I am the luckiest man on the planet. I scored with my wife and two kids. Is life easy? Hell no. I work hard everyday just trying to figure out how to get ahead a little bit. I’ve always only figured out how to survive. Oh well. I’ll take it. Survival is good.
I went to school for Creative Writing. I won awards for writing back then but that writing is not so good. I was trying to hard to be a literary guy. I realized that as a middle aged man who worked a physical job,that I might drop dead at any minute and so I began to pursue my writing more seriously in a spill my guts before it spills out all over the place kind of way. I just want to tell a good story…
So, Death chases me with every sentence I write.That’s why I always write murder stories. I am trying to get a vision of myself and the experiences that I have and the ones my imagination have, so that my kids can read their Dad’s words one day when I’m gone.
Oh, I plan on living, but I’m 49 and my kids are 4 and 2. Do the math. When they are 34 and 32, I will have been in the grave for 5 years already.
So, I love murder stories but I don’t write whodunits. I’m not smart enough to do the New York Times Crossword puzzle (I hope I am coming across the right way). There’s a ton of fumbling in my stories, just like the way I fumble in life. Sometimes, I am fumbling carrying corpses, or falling over them. I bet you know whodunit before I do.
Of course, I am not only talking about my novels and short stories but also my poetry. Let’s call them Little Murders.
Now, Hemingway had his bullshit, I mean his bullfighting, and I have my Junk. I love the theme of my thrift store and the dinosaurs Junkmen I was lucky enough to meet when I started in this business.
I started to smoke cigars like they did, as I listened to their treasure stories, mob stories, Junkie stories, women stories. These guys were Pirates and I was the kid on the ship bringing them the rum and listening to wonderful lands of intrigue all in the five boroughs. New York really has millions of stories, and those millions of stories lived somewhere, and when they died, I got to see how they lived and learned a piece of their story. It was a way I learned to solve mysteries of how people lived, my own way.For example, I look at pots and pans differently than you do. I can tell alot by the handle and by the condition of a pan…
Come with me on an adventure. Whether you come on my ship of stories, or on land at my thrift store. You should know that you are a part of the luckiest man on the planet and I bet after you’ve introduced yourself to me, we will swap stories and I will even feel luckier.
