Musings & Thoughts for Monday, April 8, 2024, or: How I Spent My Sunday, and Writing Exercise #6

Late Morning, Monday, April 8, 2024, Madison, New Hampshire

Hi, all. It’s a gorgeous – if perhaps a bit chilly for this Florida-born newcomer to New England – early spring day here in Eideleweiss District. Currently, the temperature is 48°F (9°C) under sunny skies. With the wind blowing from the west-southwest at 2 MPH (3 Km/H) and humidity at 41%, it feels like 64°F (18°C). The forecast for today calls for sunny skies and a high of 59°F (15°C). Tonight, the skies will be partly cloudy. The low will be 34°F (1°C).

Oh, and the total eclipse will “pass through” New Hampshire this afternoon at 3:15 PM EST. I live too far east of the “totality zone,” but I’ll be in the “near-total eclipse zone,” which means 86% of the sun will be obscured by the passage of the Moon between Earth and our “home star” and center of the Solar System.

Weekend Update, Part the Second: How I Spent My Sunday

Sunday, April 7, 2024 was essentially a repeat of Saturday, except (a) I didn’t work on the novel and (b) I didn’t play Regiments again. The only new wrinkle was that I took my Indiana Jones DVDs (the 2003 box set – a gift from my late ex-girlfriend Junie, who died in 2006, two years after we broke up – and the 2008 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) and some of my Jurassic Park Blu-rays out of a box that’s been sitting in my office since December 2023. (I have yet to find the box sets with the 4K UHD Blu-rays of the Jurassic Park/Jurassic World series, but they can wait for now.)

Alas, I have no shelves to put them on properly, but I was assured that Marc will finish assembling them when he gets back from his family’s vacation in a few weeks.

Anyway, my Sunday was remarkable only because it was unremarkable. At least we didn’t have more snow or another power outage….

On Writing & Storytelling: Writing Exercise #6: “May I Say Something?”

What is the first line of dialogue in your novel? Who is speaking?

In the Prologue to Reunion: Coda there are several instances where my narrator/protagonist uses indirect quotes to highlight several cliches that he (and I) think are trite and annoying, including Everything happens for a reason and Time heals all wounds.

However, the first line of character-to-character speech appears in Scene 3 of the Prologue. It’s “Are you going to be okay, Jim?”  It is spoken by Jim Garraty’s best friend, Mark Prieto, in a scene set less than 20 minutes after the last South Miami Senior High School scene in Book 1 of the Reunion Duology.

Here’s the entire scene for context:

3

The Last Afterschool Walk Home

This is a story I don’t tell often; I’m a private man, and I don’t like to spill my guts about my love life, or lack thereof. I’m fine with talking in front of a crowd – whether it’s my history students at Columbia University or the folks who come to hear me read from my latest World War II book at the bookstore. But when it comes to the women who have broken my heart, or the one who never knew she had it, I keep that to myself.

The only other person – besides you, now – who knows the truth about the letter and what I did with it and why is my best friend, Mark Prieto.

Mark wasn’t there that day in June of ’83 when I met Marty for the last time in the chorus room at South Miami High School. I don’t know what would have happened if he had walked in on us, on me and the girl I loved more than anything but was too chicken to tell her. But I know Mark, he’s been like a brother to me since we were kids at Kinloch Park Elementary, and he would have done something. He would have tried to make me confess my feelings to her before it was too late.

But I was young and dumb, scared of my feelings, still hurting from Kathy – she had dumped me three years before, and I still hadn’t gotten over it – and I had let the whole year slip by without making a move on Marty. And then there we were, alone in the chorus room – Room 136, I still remember the number on my schedule – and we kissed. It was the first time we ever did. And I knew I had screwed up. I had set myself up for a fall. No one – not Mark, not Marty, not even God – could have saved me from the mess I had made of my own heart.

I can still see it in my mind, even after 20 years. South Miami High, that canary yellow bunker on the corner of Southwest 53rd Street and Southwest 68th Avenue. It was a short walk from the house where I lived with my mom, Sarah Garraty, ever since my dad died in the early years of America’s lost crusade in South Vietnam. I didn’t need a bike or a car to get there. It was close enough to smell the cafeteria food and hear the bell ring. It was a warehouse for 2100 kids and 150 grown-ups, as one of the Cobras joked once. It was built in 1971, when the world was going crazy with wars and scandals and generational strife. It had three floors of classrooms, chemistry labs, a library, a student publications room, a Little Theater for the drama classes, an auditorium for the various choirs, and walls lined with rows of lockers. It was a place full of secrets and surprises. It was where life happened, for better or worse.

Mark walked with me that day, our last day of high school. He didn’t say much. He knew I was hurting. He knew I was losing Marty, and that I was feeling downright shitty about it. She was leaving for London with her family after graduation. She would be gone for the whole summer, maybe forever. I would be gone too, heading north to Harvard, to start a new life without her. Mark knew all that, but he didn’t say anything. He just walked with me, like a true friend.

Mark and I stood in front of his house, half a block away from mine. We had walked from school in silence – for the last time, my brain kept reminding me. We had already said everything that needed to be said about “the thing with Marty” and the letter. Mark would never admit it, but he was just as sad as I was that our carefree youth had come to an end. We were known in school as the Twins from Different Families because we had been best friends since fifth grade. Now, we would probably not see each other for a long time once I left Miami for the chilly embrace of Cambridge.

As we stood on the sidewalk, just a few yards away from his front porch, Mark finally broke the silence. “Are you going to be okay, Jim?” His blue eyes, usually sparkling with wit or wisdom, were now a dimmer shade of grey-blue – a sure sign that Mark was truly worried or sad.

I sighed. “Yeah,” I said unconvincingly. “I’ll be okay, pal.”

Mark pointed in the direction of my house. “You sure you don’t want me to walk you to your front door? It’s no problem.”

“What are you now, my dad?” I replied with a half-hearted chuckle. “I’ll be fine. It’s not like I live in Westchester or Sweetwater, bucko. I’ll probably go straight to my room and crash – I didn’t sleep much last night and I’ve been up since 6:30. I’m bushed.”

Mark grinned. “You sure it’s not because you’re afraid of running into that crazy cat lady next door?”

I rolled my eyes. “Very funny, Mark. But no, I think I can handle Mrs. Finklestein and her army of felines.”

We both burst out laughing – it was the first time we had genuinely laughed since that final bell rang at 2:30 PM, signaling the end of our school days. But as the moment faded into the past, our smiles slowly turned into quiet sobriety.

“Well, I’ll catch you tomorrow,” Mark said in a subdued voice. “But if you need to talk….”

“I got your digits,” I replied.

I turned and started walking towards my house when Mark called out, “Hey, Jim!”

I stopped and turned around. “What’s up?”

“May the Force be with you,” Mark said, making his best Han Solo impression.

I laughed and flipped him the bird over my shoulder before continuing down the sun-drenched sidewalk towards home.