Before I do anything else, you should all pop over to Ozlem Yikici’s blog and read my guest blog entry, “The Cliché: Like Father Like Son.” I’m happy to be featured on her blog, and you should take the time to browse some of her art and writing. Don’t be shy. Hit it up! Also, I’ve gotten a copy of Anobium Vol. 2 in the mail, and it’s absolutely beautiful. You should slide over to their site and grab a copy. You’ll be happy you did.
Otherwise, I know you’ve noticed my distinct lack of blog entries lately. Originally, I’d been working on a flash novel for Kazka Press’s flash novel competition. I recently crested the 42,000-word mark and recognized that I’m a little over halfway done the novel. It won’t come in anywhere under the 50,000 max limit. Unfortunately, while I won’t be able to submit to Kazka, I’ve realized that this manuscript will be my first attempt at self-publication.
For lack of other things to say, I thought I’d feature an excerpt from the beginning of the novel.
The Magnum Puppeteer takes place in the late nineteenth-century. It follows the escapades of Adrian Masters: Shakespearean actor, womanizer, and all-around asshole. When a rival actor moves to usurp a lead role from Adrian by awakening an entity thought long dead, the mystical and the believable collide with messy results. A dark hand pulls the strings of New York’s supernatural underworld, setting humans against each other, dragging Adrian Masters into a part he’s not ready to play…
_________________________________________
Actors are cutthroat. They always have been and they always will be. That’s why I suppose I shouldn’t have been too surprised when I woke up and found one of them holding a blade as big as my forearm against my neck.
“You make a move,” Marcus Northweight said to me, “and I’ll give you a new mouth to say all your lines out of.”
Not quite the way I’d prefer to get woken up. The blade had the rotten odor of fish-guts stuck somewhere in its blood-gutter. Marcus’s breath reeked as he breathed, sweeping the stink of whiskey and wet meat across my nose every time he huffed out some air. It was dark in my room. A little sliver of winter moonlight showed me all I needed to see – the huge skinning-knife, its well-sharpened end, and the hearty smile leering behind it.
“No moves,” I said. “But talking—”
“Talking’s allowed,” he said. “Talking’s highly suggested.”
“Anything special you’d like to talk about, Marcus,” I said.
“You and me,” he said. “And the fact that my wife’s still asleep in this bed next to you.”
I’d almost forgotten about that part. She made soft little snores that sounded like puppy-dog growls, but she fucked like a pitbull with a Chinese firecracker shoved up her ass. She hadn’t woken up yet. I hoped to God she wouldn’t. Sometimes you do things you regret, and sometimes you do things just because you’ve got the influence to do them. She was one of those.
I’m a good actor. Really good. The best. Self-trained, too. Raised on reading Shakespeare and the Bible, I’d always thought the Bard had had a little more sway in the world than Jesus or God. Better fashion-sense, too. The same lessons I’d learned from the stage I decided to use as I was being held knife-point by an angry young man. I kept eye contact, waiting for a cue. I felt a droplet of sweat slide down between my knuckles.
“I knew she’d been shacking up with someone at night,” Marcus said, leaning ever-so-slightly on the bedside, just enough to make it creak but not enough to make it tilt. “She always said she’d been out drinking with the girls or seeing a dancing show. A nightlife like nobody’s business here in New York, so I bought it for awhile. She was real convincing.”
“She’s learned a bit about acting from you, Marcus.”
“Acting, but not lying.”
“Did you follow her?”
“Didn’t need to follow her. She’s my wife. I know how she thinks. And you’re you – I know how you think.” The blade scraped along my stubble, singing a little wheezing song against my skin. “I watched you two share sweat, swap spit, and do all number of ungodly things through that keyhole in your door.”
“You didn’t join in?”
“I wanted to be sure it was real,” he said.
“You’re a little late to the party, Marcus. We’re all tuckered out.”
“You might be tired,” he said, “but this knife here sure ain’t, Masters. If you plan to keep your life – and your balls – then I recommend you drop the backtalk, tread carefully, and listen fiercely to what I have to say.”
“Then say it,” I said. I tried not to breathe. Whenever I did, my throat and the knife had a moment or two to get to know each other.
“You have something I want. Something that if you gave it to me would make me forget about this whole thing.”
“Money-purse is in my nightstand.”
“Got money,” he said. “Not like yours, but I got some.”
“Then what is it,” I said.
“You don’t give it to me, I give you gills. You don’t give it to me, I don’t think twice about gutting Mrs. Marcus Northweight over there for playing two-bit whore for Hathaway Company’s two-bit leading man.
“I want your role, Masters,” he said, twisting the knife so its point pressed up into the bottom of my chin. “Opening night’s in two weeks, and I want your part. But for me to have it, you need to be out of town. You need to be gone from Hathaway Company. You need to be a memory.”
“Or you’ll make me one.”
“You and her,” he said, “bloodier’n hell and tangled all up in your bedsheets.”
“They’ll know you did it, Marcus.”
“And I know you don’t want to be dead, Masters, what, with all the standing ovations you steal from the rest of the company.”
Mid-thirties isn’t a time to die. It’s a time to do anything but die. It’s a time to drink whiskey until it comes out of your ears, make a general ruckus, get into barfights, and get caught pounding your understudy’s marital partner. With success like mine – like the kind of fame I’d secured in Hathaway Company, New York’s leading American-only Shakespeare troupe – you didn’t want some half-wit wanna-be with Daddy’s knife coming along and ruining such a damned good run.
Live and lose my spot as Hathaway’s leading man. Die and lose my spot as Hathaway’s leading man. Maybe it was the knife singing like a tuning fork or Marcus Northweight’s toothy, one-dimple grin, but the better choice wasn’t difficult to surmise.
“I go,” I said, “and she comes with me.”
“Keep her. You ruin everything you touch,” said Marcus. “King Midas touch in fucking reverse.”
“Give me two days.”
“You’ve got one.”
The knife reiterated his point. The steel was well-oiled, newly sharpened, and ready to dull itself on my skin.
He withdrew the blade. He almost missed the hip-side scabbard with its point when he put it away. Marcus grabbed the knuckle of his finger where a thin, tarnished wedding band was. Like he was sliding the skin off a fat sausage, he yanked the band free and threw it on the bed.
The door didn’t make a noise when he left. I sat up. Mrs. Marcus Northweight stirred a little. She turned to the side. A limp breast with a chocolate-drop nipple showed underneath the arm draped over her face. A muffled fart rumbled under the sheets like secret lady-thunder. She turned her back to me.
And then came the puppy-dog snores.
