A Child's Garden of Serial Killers

Here's the finished version of that one I put up the other day. Honestly, would it have killed me to put in a little scrub on the ground? And that shadow is just awful. Still, I dig the mood.

An E-Mail Exchange

The Oaf: I thought I'd run this by you before I posted. If I wind up writing about the girls often -- and if I don't, how will I steal all their best lines? -- I'm gonna want some pseudonyms for them.

The Sister: Go with it, and just consider them your resource to exploit.


I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I've been walking my younger niece home from school on Thursdays and Fridays, and spending some time with her and her sister before their mother comes home. On Friday we had a little conversation that pretty much tied my brain into knots, and I suspect I have a good deal more cerebral trauma ahead of me.

I'd made some passing reference to clowns that set the whole thing off.

"Clowns aren't funny," she said. "They're scary."

"Well, you're right," I said.

"Once there was a clown who really, really liked cub scouts." Her voice was perfectly dreamy -- she'd slipped instinctively into once-upon-a-time mode.

And I basically crapped my pants. Where the hell did she hear about Pogo the Clown?

"He'd take care of the cub scouts and take them camping but sometimes..." And there was that sweet little smile as she strung me out just a little bit, playing up the suspense. She's still in elementary school, you know. "... sometimes he'd whisper to one of the scouts and tell him they could be special friends and he'd show them special things. And then when they were aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall alone the clown would do something horrible to the cub scout and then kill him."

Oh, brother. On one hand, there was part of me going into full-on panic mode. I punched the red button and screamed Your tiny niece is a serial killer freak! This has to be your fault! Lower periscope! Dive! Dive! Dive!

Then, I also had a sense of relief that she was looking at the situation with that kind of analytic thought. Behind her words was an assumption -- if a grownup offers you special things and secrets, do not motherfucking trust them. I was glad, glad, glad that she had that suspicion.

And then on the other hand, part of me was going, Fascinating. You're watching history turn into folklore right before your eyes. This is the evolution of Märchen for Motherfuckers, and this kid is a bellwether. I've been listening to some Native American folk tales that are basically all about scaring the crap out of kids so they don't kill themselves by doing stupid shit, and the kid is telling me exactly that kind of story.

And then on the other hand (my mind is a hundred-handed monstrosity), I was, more than anything else, amused in very particular way. See, it was hard to be that worried by this because, well...

"I know another story."

"Oh, really?"

"There was a man? And he gave these people drugs and made them kill people. And the last lady they killed?" You cannot imagine the glee smeared out over her milk-white freckled face. "She had a baby in her stomach."

That's not how Charlie tells it. According to him, it was all those crazy sorority girls. I didn't say that out loud, though. I wasn't going to panic just because this copper-topped gamine was au fait with John Wayne Gacy and the Manson family. I needed a little more information before I could react. "So where did you hear about these guys? Was it on TV or something?"

"No, my sister likes scary stories."

And that changed everything. My social conditioning was wrong, my instincts were right. What might seem like a horrifying aberration was actually predictable, standard behavior for someone in my family. I was younger than my nieces when I was checking out books on shark attacks from the Richmond Public Library, spending hours staring at the gaping wounds caused by bites, pictures of body parts fished from stomachs, storing up fuel for the series of nightmares and hallucinations that would rock my late teens and early twenties.

So right now I'm working on a little lecture on the subject of eyebleach, of garbage in/garbage out processing in the human brain. Let the girls know that someday they're going to look at a picture they'll wish they could unsee or read a story they'll wish they could forget without setting them up to expect it. This kind of chat all too easily turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy, and I want no part of that.

Freaking out about this kind of thing does no good. I read a decent book on the subject of children's fantasy lives called Killing Monsters by Gerard Jones. He said the best thing I've heard on this subject -- it's both foolish and destructive to regard the fantasies of children as having any power in and of themselves. A fantasy is a fantasy, and it's usually best to just play along. She's a good kid with a good heart. This doesn't actually mean anything. She's just testing the edges of the human experience.

And this isn't coming from an adult feeding it to them. They're going out and finding it, the same way I was able to find photos of animal maulings, war atrocities, and sideshow freaks when I was their age. I didn't even have the internet, and my world was bursting at the seams with inappropriate information.

Let's face it. It's not a G-rated planet, and expecting smart, curious children to remain innocent is dumb. Hiding things from them is simply a way of letting them know what kind of research they want to do.

This is an aspect of liberty that is troubling and also unavoidable. To allow a child a healthy degree of freedom is to embrace risk, and well. She's one of us. A member of my family. Which means she's got a morbid sense of humor. Which means this probably is my fault.

Her birthday's coming up this week. I think I'll get her a wood chipper.

Good News!

Well, it's been a while since I posted. I've been sick as hell, with a side order of poverty, garnished with depression, and sprinkled with drama. It's been pretty miserable, not to go into the fascinating and interminable details. The last time I saw my dad, I told him I needed some good news for a goddamned change.

Well. Sometimes you get what you ask for.

The first piece of good news is the birth of Olivia Anita Kendall. She's the child of the missus's younger daughter, Becky Kendall, and her husband Ryan Kendall. (Ryan is someone I'd like to have available for hanging-out purposes. He and Becky are medical researchers -- people who have devoted their lives to saving lives.) While I can't begin to regard Becky as my step-daughter, I definitely see Olivia as my granddaughter. And she's already kind of a remarkable kid, in that...

Well, I'm quite capable of caring for babies, and yes, there's something sweet about a fragrant armful of infant, but I'm not that much of a baby fan. And to describe newborns as 'beautiful' is absurd. For the most part, they're pretty much a form of vaginal discharge that screams and shits. But the photographs and videos of Olivia show a really lovely little person rather than a blood-soaked raisin covered in mucus. Go figure.

She's in New York now, but with any luck her family will relocate in the Bay Area and I'll get a chance to spend time with her. I can hardly wait.

And then yesterday I got an email from Patrick Nielsen Hayden. If you aren't familiar with the name, that's because you're not up on the publishing side of the science fiction and fantasy world. He's an award-winning editor, a real force in the field. He also plays a mean guitar. (His gin-glass-slide slack-key impersonation is of particular note.) And he teaches at Viable Paradise, which is where I met him.

He's decided to pick up one of my stories for Tor.com. This is a pretty big deal for me. No, it isn't print -- but from what I understand, in terms of money and exposure, I'm much better off here than I would be in any of the more traditional venues. And if you look at the writers they've published, well. This is not shabby company. This makes me look pretty good.

And there's extra fun involved. I get to do an audio version of the story. I've always fancied myself as having a knack for such things, so I plan on enjoying the hell out of that project.

As a side effect, some of the sting of my recent penury will be alleviated. I'll be able to get my eyes checked and lenses replaced (Have I mentioned how bad my vision has gotten lately? I honestly suspect I've hit legally blind. I think I'm going to need five fucking pairs of glasses at this point. I should get a bandoleer. The missus is quite concerned and has entreated me to rub my eyebones with cod-liver oil and urine, bless her heart.), get my boots resoled, and possibly be able to afford to get a treat of some sort -- maybe the Michael Shea collection, or the Gasoline Alley compilations.

Okay, everybody. Fingers crossed. My professional writing career has commenced. Let's all hope I don't screw it up.

From The Valley Of Lost Projects: Princess Lucinda And The Missing Moon

I ran across these when I was looking for paintbrushes yesterday afternoon. (I swear I had a fistful of decent brushes but they're nowhere to be found. Wound up using a child's watercolor brush, then went to the art store.) I'd forgotten all about this one...

I've posted this image here before. It's the only finished piece I did for this project -- if any of the sketches below had been rendered, they would have been done either as pen-and-ink pieces or in this style.

Four or five years ago I suffered a fit of affection for my princessophiliac nieces and granddaughter and decided I was going to write them a fairy tale.

Unfortunately my tendency toward grisly imagery, convoluted prose, and class warfare (when I think of knights and princesses I picture myself in a stable with a pitchfork) wound up making the creative process a lot more difficult than I'd thought -- and I when I realized that my target audience would find this work intolerable I gave up on it.

I was also just starting to take my writing seriously and my kung fu was weak. The paragraphing in particular made this story a lot more difficult to read than it should have been.

Still, clumsy and amateurish as it it, when I was preparing it for posting I felt a little interest stirring. Maybe it was the Oz-noir abortion I was messing with a little while ago but now there's a temptation to go back and mess with it... I guess at some point I'm going to have to write a fantasy influenced by both fairy tales and my tendency toward the hardcore. "Once upon a motherfuckin' time..."

The start of the story is posted in the comments section if you're interested.

Hanging With Cooper

Cooper was drawing so I grabbed my sketchbook and did this really fast with off-brand crayons -- six-year olds move around a lot so they're hard to draw.

"You're drawing! Stop looking up -- you're supposed to look at the paper!"

One of the reasons I've been riding the bummer train lately is that I haven't been getting enough socializing. I'm pretty anti-social but I've come to realize that company is something people just plain need and like it or not I'm an ape just the same as everyone else.

In particular I've been missing the kids in my life so it was really good to hear that the missus's grandson Cooper was spending the night with us. He and I have an interesting history. When he was an infant and toddler I really had no idea what to make of him -- I'd been dealing with girls for so long I'd forgotten how different boys are. He was like a little robot constructed for the express purpose of setting everything he could reach onto the floor -- none of the need for interaction that seemed to rule the girls.

Then when he was a bit older he was difficult to handle. I was always seeing him with the other kids around and he just didn't play well with them -- they had entirely different agendas and as a result the girls were pretty impatient with him and made it clear that they regarded him as a pain in the ass. Nobody shines under those conditions.

Two things happened. One was really kind of hard on me -- Cooper said a few things and did a few things that put me in the position of having to really play the authority card. No manhandling, no beatings -- I didn't tase him. But I did give him some stern talkings-to, the kind I knew would have freaked me out when I was his age.

But it really had to be done. I wasn't hurtful or blameful and I made a point of making sure that I didn't put him down or say that he was a bad person and I also made sure he knew that I thought it was a good idea for him to talk to his parents about what I said to him. But let me tell you, I've never been so authoritarian in my life. I did not shy away from what I had to say. I was pretty harsh. It's funny -- having to deal with a boy put me in the position of having to act like a man.

The result was that he bonded with me -- he started calling me 'grampa'. He really liked me. And of course that made me really like him. I always loved him but you know the difference between loving someone and honestly wanting to spend time with them.

And I showed him Star Wars. I'm still trying to figure out whether or not that was a good thing but he's totally fixated on it. And his dad digs it too -- it's wound up giving them a lot of activites they do together. But still. I passed the nerd meme on to the next generation and it makes me feel kinda dirty. Star Wars has become one of the poles their household revolves around.

Anyway, he spent the night last night. The kid is hilarious. It was all I could do not to take notes the whole time we were hanging out. He's also extremely conscious of his own dignity -- one of those people for whom being laughed at is worse than being hit. I'm a bit of a teaser so I have to watch myself...

So. A few Cooper nuggets.

He's hanging out while my music buddy and I play Pictures of Matchstick Men, watching us intently. When the song is over he puts his hand on my arm and very seriously asks me, "Why are you still a teenager?"

(I told him my mother always said I was like Merlin, I was born a little old man and had been growing younger ever since. It ain't far from the truth, I'm here to say...)

In the car he proved my contention that children are all pathological liars with heads just crammed full of powerful acid -- "Everybody knows who I am. I was in the paper with Mitch and there was all bloody and a fight so now I'm famous."

There was a little girl about his age at one of the yard sales we went to and when she laid eyes on him you could see cartoon birds and flowers squirt out of her ears and fly around her head. She was on him like white on rice. Driving home there was the following conversation:

The Missus: So do little girls like you?
Cooper, in the most been-there-done-that-and-all-life-is-vanity kinda voice I've heard up until this moment: Yeah, they do.
The Missus: And do they say, 'Oh, Cooper!'?
Cooper, still jaded: No. They say 'What's your name?'.
The Missus: And do you like girls?
Cooper, incredibly in a voice even more world-weary and utterly hopeless: I love 'em.

Of course there was the inevitable 'Jesus Christ, this is so wrong I can't believe this is happening' moment that you get when dealing with small primates who still haven't figured out the local taboos. Let me make my policy clear -- I try and be honest, but I ain't gonna grapple with that stuff unless the parents expressly ask me to. Life is too fucking short.

We were watching The Seventh Voyage Of Sinbad (I know -- more geek fodder) when we fell into a conversation that had me thinking I might just dive out the window into the blackberry bushes rather than let it continue. For extra points find the phrase I could not believe came out of my mouth.

Cooper: Can I lay down on you?
Oaf, who is accustomed to children treating him as furniture: Sure.
Child squinches around and makes himself comfortable.
Cooper: Hey! Are those balls back there?
Oaf, appalled and uncertain: Yeah.
Cooper: EEEEEEEEEEEW! (cackles) Do you have four balls?
Turns around, begins to prod with an extended forefinger.
Cooper: One, two, three--
Oaf: Cut it out! You don't get to count my balls. Anyway, there's only two of 'em.
Cooper: How come?
Oaf: How many legs do you have?
Cooper: Two.
Oaf: How many eyes?
Cooper: Two.
Oaf: How many ears do you have?
Cooper: Two.
Oaf: Well, it's the same deal.
Cooper: Why are there balls? They hurt a lot.
As the terrified Oaf tries to figure a way out of this one there is, horribly, another prod.
Cooper: Only one weenus!
Oaf: Cut it out!
Cooper: How come only one?
Oaf: How many noses do you have?
Cooper: One.
Oaf: How many mouths do you have?
Cooper, with a gleam in his eye that shows he has caught on: I have five mouths!

Man, I love that kid. But if he ever finds out how funny I think he is he's gonna kill me.