Here are some excerpts from my novel over the years. These are from 2002-2007. I may have made some minor grammar or phrasing edits since then, but they remain mostly intact. These are all from the versions where Julian kills his brother. In my second round of excerpts, which I will put up later this week, the brother is out of the picture.
Primal Rage
“Julian tried to recall the night of Christian’s death. The events of that evening were foggy in his memory. He seemed to remember a large expanse of red sky. Never before had the air felt so thick, and the image of being immersed in blood had come to him. Nowadays, everything was cloaked in red.
Julian felt as if he were being snapped back into the present. He was now surrounded by black. He soon realized that this was because he was amongst mourners in dark clothing. The ceremony ended. The mourners consoled each other and then slowly began to disperse. Julian followed his sister and his father to their car, which was also black.”
“I’m fine, Leila.”
“You look like shit.”
He leaned against the counter, still holding tightly to it as his sister came closer. “So do you,” he said, and she paused a couple of feet away. “Where’s your boyfriend, Jason? Did he ever arrive?”
“It’s Justin.”
“Jason’s better. He never seems to come just in time. Does he?”
She stared at him, then forced a smile. “That’s right.”
“Too bad. Punctuality is important.”
“When you left the living room, you looked like you were about to puke.”
“Spying on me?”
“No. It’s just that you’re always so conspicuous. I don’t want to imagine what it would be like if you weren’t around to cause such a big scene.”
He finally forced himself to meet her eyes. “What do you mean by that?”
“Look, I’m only twenty-one and my mother and brother are already dead. I’m just wondering who’s next.”
He studied her expression, which was blank. “Maybe you are,” he said.
She paused, thinking about that. Then she just laughed and walked away, leaving him to stare after her.
“Christian was a trouble-maker, ten times worse than Julian could ever hope to be. Yet, strangely enough, this made Christian the favorite one, in a twisted sort of way. He was not a source of pride, but rather, the one who got all Dad’s attention because he was so screwed up. Everyone seemed to love wasting their time trying to help Christian get his life back on track. Julian was normal, which meant that nobody gave a shit what he did or didn’t do.
Right then, Christian was at his worst. The ground was littered with beer bottles, and Julian found himself carefully edging around them, afraid of tripping over them or getting cut. Julian remembered the rest in fragments. Christian had been the first to take a swing at him, but it was only with his hands. Julian had tried reasoning with him at first. Slowly, his voice had begun to rise, along with his anger, until he was shouting along with his brother.
I’ll tell Dad you were drinking, Julian threatened.
Christian pulled one corner of his mouth up into a hideous grin. I’ll just tell him all your secrets then.”
“Julian looked down at his brother lying in the water. He had not been able to see very well because of the dying light, but he saw the red liquid leaking from Christian’s forehead. He had realized that he must have pushed him, but then he saw the broken beer bottle in his hand.”
“Leila looked on as the police dragged Julian out the front door, feeling sad, yet, also, feeling relief. Julian turned his head over his shoulder, shifting his eyes between their father and her. Their gazes locked for a second, his heart pulsing behind his own, and she wondered what he was thinking, and whether or not he somehow understood the look she gave him. She turned and hurried down the hall, the sound of her own heart growing louder in her ears, until it drowned out all noise.”
What Other People Said About This Story
About Julian: “Yipes---this guy is like Eddie Munster or something.”
A Small Leap
In the living room, Sebastian was watching a tribute to Keith Moon, from The Who, and drinking beer. Leila was curled up next to him, her eyes glued to the television set like a zombie.
The doorbell rang.
“Oh, that’s Cathy. She and I are going shopping,” Alexandra said. She quickly kissed her children good bye, and then, before Sebastian could turn around and look, she’d opened the front door, stepped outside, and then shut the door behind her.
“We’re all set. My husband thinks you’re one of my women friends,” she told her lover.”
“Great. Let’s go.”
“Wait!” She paused, finally beginning to regret her decision to go out. “Do you think it’s all right to leave Sebastian to mind the children when he’s so drunk? … And Jimmy can be a real terror when the grownups aren’t keeping an eye on him.”
What Other People Said
“I know it’s only a dream, but her lover comes and rings the doorbell? That’s pretty risky/reckless, isn’t it?”
Original Sin
Each prisoner had their own cell, but Julian found himself conversing with other men on his cell block, whether or not he actually wanted to, especially the man across from him, Steven. Julian figured him for a homo, but he had no proof of that.
Meanwhile, the homo across the way was looking over at him as though he were pitiable, as though he knew everything about him, as though he possessed the soul of Julian, trapped inside his thick little head. Maybe he’d had a day job as a psychiatrist, like Hannibal Lector, when he wasn’t murdering young boys by night. Julian began to wonder if Steven was many people---himself, some crazed killer, a sensitive psychologist/poet/philosopher all rolled into one. Hell, all artists were crazy.
It was just his luck that he would get stuck in a cell across from a guy like Steven, who couldn’t shut up for two seconds if his life depended on it. From what Julian had heard, Steven had been in prison before, and then had been released and was now likely going back again for murder. Most times Steven opened his mouth to speak, Julian would begin to drift off. What this guy didn’t get was just because he had a lot to say and just because he held a captive audience, literally, that didn’t mean people gave a shit about his opinions.
When Steven wasn’t discussing his favorite topic---himself, and how tough he was----he was asking Julian personal questions about his life. Julian didn’t want to talk about his life to a complete stranger, or to anyone, for that matter. “Hey Jules,” Steven would say every time he thought up something new to ask him.
“Don’t call me Jules, Steve?”
“Are you really David Kane’s son?” Steven demanded one morning, after Julian had been in jail for a week.
Julian didn’t want to talk about his father either.
“So what happened? How did a lawyer’s kid end up here?” Steven asked as Julian rolled over onto his side, toward the wall.
“My sister nailed me.” It was the first time he’d said it out loud. It had been sitting in him for just over seven days, like poison. It felt good to let it out, even to a man he absolutely despised. There was something about righteous anger. You just had to share it with others.
“Your own sister?”
“Yeah, my sister.” Leila. He felt like hawking up that name as if it were phlegm, spitting it out, like his father did all the time. It was one of those disgusting habits he’d sworn he’d never have, but now it just seemed the right thing to do.
“Sounds like a real bitch to me.”
“Don’t call her that.”
Julian had often thought it to himself, what an *effing* bitch his sister was, how he wished her insides would burn like acid, eating away at her until she rotted and died, sad and alone. He thought this twenty thousand times a day. He had a journal where he’d write pages full of insults aimed at that conniving bitch and he swore to himself that when she scrounged up the time to visit him he would read it out loud to her, that he would rip the pages out of his journal and take it to the visiting room with him. He would have, if he’d had an *effing* pocket in his pants to stuff them in. There were a lot of things he would have done if he’d had pockets. You had no idea how *effing* awesome pockets were until you lost them, he decided.
“He never did tell Leila to her face what he thought of her, mostly because the second he saw her, he’d start crying. He’d plead with her to give him an explanation to why she’d betrayed him, but she didn’t have one. “I’m sorry,” was all she’d say. And the visit would pass without him once calling her a whore. And he’d hate himself for being so weak.”
What Other People Said
“This guy has a lot of issues.”
In regards to my sentence “Julian didn’t want to talk about his father. And Steven must have understood.” : “Would an asshole understand?”
“Decide on the tone. If you want a made for TV melodrama write that. If you want Mickey Spillane tough guy 1930’s noir---write that.”
“I love your focus on Julian’s pockets. He is in a cell where all aspects of his way of living are non-private. I think that his emphasis on missing the ability to hide stuff in his pockets is hilarious. Perhaps later on, Steven can call Julian on this. Maybe his toilet is out in the open in his cell, and he is worried about his pockets.”
“I really liked the part about the pockets.”
“Enough people have died in this for it to be Hamlet.”
“We begin to sympathize w/ the protagonist already. Good start.”
A Short Leap*
Julian had begun smoking at eleven and drinking at twelve because his father really didn’t care what his kids did, as long as they left beer in the refrigerator for him. After a while, they’d built up a tolerance for it, and that’s when his brother needed a fake ID---back then he’d needed one anyway for the cigarettes. According to this pseudo license, Gabriel was really Brian Magee, 24-years old, and the kid behind the counter stared at them for what seemed a solid minute before getting that “To hell with it, I want to go home” look of cashiers and finished ringing them up. For all they knew, he probably wasn’t even supposed to be there that day but some lazy bastard had weasled out of work to go off to Vermont or some place like that and so guess who got screwed over? Julian made it a point to thank him as he and Gabe left. He always did anyway, but this guy, whose name was Ralph, assuming that wasn’t the designer name of his shirt and the Lauren part was covered up, looked like he was having the worst day of life----one in a long string of continually worse days in fact. When Julian tried to empathize with how he was feeling though he realized that Ralph could just as well be thinking about what a couple of underaged punks they were. So who really gave a damn about Ralph? Julian knew that anyone could justifiably believe Gabe was a bad influence on him, but the truth is that would be misplacing the blame because Julian would have done whatever the hell he wanted, with or without his brother.
“I’m just surprised my brother didn’t come out here with you. The two of you seem so tight.”
“We don’t do everything together,” Lucy defended.
“You are screwing him, though.”
“That’s none of your business.” He finally glanced her way, dropping his cigarette and grinding it into the floorboards of the porch with his shoe. She glared back at him. “Do you try to alienate all your brother’s girlfriends, Michael? Or do you just particularly despise me. I know you’ve never liked me.”
“I’m just doing you a favor. The only person Julian loves is himself.”
“You’re crazy, Michael.”
“Think whatever you want. Just don’t come crying to me and saying I didn’t warn you when he dumps you for his reflection.”
“Go to hell,” she said, heading back toward the front door. Michael took another cigarette out of his pocket as well as his father’s lighter. He was too cheap to buy one of his own. There was nothing wrong with that, though, he decided. Anyone could throw money around as if it were worthless paper. That was no test of character. He heard his sister’s voice as she stepped out onto the porch just as Lucy shoved past her to go back inside. “Less than three minutes,” Leila remarked. “A new record.”
* A Short Leap was a title inspired by a quote from The Reflecting Skin. In the movie, a character says something along the lines of, "It's a short leap between kissing and killing."
What Other People Said
"I'd still like to hear how Julian feels. Not ever having that component leaves the reader feeling like an impartial observer or unwelcome."
"Yipes! Leila is the devil!"
The Girl Next Door
Alexandra watched her two children from the kitchen window of the main house.
Behind her, David paced back and forth with a cup of Instant in his hand. He was muttering something to himself but she didn’t even try to decipher what it was he was saying.
“They got into some kind of fight,” she told him because he had been out earlier and had just gotten home to find the house silent--the kind of silence that follows a storm-- and his wife nervous. “Down there in the Old Port,” she said, “wherever it was they went. Michael and Julian. I don’t know what happened. Michael said there was a girl. Some girl they both knew from school. She graduated with Michael. They’re both in love with her, I guess.” She turned from the window to meet her husband’s eyes. “Has he come back yet? Michael? They came home together and then he left again. He was really upset.“ David stared back at her as if she were some moth alighted on the edge of the sink, as if he’d just noticed she was there but didn’t really care enough to swat at her. “None of this ever happened when Leila wasn’t around.” It didn’t exactly hit her like a ton of bricks, it wasn’t some cliché like that. It had been lurking in the back of her mind since the day her daughter was born, that the girl was dangerous. “It’s not like Julian to chase after women and get into trouble. I don’t want Leila getting him into that kind of club scene. I mean, that’s where they went tonight. I’m sure of it. They went to some club.”
Her husband shook his head. “Calm down, Ali.”
“I mean, with Michael, it’s too late. I can’t do anything about Michael. But Julian…” She turned her attention again to the back yard. It was empty now, though she could see the bathroom light was on in the guest house. It hadn’t been before. “What do you think is gonna happen to us?” she asked her husband.
He took a sip of coffee. “You worry too much.” And then he came up behind her, peering over her shoulder. “What’s your son doing over there?” She hated it when he called Julian her son. She knew why he did it. She’d always loved Julian best.
“I suppose you blame me for this?” Alexandra said after Michael had gone up to his room and her husband was the only one left at the table. “Everything I do is wrong, so go ahead. Tell me I somehow messed this day up as well. Tell me it’s my fault our daughter’s such an ungrateful bitch.”
He continued to chew slowly and picked up his glass of water. He didn’t respond. She knew he’d always loved his daughter more than his sons, loved her even after that stunt she’d pulled three years ago, sneaking out of the house in the dead of night, not even leaving a note to say where she was going, finally contacting Julian on his cell phone when she’d reached her destination. At first, David had been crushed by this betrayal, wouldn’t eat dinner with the family, wouldn’t do anything with them, just sulked. He was the only one of them who actually showed any joy at the knowledge of her return. And then that joy had dissolved into the contemplative silence of right now. Alexandra knew he was happy to have his daughter home, but she still waited for an accusation from him, never knowing what to expect when he was too quiet for too long.
“I don’t know why I even married you. I might as well have married a rock.”
He said as she got up, “It’s too bad you couldn’t have married someone more like Julian.” And then he was silent again. It was no use responding to that. It would be like talking to an empty room.
“What are you doing?” Alexandra asked, the sly jerk of her daughter’s foot not escaping her attention. “What are you hiding?”
“Nothing,” Leila said. “Oh my God, Ma, chill out.”
Alexandra stood up. “Come on, move over.” She bumped Leila off to the side with her shoulder and swung open the closet door. She didn’t know what she was expecting to find in there, but at first, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. Just her son’s clothing, much of it tossed on the floor in heaps. “What a mess,” she muttered. She bent down to pick up shirts and pants and even a century-old pizza crust. What was going on in that head of his; he knew they’d been having a rodent problem for years, no doubt thanks to this pig-sty he liked to call his bedroom. Her eye caught on a crumpled shopping bag underneath a sweater (a sweater for crying out loud, in the summertime), bright red plastic, looking as though it had been soaked in blood. She picked it up and opened it.
“Uh, Mom.” Leila’s voice behind her.
She turned to her daughter. “Is this yours?” She reached inside and pulled out an article of clothing, unfolding it so that she could see it was a black t-shirt, the words Gay Pimp printed in bold rainbow colors across the front. She tossed it at Leila. “Yeah, it’s yours.“ Her son and daughter about had a fit right then, their laughter grating on her nerves. “They sell this kind of thing out West?”
“No way, Ma. I got that at some airport shop on the way home. I thought our Julian would like it so I picked it up.”
“Our Julian, huh?” She looked from one child to another. “You bought that for your brother? He’d get shot wearing a thing like that into town. Give me that.” Alexandra tore the shirt out of her daughter’s hands and stuffed it back into the bag. “This is going underneath the kitchen sink. I needed a new rag. Thanks, honey.” She tucked the bag under her arm and picked the dirty laundry she’d gathered up off the floor. “I don’t want to see anymore gifts like that, Leila. I mean it.” She looked both her children hard in the eyes and then left the room. Leila closed the door behind her. She thought she heard her daughter say, “She’s so stupid.”
The dumb freshman who crossed in front of her car barely noticed us. He took his sweet time. He wasn’t really a freshman, actually. In fact, from his arrogant strut and the way he glided toward the senior lot, I was sure he wasn’t. My dad had a habit of accusing all bad drivers of being from Massachusetts, even if their license plates read Maine. Whenever getting ready to make an illegal turn, he’d say, “And now for the Massachusetts maneuver. Don’t ever try this yourself, Julian, till you know the rules enough to break them.” I didn’t know what his deal was, but then I had my habit of labeling all inconsiderate pedestrians around my school “freshmen” because I had such contempt for them, as a whole. I was finally getting out of this town and they seemed so far below me, as if they didn’t even belong to the same universe.
Everyone around town was talking about Julian Perry, and his dead girlfriend Aurora. The town hadn’t seen the death of someone so beloved, and under such bizarre circumstances, since Carrie Anderson’s 17-year-old son had shot himself twice in the chest while loading his father’s rifle in his parents’ bathroom. Luke Anderson’s “accident” had occurred five years before, and though there’d been fatal car crashes every now and then, before and since, those were to be expected, everyone agreed, and, as Julian’s own grandmother said, were “part of growing up and growing older”. Aurora Salve’s death was far too weird to be part of the everyday circle of life, and even Old Woman Perry had to admit it despite the fact that Old Woman Perry loved her youngest grandson and would never believe that he could ever be responsible for the death of another human being, let alone the death of his own pretty girlfriend. And if he wasn’t responsible, that meant she’d drowned in two inches of water on her own.
Which brought everyone to the fact that the beloved Aurora Salve had allegedly been shit-drunk that night, and the few who believed this made it their life goal to convert as many locals as possible to their way of thinking. These “chosen” few, who were enlightened enough to know the truth, already had a few theories going, none of them pleasant, and before long, rumors were being started that cocaine had also been involved, and that’s why the girl had a small trickle of caked blood running down her face when they found her.
“Aurora never drank anything stronger than Diet Pepsi,” some said, which was enough of a vice as it was in Cape Elizabeth where everyone drank Poland Springs water, and those who didn’t were from out of town and may as well have been driving around with a bottle of liquor in their back pocket.
“If it was really an accident, why did Julian run?” others demanded. Nobody knew why Julian had run, or why his sister had disappeared the same day. Leila had only just come back for a brief visit with her family after having spent two years out West with the cows and the married ranchers, no doubt, and it wasn’t hard to believe that she’d taken off again, this time bringing along her younger brother who was set to graduate in three weeks and who’d been, up until now, an upstanding student and citizen, on his way to Yale in the fall. Leila was wild, and many blamed her for her brother’s most recent behavior, particularly his mother, Sandra, who oddly enough, did go by Mrs. Perry, unlike most of her friends who’d only recently discovered the joys of the single life.
No matter what the truth ended being, right away it was evident that this wasn’t going to be some tragic incident that stopped up the roads for miles around Linwood & Son’s Funeral Home, and then was forgotten about a week later. To hear Katie Barnam speak, and of course she did, as much as possible, when she wasn’t separating aluminum from plastic at the bottle shed, this was the most horrible thing the town had ever seen, and would likely ever see, in the entirety of her life.
Nobody dared ask the Salves what they thought.
I didn’t want to hug her back, and yet my body betrayed me; I held her just as tightly as she held me, if not more fiercely, feeling that this was my final chance to hold her before she faded from my life for good. It was like a goodbye, though the kind of goodbye where the other person didn’t leave but just continued to stick around, defeating the purpose of saying goodbye to them in the first place. It was a Rolling Stones Farewell Tour kind of goodbye. Barbara Streisand’s last concert ever. The fat lady sings and the show keeps on going.
I shoved her away from me, still feeling her hands clinging to me, feeling dirty, as though I’d just been seduced.
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