(Parenthetical)

I woke up as Hemingway: at dawn (too early), cat in my face (purring), my back stiff (old man), an aching head (I wondered if my ears were bleeding), and not able to recall the previous twelve hours of my life (enough Jack Daniel's to shock an Old West outlaw).  And it was a story that woke me up, a narrative running through my (aching) head about Emily.

(Those of us who heard Lloyd Bentson's quip to Dan Quayle are doomed to hear it reworked for the rest of our lives, as in:  "I knew [Ernest Hemingway] and you, Sir, are no [Ernest Hemingway]."  Certainly, I am not.)

I came downstairs, microwaved yesterday's remaining coffee, and felt a grating wheeze when I drew a deep breath.  (There were still plenty of cigarettes in the pack in my pocket.  I couldn't be certain, but evidence suggested I'd not smoked that much last night.)  I stood in the backyard, drank my lukewarm coffee (no matter what you do, microwaved coffee always tastes like, well, microwaved coffee), and had a(nother) cigarette.  And this narrative of Emily's was still streaming on in the back of my head.

(Sometimes, somehow, I just 'know' that it's best if I read or do internet research or blog rather than try to write.  [Judging by the date of the previous post, not that often.]  But actual writing is more important, so I shouldn't feel bad about not blogging.  That is, if I were actually writing, I shouldn't.)

While I am (indeed) no Ernest Hemingway, I do (like him) enjoy "the drink."  But this I can't reconcile:  drink+write.  Hangovers are nobody's petrie dish of creativity.  Yet, there seem to be (in my mind, anyway) so many boozy writers (or writing boozers?).   Which brings me to the title point:  (I just can't concentrate.)

(Fortunately--for me, not the reader--blogging requires little concentration.  [Self-indulgent tripe spawned from self-indulgent drinking.]  It's what the internet is for.  Spacebook, Tweeter, Glogspot, selfindulgenttripe-dot-com [look it up]; all these places to say: me, me, me.) (Oh, and p0rn.  If you didn't know, the internet is for p0rn.)

And Emily just pointed out to me that my weekends have become parenthetical.  (Till this point, I'd managed to ignore her.)  "You know," she said, "you haven't been listening to me, lately."  (Hey, I've been busy.)  "And--" Emily started to say.  (I expected her to start listing off my flaws.)  "And we all miss you."  (Don't you pull that with me.  Don't you try to make me feel guilty.)  "Just keep in mind," she said, leaning in closer to whisper, "we don't get to spend a lot of time together.  It's best if we make it quality time."  (Fair enough.  I'd let the entire month of February slip by.)

So (maybe) it can be that the week is (parenthetical, that is).  Sundays are the open parens, and Saturdays are the close (parens).  And what I need to do is make sure the rest is a full sentence (with subject-verb agreement, proper punctuation, and the active voice)--that is, not wake up feeling like Ernest Hemingway.

Forget the DSM IV... Laugh Out Loud

The sky was gray this morning, a gray that embraced the sun, not yet ready to release it to the day. I might have frightened some people on my way into work, under that gray sky. Sometimes I notice things that make me smile inside my head. Sometimes they make me smile on the outside. Sometimes, I even laugh. Out loud. That's when I notice people stepping away from me.

I see things differently than some people do. I think about things, particularly mundane things, a little differently. I don't know if it is a learned skill I use to fuel my writing or if writing is a natural result of seeing and thinking this way. I like to think I'm not like some (many? dare I say most?) other people.

I had an assignment in fourth grade to draw a caricature of myself: exaggerated head, little body, accentuating traits or personal interests. (I might be making that up. I don't remember the details of the assignment; it was a long time ago. It may have been an assignment simply to draw myself, but I interpreted it as caricature.) For a short time after the assignment was complete, I was called "Peanut Head." There's no surprise why: I drew my head in the shape of a peanut. (It wasn't as extreme as it might sound. It was sort of a circle, but I brought the sides in just a bit. Maybe more than I'd intended.)

I would have escaped unscathed, but my teacher decided she wanted to instruct from it. "See how Matt drew himself with a toy car in his hand? We all know he likes toy cars." "Matt has bright red freckles in his picture. We know his freckles aren't that red, but it gets our attention, and we recognize them when we see him." Why would she do this to me? "See how..." Ok, we get it. See how Matt has a head shaped like a peanut? (I've changed her name, but Ms. Amblewaddle has a lot to answer for: this—and other episodes.)

My justification for the peanut head was that I figured everyone else in the class was going to draw a boring, predictable circle as a head and I knew heads weren't perfectly round. (I am not making that part up. I remember thinking that.) Admittedly, my head isn't peanut shaped (I hope), but why draw yourself with a boring, predictably round head unless you want to be seen as a boring, predictable person?

Because of my ability to see at things differently (and my willingness to be called "Peanut Head"), stories—and especially characters—seem to be everywhere I look. I was vindicated by a writers' how-to guide I found on my shelf, which I read in spite of its awful title (in fact, I won't identify it; there has to be something similar and more updated—and without a title that embarrasses you if you're caught reading it). Almost three-quarters of the book is focused on knowing your characters. Even without a story, to know your character inside and out, to know the ambitions, joys, fears, loves, and secret demons of your character, is the essence. The setting, tone, theme, and plot will form around her. What a relief. I have a city's worth of people in my head. And a city's worth of people I notice as I go about my day.

The author also repeats a quote, attributed to Mark Twain: "Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities." Turns out, I live by this. I did like toy cars, but I called them Matchbox cars. I always used that brand name, deliberately. Hot Wheels? Unthinkable. I still have a dust-speck of longing over a toy Lincoln, made by Matchbox, that was left behind when I was four and we moved. It was an unremarkable dark red two-door with a white top—and it was my favorite. It was a car a four-year-old might see parked on the street outside his window. Hot Wheels made cars like a station wagon with fat back tires, a ridiculous paint job, and absurd decals. Honestly, what normal person jacks up a car and paints it bright silver with a flaming skull-and-bones? Worse, it was a Pinto.

When I played with my Matchbox cars, I stuck to possibilities. For a time, a plain green Volvo station wagon was a favorite. It was when "Family Ties" was popular, and the TV family had a Volvo. My imagination took me as far as the Keatons! Was my imagination feeble? On the contrary, it takes a vivid imagination to make the mundane interesting, to make the ordinary worth retelling. True, a story without tension and conflict won't fly, but finding drama in the ordinary makes a story the reader can relate to, a story not outside the obligation to the possible. Although they were not named so at the time, I suspect Olive and Emily were driving around in those unremarkable, possible cars.

Most of us live ordinary—boring and predictable, even—lives. (Unless, I suppose, you're an Obama. Even so, everyone poops.) Still, I find myself writing my own story as daily life churns along. I imagine a typewriter clicking away, capturing observations and events on an endless sheet of paper. This morning as I walked, I noticed the autumn sky. I captured it and tried to see it as words on a page. "The sky was gray." Wait. "The sky was grey—grey with an E grey." No. "The clouds in the sky..." I kind of liked that 'with an E' thing. "The grey of the sky came with an E." Yuck.

After five minutes I realized I'd said 'gray' in my head two dozen times (I get the meaning of ad nauseum when this happens). I don't often take special note of the color of the sky, no matter how it's spelled. People, however, are rarely gray. Even during the soul-crushing experience of riding on a DC Metrobus, you see the richness of life. Down-turned faces and furrowed brows hint at the ambitions, joys, fears, loves, and secret demons underneath. Sometimes people let you know how important they by talking too loud on cell phones. Sometimes they fall asleep and flop against the disgruntled passengers next to them. Sometimes they just stare ahead and think about things a little differently from anyone else. That is why we're all funny enough to laugh at—out loud.

Scattered Nouns: People, Places, and Things All Over the Place

I've mentioned 'old writing' several times, now, and it leaves me with a twinge of regret.  How long have I been (not) writing?  If you're unlucky enough you need a money-making job, and unlucky enough you don't have someone taking care of your every responsibility, it's easy to fall victim to life getting in the way of writing (or any diversion).

I would go years without writing anything substantial.  Sometimes, in between, I scribbled thoughts down in notebooks, or sat at a computer, saving my ramblings about nothing in particular (I have a folder full of files named, for example, 2004-07-12.doc), but there were long lengths of time when nothing of note came forth.

Which, now, makes me older (through no fault of my own).  It's not that I regret not producing more, and sooner; it's just that I should have been practicing more.  Which is why I decided I must treat my writing as a part-time job.  And I can't just 'no call, no show.'  I've committed to twenty-five hours a week, and if I miss a day (when life gets in the way), I have to make up the time, later.

I count myself lucky, to some degree.  I now have the ability to produce--really move forward--in my projects, whenever I sit down.  That's a product of age.  It's not all luck; there's also deliberate, diligent effort and there's a scattering of ideas, which brings me to my title point.

Last Sunday morning I knew I was short on my twenty-five hours, and I was supposed to make up my time.  The problem was I was facing nine hours and I was feeling uninspired.

The first reason I thought I should be able to write something(s) for nine hours was that I have no less than a dozen on-going projects.  There are plays and prose (and another, less-stupid--though probably no musically better--musical).  There are projects in historical fiction, humor (anecdote/memoir), narrative fiction, satire, and even thriller/horror.  Among the projects, I can usually (though not last Sunday) find something calling to me.

Or should I say, someone?

Another reason I should have been able to do nine hours' work was each project has at least a few (and, in some cases, many) characters.  Characters have facets and depth (I hope, for goodness sake) and somewhere within them there should be something I like--or don't like--that would inspire me to start writing.  I tried to drum up some sort of inspiration from them last Sunday, but nobody wanted to boogie.

So I boogied on my own.

Tolstoy says, "Music is the shorthand of emotion."  (I looked it up on-line; I don't--can't & won't--quote Tolstoy off the top of my head.)  Having sat for ten minutes, uninspired and un-writing, I turned on internet radio.  I was in the mood for 1950's early Rock-n-Roll.  That was all it took:  a nudge from music.  Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and Chubby Checker helped me put in nine hours of writing.

Granted, Etta James isn't going to roll up in my house singin' the blues and handin' me a plot.

Time, however, can.  Which is why I don't regret not producing more when I was younger.  I didn't have it in me.  I don't mean to discount young writers--hey, if you have it, work it, Baby.  Personally, I found though I could develop characters, describe settings, and delve into thoughts, a (big) problem remained:  nothing...  ever...  happened.  It took some life experience to get through that.  And it worked out in two different ways.

First, I read a book.

Leisure reading, as a writer, is a bit of a guilty pleasure.  "If I have the time to read a book, shouldn't I be writing, instead?"  Maybe...  but, no.  If nothing else, it brings you alternative approaches to style and structure.  For me, Anne Tyler truly cured me in an unexpected way.  I suffered from I-have-interesting-characters-and-perfect-settings-but-I-don't-have-a-plot-line-itis (look it up in any medical dictionary).  I've invested too much time reading Anne Tyler to disparage her - but she's not one to get overly concerned about plot.  By the time I got to my third or fourth of her novels, it occurred to me:  Anne Tyler is all about the characters; just as much as--if not more than--the plot.  Don't get me wrong, in Anne Tyler's novels, the characters do things, there is a plot, things happen.  But I began to realize that a book can be as much about the internal workings of the characters, their settings, and their surroundings as it is about getting from point A to point B in the narrative of the story.

Secondly, I answered a question.

I wrote a note in one of my college literature class text's margins that reads, "Is a person's life a series of episodes, building to a climax - or is it a string of otherwise unrelated events, bound together only by that common individual?"  Yes.  (It is both.)  Maybe all that is a little 'fillosofickul,' but the point is plot doesn't have to be grand.  If planning to make it out to the mailbox, then making it out to the mailbox, and having made it out to the mailbox contains a good story, doesn't that constitute a plot?  And if that story then includes a trip to the mailbox at ages fourteen, forty-one, and one hundred and four, wouldn't that make a plot?

In the end, I'm certainly no expert: I'm just sharing my thoughts.  (The only way I'm 'seasoned' is my salt-and-pepper hair.)  If nothing else, I've put in one and a half hours on my second-job (I only get half-time for blogging).

A Sonata for Sunshine

Below is a teaser from A Sonata for Sunshine, my "big" novel.  It is the project (that is, THE project) that has been in the works for, oh, let's say 10 years, though parts of it are much older.  (Note a cameo from Jack, a character who has been around since 1995.)

I've been good about being productive today.  What follows is two chunks from the story of Olive.  The first part (through the asterisks) is from chapter seven, which is in part two.  After the asterisks is the continuation of the story in chapter nineteen, part four.  As you might imagine, there is a lot that transpires between II-7 and IV-19.  To help you follow it, you need to know that Emily moves to Sacramento in between.  Since the book isn't entirely chronological, these excerpts, quite separated within the story, actually follow each other.

Stay tuned to find out what happens...

Despite the enormous visor built onto Olive's old car, the glare of the early afternoon sun on the dirty windshield made it nearly impossible for the family to see their new home of Sacramento as they crossed the city limits.  Olive leaned her head out of the passenger window and squinted to see down the highway.  A motel was coming up on the right, and she told Adam to pull in.

"I don't see it," he said.

"It's coming up," she replied.  "It's the big blue sign coming up."

"It's ugly," William murmured from the back seat.

"You can't even see it, yet, Bill," Adam said.

"Sacramento is ugly," he replied.

"Billy, please," Olive said.

Everything was sensitive; she was desperate to make this new life work, and she knew she would have to be the constant optimist for that to happen.  William had proven during their cross-country journey he would be the biggest obstacle, the heaviest drain on her enthusiasm.  He was sullen.  She knew she had ripped him away from his newly forming social life.  At seven (and a half, he would point out), his awareness of a bigger world, of the importance of relationships, and even of his actions' consequences were developing.  Now, in carting her son away to California, she had, she feared, halted that development, or at best delayed it.  Her optimism had to step over the guilt in order to come through.

Adam hadn't been a bundle of joy during the escapade either.  For this, she was not guilty but angry.  It was his damned idea, for goodness sake.  Some of his grumbling she could get over, attributing it to his moody tendencies and to simple exhaustion.  It'd been a long trip.  There seemed to be another level of irritation, though.  It peeked out at times when Olive was talking to no one in particular in the car about her thoughts on what life would be like in Sacramento.

"Wouldn't it be nice," she asked, "if we could find a whole house to rent, rather than an apartment?  I mean, we're a pretty big family now.  Don't you think it'd feel tight in an apartment?  And a house just feels so much more stable, more comfortable than a crumby apartment."

"Olive," Adam interrupted, "I can't drive with you talking so much."

While she sat in silence, she turned the comment over in her head, considering possible retorts, possible ways to get back at him for being mean, during which her thoughts got off track until she realized she was talking aloud again about unrelated things.

"Olive, can you please stop talking for just ten minutes?"

"Fine," she said.  She really wanted to say no, she wouldn't stay quiet for one, let alone ten, minutes.

Adam seemed more pleasant at the moment, maybe because they'd finally reached the end and could rest.

"Oh, Adam, there it goes!" she exclaimed.

"I didn't like the way it looked," Adam replied.

She sighed and wished he didn't have to be so contradictory.  Did he not like that motel just because she's the one who noticed it?

"Here we go," he said, pointing to one farther up the road.

"Do Billy and I have to share a bed?" Jack asked.

Adam said "yes" at the same time Olive said "we'll see."  Always so contradictory, she thought again.

Over the next several days, while they stayed in the motel (which Olive was quite certain wasn't as nice as the one she'd first seen), they rattled around the streets of downtown Sacramento in Olive's dirty old Nash four-door, apartment hunting.  Olive wasn't sure if it was a sign of William's maturing thinking or just his sulking, but he seemed to have quite reasonable reactions (always objections) to the apartments they saw.  Usually, it was his insistence that they have a proper dining room.

"It's where we're supposed to eat," he said.

"But there's a nice big kitchen in this apartment," Olive explained.  "Our table will fit."

"It's not the same," he said.  "It's not right to not eat in a dining room."

After two more apartment previews, the discussion devolved into a temper tantrum.  What was the big deal about a dining room?  "I guess we've always had a dining room," she considered, but his demand for it seemed so fierce she doubted there was just familiarity behind it.

They settled on an apartment; the second floor flat of a duplex, with a breakfast room.  It wasn't a whole house, but it was close.  It didn't have a dining room, but it was close.

A few weeks later, after her things had arrived from storage in Hartford and they'd settled in, Olive arrived home from a doctor's appointment.

"Adam," she reported, "I'm pregnant!  Isn't it wonderful?  I was pregnant during our whole trip across the country.  Isn't that a gas?  What a wonderful surprise.  It makes me feel like our family will really be settled here in California, once we have a child here."

"It is," Adam replied.  "It is wonderful, Olive.  I sure hope we can afford it.  But I'm sure we'll make do, right?"

Way to bring the mood down, Adam Loews, Olive thought.  She was the one who already had found a good job.  She was the one who would "make it work."  She laughed.

"You old poop.  If I didn't know better, I'd think you were the old one in this relationship," she joked.  "I have to tell Emily!"

"Honestly, Mother," Emily said over the phone.  "Don't you think it's a lot to take on?  A new job and city and now a baby?"

"It wasn't on purpose, and if I'd known before we moved we might have put it off," she replied.  "But it's happened and I would appreciate it if someone could be a little, oh, I don't know, happy for me?"

"What's my step-father think?  Was he happy?" Emily asked.

"Of course."

"Oh," Emily continued, after a pause, "I am happy for you, Mother, if you're happy.  I'm sorry to be so critical; it was really thoughtless of me.  Congratulations.  Are Billy, Jack, and Camille excited about having a new baby brother or sister?"

"You know, Emily," she said, rather seriously, "William seems to be having a hard time adjusting--to the whole move I mean.  I think he's looking forward to the baby.  But I just don't know if there's something more I need to do to help him feel more at home here."

When their boxes had arrived, William dove into the china and arranged it systematically in the built-in hutch in the breakfast room.  With each meal, he scanned the shelves for appropriately-sized plates, dug through the drawers for cloth napkins and silver, and carefully and deliberately set the table.  Olive felt it might be getting out of hand; it was compulsive.  They'd not had an informal meal.  William screamed at Jack when he left the table after a Saturday morning breakfast without excusing himself properly.

"Billy, Dear," Olive said later in the day, "would you like to let Camille set the table for dinner?"

His lower lip quivered immediately and tears were nearly instantaneous.

"She won't do it right," he said between sobs.

"Alright," she said in a panic.  "Alright, it's... it's no big deal.  You can--you're right; maybe she's not ready for such a big responsibility."

The response seemed to calm him, but Olive was unnerved.  This just isn't right, she thought.

On December 1, 1956, Avery Loews was born.  Adam sat next to Olive, holding her hand, watching her caress their new son.  To Olive's admittedly exhausted and possibly misinterpreting eyes, he looked cross.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Absolutely nothing in the world is wrong right now," he replied.

Olive was juggling a newborn, a wooden spoon, and an oven mitt when the phone rang.

"Emily!" she gushed into the phone.  "Sweety, how are you?"

"I'm just fine, Mother," Emily replied.  "More importantly, how are you?"

"Dandy!" she said with a joyous lilt.  "I forgot how much fun it is to have a baby by your side."

Emily laughed.

"You're something special, Mother," Emily said.  "I was going to ask you if you're surviving, but clearly you are."

"Emm, I didn't even think it would be this good.  I'm trying to make dinner and everything is a mess, but I'm so happy, I can't even tell you."

"Just make Adam make dinner," Emily said lightheartedly.

Olive did not respond.

"Mom?"

"Oh, you know Adam is nobody's wizard in the kitchen," Olive quietly replied.

"He's not there, is he?" Emily asked.

"Well, not at the moment."

"So he's working," Emily posed, suspiciously.

Olive again made no response.

"Mother!  Are you serious?" Emily demanded. 

"Yes, yes," Olive lied.  "Yes, he's at work; I'm pretty sure."

She could imagine Emily's expression on the other end of the phone.  Olive could sense the anger.

"This is the third time I've called this week that he's not been there," Emily said.  "Frankly, Mother, I'm getting angry.  And I'm getting worried."

Olive couldn't react in time to deflect Emily's reaction.

"That son-of-a-bitch better watch his step.  Listen," Emily insisted, "I want you to call me the next time he walks through that door.  I want to know what's going on."

"I will not," Olive said, defiantly.  "He'll be back any minute now and we're going to have our dinner together as a family, and I don't need to prove to anyone it's happening."

"I just can't understand you, Mother," Emily said with a cracking voice.  "Good night, then.  Have a good night and tell the kids I love them."

"And give Adam my best, if you see him," she added, sarcastically.

"When!" Olive shouted into the phone as Emily hung up.

*  *  *

Emily went out to the garage and found Adam inside, smoking a joint.

"Do you have to do that here?"  she asked.

"Would you rather I did it in the house?"

"It's so good for kids," she said sarcastically, "to look out the window and see Pop getting led away in cuffs to a police car."

"Nobody gets arrested for pot around here, Emily," he said.

"Are you going to go to work stoned tonight?"  she asked, continuing without waiting for answer.  "Oh, let me guess, you're not working tonight, are you?  Wouldn't want to exhaust yourself."

"Did you want something, Emily, or did you just come out here in the freezing cold to bitch at me?"  he asked.

"I would love to stand here and bitch at you for hours," she said, "but I have a job to go to."

"I hope you're in a better mood when you get back."

"I hope you're dead when I get back," she replied.

That night was the first that Adam did not come home.  At first, Emily cared.  She was just nineteen and she had the stamina to make a big deal out of it.  In fact, she was just seven years younger than Adam, and she knew she could play games right along with him.  She could smoke up, she could drink plenty, she could stay up late, and, more importantly, she could out-will him.  She ran into Adam in a seedy bar room on the south side of downtown.  When she noticed he was alone, she approached him.

"Listen to me," she hissed, taking him by the collar and pulling in close to his face.  "I hate you completely, but I can't get my fool of a mother to see it.  So you need to get back to that house, to her, and your son.  You remember, you have a son?"

"Get away from me," Adam said, pulling away and leaning against the wall, resentful and deflated.

"She's already practically forced me out of his life," he said.

"Don't you dare pretend you're a victim," Emily said, more intent than before.  "You are a shiftless, awful piece of garbage that my mother can't let go of."

Awash in an adrenaline driven heat, Emily let herself go.

"I wish!" she continued, feeling a blur of anger and alcohol come over her, "I wish I could cut off her arm so she would let go of you and we could be rid of you... forever."

"You're the only one who hates me, here," Adam replied, recoiling from from Emily's sudden strength and anger.  "You're the one breaking my family apart, Emily."

She looked at him for a moment with squinted double-vision.  Her distrusting eyes brightened with a realization.  He prepared to speak, but she interrupted him.

"Don't bother, you lying bastard," she said, waving her hand in front of his face.  "You can try to blame this on me, or my mother, or anyone else in the world, but the fact is you are...  worthless, pointless."

A wave of relief and release came over her.

"We won't miss you," she said.

"What do you mean, we?" he shouted after her as she walked away.  She decided not to hear him.

The next day Emily convinced Olive to leave Adam and return with the family to Springfield.

Gritty Park

   I'm posting a teaser from my novel, Gritty Park.  Below are excerpts from chapter one, where we are introduced to Gritty Park, and, following the break, chapter four, where we are introduced to a few of the characters in the story.
   I've not really revisited chapter one, yet, so expect that the finished product would be more expansive.  Also, I trust that by the end of reading you'll see it is intended to be a light-hearted satire, but I felt compelled to make that explicit, since the story is not here in it's entirety.
  Both excerpts have been edited for length--hastily--so I hope there's not too much interruption in the flow.
  And I hope this is an effective tease and will compel you to come back later to find out more.

Hanging from a bracket on the second story of a large brick building in Washington, DC, was a sign that once read '7th Street Donut Shop.'  During its prime, this area, which covered nearly forty city blocks, was full of pastry shops and bakeries and came to be known as Sugar Hill.   Its prime was long gone, the stores closed, and owners and residents moved away, but the name remained.

Like much of the rest of Washington, Sugar Hill began a resurgence during the first decade of the twenty-first century.  Vacant homes were purchased and restored, flowers and trees were replanted along the streets, and people began to sit on their front porches again.  As people moved in, stores and shops opened up, and the hoped-for renewal of years prior began to take effect.

The small park at Second and K streets, once known as Culkin Park, got flowers, benches, a new fence, and a new name, Rhapsody Park.  Most of the residents continued to call it Culkin Park--and some continued to call it by the nickname it picked up during its tougher years, "Gritty Park."

It wasn't perfect, of course, and it took several years for the changes to take place in Sugar Hill.  There was still grit, still drug dealing, and still vandalism.  The small gangs in the different Sugar Hill neighborhoods competed with each other for dominance, posting graffiti to stake their claims.

Still, many of the families that weathered the bad years welcomed the coming of the good.  In fact, many of the families knew each other well, married each other, and worked together.  Even some of the newcomers were already tied-in, encouraged by a family member, co-worker, or friend to reconsider Sugar Hill, and see what it had to offer.

It seemed, at least from outward appearances, that the neighborhoods were teeming with friendly people, yearning to welcome others into their lives and work together, hand-in-hand, to see Sugar Hill become the nicest place to live in DC.

*  *  *

"I'm related to her," Diamond said.

"You're full of shit," Joey replied.

"No, seriously.  Her step-uncle is married to my dad's great-aunt," Diamond insisted.

"You're not really related, then," Joey said.

"Close enough, Man.  If I wanted to, I could talk to her."

"So why don't you?"

"I don't know," Diamond said.

The 'her' in question was Ceinelle Portland, known as just 'Ceinelle' since her run-away pop-music hit, "(You're Not Takin') My Eggs and Bacon."  Her given name was Michelle Porter, and her step-uncle was, in fact, married to Diamond's father's great-aunt.  'Diamond' was not his given name, either; he'd adopted it when his grandmother died and he inherited her diamond engagement ring, which he promptly sold to buy a Cadillac.

On a Tuesday afternoon, a few weeks prior to their graduation from high school, Desmond 'Diamond' Harris and his friend Joey were cruising the streets of Sugar Hill.  Ceinelle's song, distorted in the over-worked speakers, blared through the Cadillac and rattled the rear window.  They had their windows down and billows of pungent smoke gushed from the car.

"Wouldn't it be cool if I could get her to come sing at our graduation?" Diamond asked.

"It'll never happen," Joey replied.

"Watch.  I'll make it happen."

Diamond was in charge of the 5-I gang.  When his grandmother died, in addition to the ring, Diamond inherited a sizable amount of cash.  He used it to buy the gang's leadership role from the Sugar Hill king pin, Clarence 'CC' Coleman.  Diamond believed his cash reserves and his gang's larger area put him in a good position to take over as king pin when CC stepped down.

CC was old.  He had grown up in Sugar Hill when the bakeries still puffed out intoxicating wafts from delicious deserts.  He joined a gang back then and stuck with it through Sugar Hill's decline, failed renewal plans, and the crime waves, and he knew the recent rebirth of the neighborhood would eventually bring an end to his current life's work.  Besides that, he was just plain tired and he had stumbled upon other interests.

Several years ago, when he was making big money, he decided to invest in Tiger Tail, a take-out restaurant and the only store around.  Tiger Tail had bullet-proof glass at the counter, a stench of dirty, over-used grease, and a single formica table at the front window.  After a dozen years of service with an associate, CC was offered the opportunity to get deeper into the cocaine business with no cash needed--if CC could work out a little problem.  His associate, Vincento, had ended up with loads of coffee, used to hide the cocaine during transport, and he needed to get rid of it.  So CC made an offer to the proprietor, Mr. Koh:  he would fund a complete overhaul of Tiger Tail in exchange for serving coffee when the renovated shop opened back up.

It turned out that Vincento's cocaine supply was buried in outstanding coffee.  Within six months of reopening Mr. Koh's as 'Kiosk,' word had spread throughout downtown that the place had the best brew in the city.  With an ever-growing clientele, they reworked the menu five times in the first year, changing from fried take-out in Styrofoam containers to a variety of carefully crafted meals, served on stoneware plates to wooden tables with tablecloths and napkins.

The Sugar Hill gangs still met at Kiosk, but CC was often interrupted by problems from the kitchen or surprise visits from favorite customers.  At a meeting in mid-May, he announced he was stepping down as the king pin of Sugar Hill, and he was looking for a replacement.

Randall 'Honey' Beets was an enormous man with an enormous appetite.  Honey's nickname didn't come from his love of sweets, though; it was because of childhood teasing.  His father called him 'Honey' once and the other nine-year-old boys found it hilarious, so they mocked him.  By the time he'd grown to be a teenager, he'd also grown to be twice as large as any of his friends, so he kept 'Honey' to remind them of who had ended up in charge.
At two in the morning, a week before CC's retirement, Honey was rolling down Seventh Street in his giant black Ford Expedition, surveying his territory.  Monty and Red, his second- and third-in-command, were passing a box of jelly donuts around the cab.

"Raspberry, now," Honey mumbled, his mouth still full from his last treat.

He was brushing powdered sugar off his black tee-shirt when he slammed on the brakes.  Another one of Sugar Hill's gangs had tagged a house in his domain.

Honey led the Seventh Street gang.  Their area was in the middle of Sugar Hill, it included Kiosk, the central meeting place and CC's roost, and, with his shear size and brute force, Honey believed he was destined to take charge.