Juxtaposition Abounds

A funny little incident occurred the other day that made me depart from my intention of taking a look at another of the interesting New Mexico sites described in THE BISTI BUSINESS and write this instead.

Every Monday, I co-host (it would be presumptuous to say co-teach) a writing class at the Bear Canyon Senior Center here in Albuquerque. In this and other such classes, we emphasize good writing must contain conflict to test the mettle of a story's characters. Conflict...stress...struggle. Without some element of friction, your story simply lies there, not going much of anywhere. In fact, the story line, itself, might become a struggle for the reader. It may prove so boring he or she casts the book aside and forgets about it. And tension is required , not only in mysteries, which I write, but also across the broad spectrum of literature.

But let's look specifically at mysteries. Whether it is Tony Hillerman's Navajo Cops, Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Officer Jim Chee;  James Lee Burke's New Iberia Deputy Sheriff Dave Robicheaux; J. A. Janice's Sheriff Joanna Brady; Stuart Woods's lawyer, Stone Barrington; or my private investigator, BJ Vinson, each and every one is mired in conflict. More often than not our heroes are battling evil. Occasionally, it is good versus evil, but more often it's Good versus Evil. Sometimes they are engaged in an internal struggle with these same elements we all have inside us. Burke's flawed hero fights that sort of war a lot. But let's face it, confrontation is a lot more exciting when the hero or heroine is seeking to put an end to the wicked machinations of nogoodniks. In mysteries, such friction can range from pitched battles of wit and will to outright bloodshed. And we all like a little bloodshed (not too graphic) in our lives...preferably between the pages of a good book.

Have you ever noticed how good and evil can sometimes blur the edges so that one almost bleeds into the other. How sometimes the hero or heroine will do something a little off-center that runs the risk of crossing an ethical line? Yet, the reader recognizes what our protagonists are doing is in the pursuit of the greater good and give them a pass.

Have you ever had a friend--or a relative--who (probably in your younger days) led you down the "trouble path" farther than you were usually willing to go? Come on, we all have had such an influence in our lives at one time or the other. I call that the juxtaposition of good and evil. It abounds everywhere, sometimes recognized, often not.

The incident I mentioned brought this home to me anew when I booted up my computer the other day. My system told me I had two spam messages. I always take a look at such messages to make sure emails from friends and associates haven't accidently ended up there. When I opened the spam folder this is what I saw:

            -Why Wait to Have an Affair with a Cheating Housewife
            -Join Christian Singles

Read that any way you wish, but to me, it says that juxtaposition abounds in everyday life.


NEXT WEEK: I'll try to get back to THE BISTI BUSINESS.

NEW POSTS ARE PUBLISHED AT 6:00 A.M. EACH THURSDAY

I Just Wanted a Simple Plug-in Lamp

PROLOGUE

I do not do things mechanical well. I have not mastered most of the electronic devices many people take for granted. And I recently learned I don’t even plug in lamps very well. Let me explain.

I have a very small space in which to work on my novels, novellas, and short stories, and proper lighting is a bit of a problem. For years, I’ve had a wall-mounted, plug-in lamp with a moveable elbow that adjusts back and forth so I can have light whether I’m slouching (as I am now) or sitting at the desk with proper posture (well, I’m doing that now, although it won’t last very long).

Some time back, I switched all my light bulbs from nice, soft, energy-intensive incandescent bulbs to those ugly, twisted luminescent, energy-saving monstrosities. The problem was, I had a three-way socket in the lamp, but a bulb that worked only at one setting. So for a couple of years, I’ve had to twist the thing-a-ma-jig that turns on the light three times before it came on. A year ago, it started requiring four turns. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps the lamp developed a fourth setting.

Then a month ago, I had to turn the switch six times before it lit. Well, you can guess the rest. Last week it didn’t matter how many times I turned the switch…no light. I tried the bulb in another lamp to make sure it wasn’t the problem. It worked fine. Ergo, the lamp was shot.

CHAPTER 1

Too bad. I liked my lamp. It had served me faithfully for a long time. I had created and sold sixty short stories, a novella, and five novels by the light of that lamp. Now I had a problem, I had a deadline on another novel, so I couldn’t afford to go maudlin over a brass lamp I’d bought it for $20 from one of the big box stores. Man up, Don, and go spend another $20.

Yeah, right. I went to Lowe’s where I thought I’d bought the lamp years ago. Couldn’t find another one like it. The closest I came was a somewhat similar one that cost a heck of a lot more than my original $20. So I bit the $42 bullet…and then took a bigger bite. I paid $10 for a big, ugly, twisted three-way bulb. Problem solved.

CHAPTER 2

Another thing I don’t do well is follow written instructions for assembling things. Anything at all. After I pulled everything from the box and tore open all the little pouches holding screws and bolts and other mysterious things, I noticed something sort of odd about one of the instructions. “TURN OFF ALL POWER TO THIS AREA BEFORE PROCEEDING.” Really? Just to plug in a lamp. Another thing, why did I need electrical tape to wall-mount a lamp and plug it in? And why didn’t my lamp have a cord?

Aw, crap! The store had sold me a lamp to be wired into a wall circuit. Didn’t the clerk know I just wanted to plug it into a socket? Come to think of it, I probably didn’t tell him.

CHAPTER 3

I did what I should have done in the first place: I took a minute to think about my problem. Then I got out my phone book (yep, I still use them…they’re not electronic) and found a couple of retail lamp shops that also advertised repair work. I phoned the closest one, and a very nice woman asked some intelligent questions and said that while the shop had some new lamps similar to what I described for around $200, she suggested I bring mine to the shop for a simple socket change at a cost of $14.75 plus tax. When she added the repair could probably be done while I waited, I thought this was precisely the way to solve my problem.

I collected the useless new lamp I’d bought, found the receipt from Lowes, and raced over on San Pedro NE near Coronado Mall to the lamp retail and repair shop. I sensed a problem when I entered. There were a number of customers in the small shop, and they were all looking at $200 lamps, not a $14.75 repair job. Nonetheless, the woman who’d talked to me on the telephone took my lamp into the back to see what she could do.

Moments later, she reappeared, saying the lamp could be repaired, but it was a more difficult job than she had anticipated. The price would be the same, but she couldn’t promise my lamp before the day after tomorrow. Still under the spell of spending $14.75 plus tax versus $42, I told her to write it up.

CHAPTER 4

I had no sooner pulled out of the shop’s parking lot than I came face to face with the reality that I wouldn’t be able to work on my novel for the better part of three days. How could I live with that? Conclusion: I couldn’t.

I headed straight for Wal-Marts, Targets, and a couple of other places in a vain hunt for an acceptable substitute before thinking of Home Depot. Maybe they had a lamp like my old one for $25.00 or so (to allow for inflation). Well, they had one (with a pewter finish rather than brass), but it came to $37.00, including tax. In my panicked mode, I bought the lamp.

After pulling out of their parking lot, I faced up to the fact that I had two lamps plus my original waiting to be repaired. And at this point, I had $93.75 invested in replacing a $20 lamp.

So I set out to correct the situation. Lowes accepted my return and gave me back $42. Then I raced home and dialed the repair shop. The same woman accepted the fact I’d sort of “found” a lamp (okay, so I lied to the nice lady and said a neighbor had given me one he wasn’t using) and agreed to tear up the repair order. Another $14.75 recouped. Now I was down to one lamp at a cost of $37 plus a big, expensive bulb. I glanced at my watch. And it had only taken me six hours to do it.

EPILOGUE

The woman at the lamp repair shop agreed to fix my old lamp at her expense and donate it to a charity provided I would bring in the rest of it (shade, wall mounts, etc.). Feeling very noble, I took them in the very next day.

However, the experience reminded me of another personal failing. I don’t repack boxes very efficiently. When I had returned everything to Lowes, it required the box the lamp came in plus a plastic bag filled with things I couldn’t stuff back in it.

I really miss my late wife. She could fix everything from broken dishwashers to balky dryers. Me, I just look at them and call a repair man. She would probably have popped out the old socket and sent me to the store for a $5 replacement. Of course, I would have come home with the wrong one and had to make two more return trips to get the proper one.

Think I’ll stick to writing.

Next week: Maybe we’ll take a look at some of the New Mexico locations featured in THE BISTI BUSINESS.

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

How Men Fold Fitted Sheets

Perhaps I shouldn’t presume to speak for all men. I’m merely one guy who is admittedly deficient in the hand-eye coordination and motor skills required to perform complicated maneuvers, such as—folding fitted sheets. You women may assume I simply wad them up and toss them into the linen drawer, but this is a serious subject, and I am addressing it seriously.

The sheets in question are the first fifteen hundred thread-count, pure Egyptian cotton queen-sized linens I’ve ever owned. I’m not exactly certain what a fifteen hundred thread-count is, nor am I sure if Egyptian cotton is any better than say—Mississippi cotton. Such superiority could be fact-based or simply a matter of snobbery. Do Egyptians brag about their fifteen hundred thread-count, pure New Mexican cotton sheets?

My late wife taught me to launder new items before using them for the first time. In fact, all of my husbandly lore was acquired after I met Betty. It is nothing short of a miracle I survived my college years and my army service ignorant of such crucial information. Within six months of my wife’s passing, I had this housekeeping thing whipped. I could feed myself utilizing only a refrigerator, a freezer, and a microwave. I had acquired a passing acquaintance with a vacuum cleaner, a dishwasher, and a dust rag. However, my confidence slipped a notch when I discovered I’d been doing laundry with fabric softener instead of detergent for the past thirty days. Okay, my clothes were a little dingy but, man, were they soft. A few buttons fell off and a seam disintegrated on a jacket, but I’m not aware of any cause/effect relationship there.

At any rate, after removing my new sheets from the dryer, I buried my face in the still-warm bedding and inhaled the aroma of lilacs. Actually, it was only Resolve Spray & Wash stain remover. I folded the incredibly soft, ivory-hued top sheet and the four—count them four—fancy pillow slips. I hadn’t known Egyptians slept with one pillow at the head and another at the foot. It must be one of those different cultures/different customs things. As I placed these folded items into the bureau, I felt a bit ashamed. The only other things in there were common, ordinary bed sheets, not royal linens tracing their lineage back to the Pharaohs.

Next, I tackled the dreaded fitted sheet. After nestling two corners—one into the other—as I’d seen Betty do, I did the same with the other end pieces. Next, I grasped the four corners—now made two—and flapped the sheet to smooth it out. It settled gracefully across the plain white, plebeian mattress cover, but when I let go of the corners, it wadded up like last year’s discarded Christmas wrapping.

I repeated the procedure and brought all the form-fitted ends into one another, expecting to achieve a neat rectangle. Not so. That springy, stretchy cord sewn into the hem puckered into a pale imitation of a prune. Where the hell did their elastic come from? Not Egypt. It seemed more Teutonic in its tenacity.

Maybe the springy band needed stretching. I did the nesting thing again and pulled the opposing corners apart as far as my arms would reach. Anxious to see if this had accomplished the desired effect, I let go with one hand. The corners shot past my head and hit the lamp on the bed table. I grabbed it in time to avert disaster, but now my clean sheet lay in a heap on the floor. No big deal. My carpet wasn’t due for its semi-annual vacuuming for another couple of months.

The elastic was just too strong. It needed more stretching than the width of my arms. I may lack motor skills, but I do have a brain and the ability to think. I hooked one set of nested corners over the bedroom doorknob and held the other in my hand. I slowly backed across the room, pulling the elastic tighter and tighter in a celebration of the triumph of mind over matter. That up-tight cord was going to relax its grip enough to make the sheet behave.

At that moment, the fifteen hundred thread-count, pure Egyptian cotton fitted corners slipped off the brass knob and caught me flush in the left eye. The one I’d been babying ever since cataract surgery.

My respect for Egyptian nobility considerably diminished, I blinked hard a couple of times and tackled the sheet again. Ignoring the wrinkled hemlines, I folded them inward to bury their obscene ugliness beneath the ivory expanse of the unpuckered side.

By the time I laid the blessed thing in the drawer atop its companion pieces, the entire folding process had taken only twenty-five minutes. But you know, the damned sheet did sort of look as if I’d wadded it up and thrown it in the drawer.

Next Week: Don't have any idea yet...my mind hasn't caught up with my ambitions

New Posts published each Thursday at 6 a.m.

I am not a disciplined writer, but I strive to be a semi-disciplined editor

Let me explain. I am a history buff. That will be readily apparent to any who have read my mystery novel, The Zozobra Incident. The book is a walk through Albuquerque and Santa Fe, two places lavishly layered by the three dominant cultures of the region: Native American, Hispanic, and Anglo (to name them in the order they appeared on our local horizon). As an undisciplined writer, I regularly go off on flights of fantasy exploring, describing, living, this history. In Zozobra…

• It’s a drive up East Central—once part of the famous Route 66.

• Or BJ Vinson’s visit to the University of New Mexico—established in 1892 and isolated on the desert east of town; it now comprises 800 acres virtually in the geographical center of the metropolitan area

• To a walk through downtown Albuquerque, which BJ describes as yo-yoing through time.

• It’s the trip up the Middle Rio Grande Valley past ancient Indian Pueblos to the colonial city of Santa Fe, which has resisted the temptation to shed its Old World charm in favor of urbanization.

• And, of course, it’s the colorful, exciting pageantry of the Burning of Zozobra, which kicks off the Santa Fe Fiesta—an annual blast that’s been going on since 1712 to commemorate the re-conquest of The City Different following the Pueblo Revolt.

The point of all of this is that only a small portion of what I write about history ever sees the light of print. You see, I have this critique partner named Joycelyn (or J, as I call her, lest I inadvertently address her as Jocelyn and end up needing a new head) who constantly reminds me I’m writing a mystery novel, not a travelogue or a history tome.

Indulging my passion in the first draft of my work is both a boon and a bane. I really get into it while allowing myself free-rein. But I truly suffer (as do most writers) when trying to purge some of this heartfelt prose (often quite poetic) so it merely slows the flow of the story instead of halting it dead in its tracks. Thereafter, I rely on J to whip me into line. Ergo, I am an undisciplined writer, but a semi-disciplined editor.

Why is history so fascinating to some of us? Because it is a road map showing how we got from there to here and what we encountered on the journey. But just as maps are flat, creased, boring sheets of paper or parchment or scraped buffalo hide to some, history books evoke the same reaction in many readers. Yet, give almost any of us a rainbow-hued, authentic setting and fill it with interesting characters and intriguing events, and the reader simply has to take an interest in the historical background.

Mark Wildyr, my fellow Albuquerque author (who also shares an Oklahoma lineage), paints a picture of a specific era to make his books (especially his first, Cut Hand) something more than simply gay erotica. I strive to do the same thing with the puzzle-plot mystery genre.

In future posts, we’ll delve deeper into some of the BJ Vinson series historical sites, but next time, we’ll try something else: