheels and rips out your pumpkin brains over and over.”

Moto told me lists would get my world in order. I feel the need to point out one more time that I was ten. I did not own a cape. Bullets did not bounce off my chest. I did not own a cave full of bats and cool implausible weapons. Getting the world in order seemed like a job for somebody taller.

But I had reasons to follow through. I already had to keep a pain diary for the neurologist so this wasn’t that different. One of the Dads (I forget which one) paid the shrink’s bill so he pushed Moms to push me. (Push me to do what was also unclear.) Moms’s toasts were beginning to sound like slurred prayers. “To my son’sh recovery from migrainsh and shtresh!” Yeah. I know. Cartoony drunk. Everybody was antsy about my progress toward pain-free mental perfection so when no one was looking I penciled lists in a notebook small enough to hide in my hip pocket.

Warming up, I made a list of movies I liked—Star Wars and anything with John Leguizamo in it. I was especially fond of Executive Decision. John’s got a gun to save the passengers of a hijacked passenger jet. Steven Seagal and his tough-guy ponytail get blown out of a Stealth jet almost immediately. Leguizamo played a super insane Tybalt with a gun in a modern version of Romeo and Juliet. I bet you Tybalt’s mother took one look at the handguns in his fists and another look at his crazed eyes and served up the peanut butter cookies quick.

Next, I itemized my pet peeves. School work (mostly irrelevant.) Homework (as if any rational grown-up would tolerate working at home.) I squeezed bullies between the first two items. I scrawled Team Dad at the top of my list. Also at the bottom and somewhere in the upper middle. I was peevish. I wrote the word “therapy” several times. Moto ignored that and zeroed in on the Dads.

1. Bio-Dad, formerly Romeo Sr. until Moms taught me the difference between the name Romeo and acting like a Romeo. Location: The Wind. Given all that happened later, he might have been the smartest of the bunch.

2. Rebound Dad. Self-appointed Lt. Colonel in the KISS Army. He let me stay up late to watch movies I was too young to see. When lit out in Rebound Dad’s junky old car, Moms burned black rubber tire into his white concrete driveway. I didn’t question that at the time but I think it means he was sure she’d come back.

Last seen: through the rear window’s dirty glass. “Waving” sounds like goodbye. What do you call what you do with your arms when you are waving for help? I did that until Rebound Dad was just a dot.

3. Cheater Dad AKA “Schmuck.” He and Moms made the driveway scene in Item #2 happen. By then I had “defiance issues” according to my teachers. On our first day at Cheater Dad’s house, I ripped through his pool table’s green felt. He would have loved to cure me of those defiance issues with the thick end of a pool cue. Moms ordered him to leave my discipline to her. (That didn’t get done.)

He shut up whenever I entered a room, as if we were playing Passive Aggressive Statue Tag. A fish in a freezer has a warmer smile. Still, passive aggressive is better than aggressive aggressive any time.

Last seen: who cares?

4. Lawyer Dad AKA Henry! Henry! Henry! “Highest thread count of the bunch,” Moms told me. “This one’s a keeper.” (I lost the sight in my left eye for an afternoon over that factoid.)

Lawyer Dad’s job was to dig alimony out of #3. He got distracted. We moved in. Then Moms thought he’d moved in on his hot new secretary. He pled not guilty. He pled with Moms to be reasonable. He did not know her well.

Last seen? New driveway. Old story.

Dr. Moto compared my list to the timelines in my file. “Have you noticed you get an increase in the frequency and severity of your me-graines each time your mother er…has a new man in her life?”

“My” me-graines. As if I owned them instead of the other way around.

Moto often asked questions to which he already knew the answer. When I called him on it, he said his questions helped me “stay engaged.” He was very concerned about my “practiced disaffection” and, when I was really bored, “disassociation.” Dude had no idea what Cool looked like.

“Does it bother you? Do you wish your life was more stable, Romeo? That you could count on one good thing not changing? On average, I see that your mother goes through a new fellow once a year, bouncing from one to the next.”

Bouncing. Moms. Bouncing. Must. Stare. At. Eyebrows.

“Romeo, you know I care about you, right?”

Bouncing. Bouncing. “Henry! Henry! Henry!” Thud! Thud! Thud!

“Romeo, you know I want to help you, correct?”

Eyebrows. Eyebrows!

“Romeo, you don’t have to face this alone.” Moto reached out and touched my hand. I own one picture of myself as a little kid. I’m all big cheeks and bright eyes and curly black hair. My face looks so…I don’t know. Open? I teared up. A hot baby tear escaped. My face wasn’t slammed shut quite enough yet to keep me from crying. Maybe the Psycho Therapist told himself he was helping me. Or maybe Moto pretended we aren’t all just looking out for ourselves.

“Do you want to know the real secret to the perfect cure for me-graines, Romeo?”

I rolled my eyes. “No, Dr. Moto. I’d like the pain to push through my head like a rusty spike.” I said it as cheerfully as I could. It’s kind of funny that way.

He leaned forward in his chair. The walls sucked closer and the air got thin. My face heated up. My chair pressed hard into my back. That didn’t make any sense until I figured out it was me pushing into the chair. Even so, it felt like the chair was pushing me toward Moto. “Have you started masturbating yet?”

“Nope,” I lied. “No, uh…”

“Masturbation!” His face was like a light. “You should start now!”

“Now? Here?”

“It’s all about rerouting blood away from your brain. When the me-graine starts, there’s less blood in your brain. That’s when you see the halos around lights and things seem brighter and louder and you feel nauseous.”

Nausea did well up, but it wasn’t the Migraine Train steaming into the station.

“Then the body overcompensates,” he said. “The body sends too much blood to the brain. Blood vessels press on surrounding structures and the pain is…exquisite.” Again, the come-to-Jesus smile. “Exquisite” pain. Like he was saying, “Jerk off or die.” He let his bare, smug face hang open. “Masturbation is the secret cure for your headaches and your stress.”

“Um. Uh-huh?”

He moved one hot hand to my thigh, rubbing up and down. Mostly up. I thought his hand might burn through my jeans. His other hand covered his crotch. I jumped up and ran out. I burst through his office door. Moms sat in the waiting room.

“Cured!” I announced.

A week later we abandoned Maine for New York. Mother and son, we ran side by side, each in our own solitary race. She ran to. I ran from. I’m still running.

Filed under: My fiction, fiction, first chapter, short story

06/22/2010 • 2:03 PM 1

End of the Line

End of the Line won 3rd place in The Toronto Star Annual Short Story Contest and was published in August 2008. For your entertainment, a tale of torture and redemption…

“You must listen very carefully,” she said.

“Uh-huh,” I said as I flipped through her file. Every call from a collection agent is meant to accomplish two things: squeeze blood from coconuts and gather more information to squeeze more blood from coconuts. The rule is we can’t call more than once a week and we stick to that rule as long as we’re getting somewhere. We rotate agents so the deadbeats have to tell their sad stories to a new caller every time. Talking about outstanding debt over and over compounds the target’s humiliation. I wanted to be an actor but I’ve been paying my bills by talking to people who don’t pay their bills. My horror, shock and surprise at their failure to pay sounds equally fresh with each call so I guess I act for a living after all.

“You are not listening,” Dr. Papua said.

I tuned in. “Oh? Have you said anything that changes the fact that you owe $382.51?” Never say “about $380” or “about $400.” Always be specific about their debt. It squeezes.

“I do not owe it. I told your colleagues to send me a copy of the original receipt. All you sent me was a letter saying I owed the money but no proof, not even what the purchase was supposed to be. I could make a lot of money too if I just sent out random bills.”

“It was a Taunton’s account.”

“Those stores have been out of business for years and you have no actual record. All you have is my name and the time to harass me.”

“You need to at least send us a goodwill payment to keep this from going to court and so I can help you keep your credit rating.” Always say “you need to” not “I need you to.” Everyone is terrified of being sued and paying a lawyer, especially for such a relatively small debt. A lawyer would charge her more per hour than it costs to pay me to go away. “We need to clear this up today.” Always say “today” not “soon.” “Soon” means never. “Today” means now.

“This fictional debt is almost ten years old. The statute of limitations on debt in Ontario is six years. You have no case.”

I let my heavy practiced sigh drop on her and gave her a moment of silence. Lay a pregnant pause on most people and they’ll rush to fill the empty space. The longer they stay on the line, the closer you are to getting the money. She didn’t take the bait though. “Even if you don’t have a legal obligation to pay your debt, you do have a moral obligation,” I say finally.

I heard—or felt—something change then. I don’t remember there being static on the line but she suddenly came through so clearly I fought the stupid urge to glance over my shoulder. It was as if she was standing over me.

“A moral obligation?” she said. “You have made a tactical error.”

I smiled. In a moment she would be screaming into the phone and telling me she’d get me fired. The screamers were the reason we didn’t use headsets. It’s quicker to hold a phone receiver away from your ear than to snatch off a headset. She would hang up and stew for a week and one of us would call her again. Soon she’d send us the money. In a moment I would be skipping on to my next call and the next and the next.

But she didn’t scream and my smile dropped away. “Now you need to listen to me very carefully. Listen to me as if your life depends on everything I say.” Her tone was cool and I noticed for the first time that her accent sounded vaguely European, but not Zsa Zsa identifiable. She pronounced words in a way that said she formed each one with great care, as if each had to be dealt out letter by letter, syllable by syllable in a Morse Code of spoken language. “Are you ready?”

I held the receiver away from my ear. I thought she was going to blow a whistle into the phone or something. An old collection agent told me the worst is getting hit through the phone with one of those air horns fans use at football games. It damages your hearing it’s so bad. Then I realized she really was waiting for me to tell her I was ready.

“What?”

“No matter what happens in the next few minutes, you will not hang up.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“You are correct. You are not going anywhere in life, either.” She spoke slowly and clearly as if I was a dull child. “No matter what I say, you will not let go of the phone.” She hit the word “not” hard and I thought of the sharp blade of a shovel striking bone.

My hand tightened around the receiver. I shoved the handset to the side of my head, squashing my ear. I took a sharp breath in but she headed me off. “You will not interrupt me and you will not yell or ask anyone for help. Do you understand?”

“Sure,” I tried to sound casual but didn’t make it. “Where is this going? This doesn’t help you solve your problem.”

“Your feet and legs cannot move.”

I almost laughed at her but all I had was a gasp. Somebody tells you your legs don’t work and without even thinking about it you move your legs to show them they are ridiculous. My feet were cemented to the floor. I couldn’t even wiggle my legs the least bit sideways.

My head suddenly felt hot. I could hear the buzz of the other call center workers but I couldn’t see anyone without shoving my chair way back. I craned for a glimpse of my shift supervisor stalking by. No one.

“You will not try to get anyone’s attention or assistance, Mr. Gayed.” Had I told her my last name? No, I never tell the deadbeats my real last name. She was worming into my brain. “You will answer my questions truthfully and without obfuscation. For your benefit you will comply.”

“Yes,” I said. What did she mean, for my benefit?

“You don’t care for people very much, do you?” she said.

“No.” I said, a little surprised.

“That is unfortunate. There is an axiom. If everyone you meet is an idiot, it is you!” Her laughter was glass breaking.

“I don’t have to take this,” I said.

“Yes, you do. You want to hang up, I forbid it. You want to move your legs but the nerves and muscles aren’t speaking with each other right now. You want to call out, but I forbid it.”

All she said was true. I was surrounded by people making their calls but there was no one to rip the thin gray wire out of the wall and free me. “You witch you—!“

“I do not approve of name-calling, Mr. Gayed.”

“Why not just ‘forbid’ me? You’re deeply into that. I notice you never use contractions. Does that make you feel like you’re a higher class of deadbeat?”

“Mr. Gayed. You sound articulate and functionally intelligent. I have already paralyzed your feet and legs. I wonder why you think it would be difficult for me to shut down your diaphragm?” My jaw moved more but no sound came out. My hand cramped around the receiver.

She made a tsk sound of impatience. “Stop breathing.”

With my free hand I grabbed at my throat. Useless. I looked down and saw that my torso was not rising and falling. The realization seemed to ignite fire in my lungs. I looked at my desk clock and watched the second hand sweep around half the face. I had not taken a deep breath before my breathing stopped and the air hunger was beyond a burning need. Need is not a big enough word. Black spots appeared at the edge of my vision and then they began to grow larger. Would the paramedics be able to move me when they arrived? Would firefighters have to saw me off at the ankles? Would they take my body to the morgue and leave my feet in my shoes forever glued to the Berber carpet? I pitched forward from the waist and my head slammed into the desk.

“Start breathing,” she said.

My first gasp was a great heave and it was several minutes before my breathing slowed. The bridge of my nose was bloody. It stung like bees. I decided not to call Dr. Papua any more names. The air tasted cold and sweet.

“Please let me hang up. I won’t bother you again.”

“I am fascinated with the workings of the body. When I studied anatomy I was awed by its complexity. I thought its design was proof that there is a god.”

“Please don’t do anything.”

“Then I studied pathology. When you see all that can go wrong with this incredible organic machine it makes one think there must surely be a devil. Do you know what the Circle of Willis is?”

“No.”

“It is a little circle of blood vessels at the top of your brain. It is a very common site for strokes…your heart is starting to pound much faster now.”

I could feel the gallop in my chest instantly and I was breathing harder.

“The hand that is not holding the phone to your ear is going numb.”

It was. “I’m just doing my job. Look, I’m sorry!”

“Your job compounds misery. You harass people. How many files do you have on your desk which are dead cases like mine?”

“I-I’m sorry…what do you mean by dead cases?”

“Those which are more than six years old.”

“I have all the old Taunton’s files.”

“Ah, yes, of course. You are the ‘go to guy’ of the office, are you not?” She used the expression as if the words had a strange taste.

“Yes.” The numb feeling was creeping up my forearm. I gave it a tentative whack on the edge of the desk. It felt like my arm was asleep, only the near border of emptiness was crawling up my arm toward my shoulder.

“A stroke can be terribly disabling and disfiguring. It can twist one side of your face or just kill you.” I wet my pants then, not in a spasmodic squirt I could try to hold back but a long hot coursing stream down my immobile legs. “If you were to live but could not take care of yourself, who would help you?”

The numbness was still spreading and tears began to slide down my cheeks. “My mother would help.”

There was a long terrible pause. The minute hand swept around twice before she spoke again. I couldn’t hear her breath or any ambient sounds. It was as if her end of the line was in some underground space lined with cotton. I couldn’t feel the right side of my face. “Hello?”

“Are you a disappointment to your mother?”

“Of course I am, Dr. Papua. No kid wants to grow up to be a bill collector. No parent dreams that.”

“So, you are disappointed in yourself, as well?”

“You know you are a sadist, right?”

Her laughter trilled again and a chill went through me that started with the cooling urine down my legs and crawled with spidery feet up my spine. Spine-tingling is not an empty cliché. It’s real. I know that now.

“You dare to offend me. You still have some dignity. You may be redeemable.”

A little flame of hope sparked that she would, just and finally, let me go. Dr. Papua was quick to douse my little fire. “I let your predecessors live. That strategy does not seem to be enough to stop these calls from your firm. You know I can do more than simply stop your heart. I could instruct you to put a baby in an oven and broil it for your dinner if I was so inclined. If you fail me, you fail yourself. The world is full of phones.”

“Y-yes.” I would have grimaced but my face wasn’t under my control anymore. Were straining blood vessels in my brain about to burst? Had they already? She talked and all I could do was make urgent agreeing sounds from deep in my throat. When she was done she told me to close my eyes and count backwards from ten. I did so, though from ten to five I couldn’t speak and the numbers were only in my head like the opening of an eight millimeter film counting down. At one the line went dead. No click. No dial tone.

I lurched backwards and yanked the phone away from my burning ear. A long vowel sound burst from me as I shot out of the chair. People were suddenly all around me asking questions and telling me to sit down but it was all a meaningless buzz. I swept up the files and hugged them as I strode to the door.

Engells, my supervisor, appeared in front of me. At first he was perplexed and then he tried to hold me back and grab the files. I pushed him away. He leapt at me and I pushed him down. I had to get out. As the door closed behind me I glanced back to see Engells still on the floor staring after me with bug eyes.

I burned Dr. Papua’s file in a steel drum behind my apartment building. Then I burned the rest of the files. I watched the paper curl in the heat and turn to ashes. My cell phone went in next. I stood back from the drum and watched. I don’t know for how long. The cell phone battery exploded with a tinny bang which woke me to the night and the cold that was gathering its strength around me. “It’s time to come in out of the dark,” I said aloud to no one. I climbed the stairs to my apartment, feeling lighter with each step. Tomorrow I would begin again, I decided. I’d get my acting career going. This time for sure.

After I ripped it off the kitchen wall, I shattered the phone on the floor. I kept kicking until all the phone’s components skittered across the linoleum in small jagged pieces. I put on clean pants, sat on the couch and listened to my heartbeat. The pounding in my temples finally began to slow. I took a deep breath and the air was new. A hot tear slipped down my cheek. I was so grateful for my breath, as if I had finally surfaced after being underwater a long, long time.

I am still grateful. Dr. Circe Papua, wherever you are, thank you.

Robert Chute is a freelance writer, editor and existential horrorist with a background in newspapers and book publishing. End of the Line is from his short story collection Despair is a Vowel Sound. Copyright © Robert Chute, 2008. All rights reserved.