Writing update and three excerpts from new short story: “So, Ralph”
How do. I haven’t posted any long-form writing in a while, so thought I would do a bloggy post about what I’m working on. Still working on the novel, as I have been for over four years now. 2014 saw the fewest words get on the page since I began, having to freakin’ work full time doing something that offers zero spiritual nourishment, and all. That said, I’m ramped back up in the present “Peachy Platters” narrative in the novel and have momentum.
I wrote a few short stories last year, not all of them successful, and will start submitting poetry and prose again very soon.
The best story of 2014 is a crazy, funny, tragic piece entitled “So, Ralph” which concerns itself with the sad exploits of a low class wasteiod neighbor and his brother. It’s told by a narrator who’s also prone to partying. The narrator reports on Ralph’s down and dirty life in a hysterical (in both senses) scumbag diction.
It’s one of my favorite pieces of writing, and below are a few passages from it, the first one is the opening of the story, and the other two are briefly introduced. Injoy! More writing soon.
From “So, Ralph” by Jonathan Bond © 2014
Me and Mover went inside just after the cops left. When we opened the door Ralph’s dog stood there shaking and howling with blood on her snout. Ralph’s place was broken and covered in splattered blood. As if some idiot kid had picked up and thrown a dollhouse. Up close that shit was wrecked.
Mover found the dog’s leash under some warped, moldy LPs and I found the stash. Creepy as shit in there with everything broke and bloody, torn crime scene tape flapping. I pocketed the stash and bailed. Fuck that shit.
*
(In this scene, the narrator and Ralph run into each at a convenience store, each on solo missions to buy beer. Just prior to the scene, the narrator sees Ralph’s bike get stolen.)
I hustled in the door and saw Ralph standing not three feet from where the bike had been jacked just on the other side of the glass. He stood at the counter paying for an 18-pack of Milwaukee’s Best with crumpled money, oblivious. He was saying: “Yeah, can you double bag that, man,” When I yelled at him:
“DOOD! Someone just stole your bike!” A silence grew between what I yelled and his understanding of it.
He said: “Hey. . .What? . . . Fuck. No! Shit!” He ran toward the door, pushing the double-bagged 18 pack into my chest like a football handoff.
*
(Later in the story, the narrator starts being awakened most mornings by the sound of cans being crushed in the back yard. In this scene he is standing, peering out his apartment’s side-door which looks out onto Ralph’s backyard. The narrator is wearing only his boxers and sunglasses, and he sees Ralph’s low-life brother Keith for the first time.)
He was older and bigger and just as much of a wasteoid as Ralph, if not more. He looked like he would probably smell bad. He did. One time he tried to sell me discounted food stamps. In the afternoons, even on the hottest day, Frank would lay on a piece of cardboard in the dirt backyard. He’d be oiled up to better soak up the devil sun. It was unsettling, seein’ this large older man all oiled up laying on a jumbo towel-sized piece of cardboard in the dirt. I wondered aloud to Mover if the man had ever been exposed to a little invention known as the lounge chair.
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