Introduction

wed 13 November

Welcome to my Rough Draft.

This is how I began the last novel I wrote. I started with a rough draft. Then I re-wrote it and re-wrote it and re-wrote it…until I was blue in the face. Took me years. Wha’d I end up with? Log Of The Yardbird. Which is an okay novel. People liked it told me so. People thought it sucked kept quiet. Fine. You’re welcome to your opinion. Eat shit and die. As for me, every time I pick up my one copy of Log Of The Yardbird , open it at random, read a page or two, I find I’m not displeased.

It really aint a bad first novel.

But writing the fucking thing took way too long. Years and years. I no longer have years and years. I don’t have time left to Dick around with a grand plan for a novel, then spend years and years rewriting it. I’m done with that. What I’m gonna do here is write one draft. A rough draft. That’s it. That’ll be my next novel.

I could even call it ROUGH DRAFT if I felt like it.

I’m calling it Dog Bone Soup

Stay tuned!

One

You can call me Barry. I’m seventy one years old. For now. By the end of this novel I may be seventy two. Or I may not finish this novel. I could croak tomorrow. I’m not sick or anything. I’m old. Shit. Anything can happen when you’re seventy one years old.

Lately I’ve noticed good and bad days in my overall health. Not because I came down with something like a Cold or the Flue. I’m talking shifts in my general well-being. It’s like I’m up and down on a chart. Call it the general well-being chart. It could look like this:

Chart Of General Well-Being

Down days occur for no reason. I just don’t feel good. Twenty years ago I had only good days. I could wake up sore from too much exercise but I still felt good, generally.

Well-being is the only thing of value in this crazy ass world.

To some it’s a gift. No matter what happens they feel cheery as hell. I can’t think of anybody off hand I know personally who’s cheery as hell no matter what comes their way. Wait a minute. The Dude I work with. My team leader. Calvin Dalvin . He’s cheery as hell. Every single god damned time I call him, I get the same response.

“Hey Calvin, how you doing?”

“I’m pretty damned fantastic, Barry! How’re you doing!”

“Pretty good….”

“Just pretty good?”

“Yeah…how was your vacation?”

“It wasn’t a vacation.”

“Oh?”

“I had a family emergency. My Father passed away.”

“Gee, I’m sorry.”

“Oh, it’s all good. Dad’s in heaven.”

“Of course.”

“They’re all together now.”

“Pardon me?”

“All of them. My mom and two sisters. They were aboard flight 777. You remember? It was in the news quite a lot recently.”

“No!”

“Oh, yeah. Pilot error, they’re calling it. Anyway, it’s all good. Dad’s happy now. What can I do for you today, Mr. Barry!”

I’ve never met Calvin in the flesh. We communicate by smart phone. I’m sure he wears a permanent smile. Life just rolls off him. I used to be like Calvin. Nowadays I’m carrying life around like a fifty pound pack. I wake up at three a.m. thinking, “what the fuck kind a horror is today gonna bring?”

There’s never a real horror. Just a general malaise. Like the feeling I used to get before up and quitting a shitty low-paying Job. I could just quit and feel better for a while.

Quitting Life requires more of a commitment.

I’ve yet to start drinking first thing in the morning. Booze Therapy, Hans called it. Old Hans drank his breakfast Vodka straight. One day the Ambulance arrived and carried him off the dock in a stretcher. He croaked at the V.A. Hospital. I never thanked him for his service. He’s doing okay now, I guess.

That’s if he made it to Heaven.

to be continued….