Gloves Off: Cameron

Oh, to Hell with the Email-Length Format! Cameron's Sent a Story That Requires a Little More Time and Space, So Let's Throw Caution to the Wind and Go Long!

Today We’ll Take a Closer Look at Burnt CD by Cameron Petrie

To read the story as originally published, please click here. I do recommend reading the story beforehand; have your own emotional reaction. Afterward, check out my feedback, below.

A tangent: This post will go long, despite all the warnings from Substack about “exceeding the email length limit.” Can you imagine David Foster Wallace being hemmed in by such tsk-tsking? That said, I don’t want to abuse your time and attention, but life’s not about just knocking these tasks off in a big hurry. These posts take me days and days to muse over.

Burnt CD

By Cam Petrie

    Combat boots and hairy legs ran up the Victorian stairs. A new guitar slung over a sweat stained spaghetti top. It thumped against the backside of the acid washed jean skirt with the frayed rips below the back pockets. Blackened, cherry coloured nails wiped the overcast dew from under the platinum blangs. Heavily darkened eyes blinked under the weight of the layered mascara and eyeliner.

    She sang with those innocent pillow lips, “It’s happened. I got the manager to smash all the guy bands off the list.” Her combat boots continued rising up the stairs. “I just had to face him. Again, it worked. The audience totally forgot about his band. All the girls screamed for me!”

My Input:  As always, I’m curious about who’s telling this story. In whose POV are we seeing concepts like “Victorian” and “new guitar” and “innocent”? It’s very subtle that you’ve used “those” to describe the lips. That’s a wonderful signpost to tell us that someone is molding and presenting this scene. Now I’m curious who that is. 

Similar to how you use “those” to imply a hidden narrator, if you used a more specific modifier — naming the exact make/model/year of the guitar v. stating “new” — you can underscore the fact that a hidden narrator is telling this.

The young girl, with the Platinum-dyed page cut and heavily lined eyes, stopped at the entrance of her bedroom. Chest frozen. A man stood in front of her mirror wearing a clock as a pendant. He faced the bedroom door, smiling a haughty gold-tooth smile, then faced the mirror, “Hi, Hello. I can see that you are happy.”

    “Hey, I thought we talked about this?”

He wore a dress held up with spaghetti straps that flowed back in forth in front of the mirror. The clock swayed with it. His arms swayed and dangled alongside the black and frayed fabric. His golden canines clamped on a cigarette. The cigarette smoke rested just aside the dresses shoulder straps. He stopped twirling. He picked a CD off of the dresser.

    “What are you doing?” She asked.

My Input:  Careful, I’m not sure if the dress flows back and forth or the straps. It bumped a little. Otherwise, I’m all on board. Nicely done, the way each element you describe segues into the next moving element. You’ve integrated the details so they have relation to one another, so you’ve avoided a spotty array. Good job.

  “Getting ready for you.”

    He clicked the CD into a stereo Boombox.

   The young girl pulled her guitar close, “You’re not taking my CD back, are you? I still need to know where I am going after all this?”

    “Oh, I’m going to show you what is under all of this.”

    He turned a leer to her then pulled his bottom lip below that golden-tooth smile. And, he then further pulled that lip below that sagging chin that she noticed had always seemed to shift about his neck. Her layered and over-applied eyes squinted as the combat boots clomped backwards. The smoke in the room increased as those black cherry nails palmed the sweat from below her platinum bangs. Those unplucked eyebrows knitted. The oily mascara and heavily-applied eyeliner began to weigh. Blink. Blink. He pressed play on the stereo. The skin on her hairy legs began to crawl.

##

My Input:  Careful. Can you bring us to his fingers? To pluck at his lip, can we see his hand rise, then his (detailed) fingers and fingernails? You’ve created such a good, gradual series of visual details, so far, can we see that same careful progression of details as he appears to do an incredible thing?  

Seeing how we’re about to go into a space break, you want to make sure your reader is seeing a compelling action. Is it his leer that pulls his face down? Or his hand? Is it his face that’s peeling down toward his neck?

They prayed. They circled the flagpole. Hand in hand. They stared up into the overcast sky. Flurries fell to their faces. Snow around their feet. Arms opened. Hands linked in prayer. Inhaling. Exhaling on quiet air. Bleak snow crunched under my feet. I turned up the volume on my Discman. It's too early for the sun. Prairie winter. The voices screamed. I walked along to the other side of the parking lot towards the school’s entrance, hiding behind some band students, for another day of school that, once again, felt like my last.  

My Input: Ah, a storyteller has emerged. An bygone era defined by the Discman.

Let’s also note that the story has established two contrasts: Periods of snowy silence v. periods of in-head music. How can this contrast be played to best effect? Please also consider how songs distort emotion and perception for a limited period of time. Songs break time into chunks, and imbue those chunks with a go-to emotion we crave.

How can that structured emotional landscape — songs, a playlist — serve the story? Just elements to be aware of.

    The lockers clanged with metal locks locking and unlocking as students unloaded and reloaded their backpacks. Everyone’s talking. Getting ready for morning classes or whichever it was they thought would save them from the future of nothing. I placed my Discman in my locker. My earphones rested on top. A badminton racket hung inside the door. Someone gently touched my shoulder.  

    “You ok? You didn't turn up this morning.” I turned my head to see Kimmy. Kimmy Zieminick.

    “I might skip gym.”

    “Don’t skip gym, Caleb. It’s one class. That’s it. You’re good at sports. You might not even have to play him. He could lose before coming up against you. It’s not a real tournament. You don’t need to stress. You’ll look better if you show up. ” She took a breath.

My Input: Wonderful, how the CD in the first scene carries us to the the Discman, which carries us to the racket. Here’s a lesson in how objects gradually shift our attention forward. Beautifully done.

    “I’m tired of seeing him.” My hand swung the locker door back and forth. Kimmy grabbed my sleeve and glared over the back of my shoulders.

    “That shit’s gay!” Matt’s laughter tumbled towards me.

   My face shrunk. There was sweat on my palms. I looked back at him. Kimmy was still on my sleeve. Matt’s girlfriend leered. Leading the pack of faux-hawks, black baseball caps with her long, crisp blonde bangs aside Matt through the halls. Those pencil drawn eyebrows. Gym wear under winter jackets. Badminton rackets cased and slung over their shoulders. Sport scented deodorant resting in the air.  “Cool” sports brands stamped across those gym-sports chests. Except Leslie. She wore a “The Gap” tank top.

My Input: Careful, you’re asking us to assimilate a lot of proper nouns very quickly. I’m juggling Caleb, Zimmy, Matt, Leslie. The locker door swinging very nicely mirrors the way the dress swung in the first scene; the story does a great job of carrying attention with motion.   

Would you consider letting just the crucifixes badge people as Christian? But giving them crucifixes and calling them Christians you might be overdoing it.

Can you keep the sense or snow and cold present? Again, the cold and falling snow seems to carry a silence that will clash with the intense music.

Matt chopped his cased badminton like some jungle explorer clearing a path in my direction. Leslie’s silver crucifix sparkled under her fixated eyes that rolled up and down my back. The manicured nails with white, christian polish pointed a single pointer finger at Kimmy and then retracted and covered that perfectly aligned smile that said things like “degeneracy” while in the locker room. I looked away. Kimmy looked away, gripping the edge of my sleeve. Matt’s case skimmed up past my back and grazed my hair. My eyes widened. I waited for it to come back down. My breath held. My back tensed. I waited. He continued meandering by. Kimmy released my sleeve as the tension walked on to my first class.

    “Hey, you wanna see my new gym clothes!” With a sympathetic look she pulled out a t-shirt. Bright pink, with white printing that faded into blood red that read “99 % angel. 1% devil.”

My Input: Can you unpack “sympathetic”? Yeah, it’s tough, but I’m curious what that term means to this narrator. The beat would also give you a moment longer between the set-up of “1% devil” and the pay-off that occurs in the dialog that follows. Part of that is your doing… you’ve been so effective with holding my attention with movement and gesture, do you see how an abstract like “sympathetic” is less engaging?

You’ve been so very, very good about staying in scene — are you sure you want to bounce us into a vague moment in the girl’s locker room? Aren’t the fingernails and the jeweled cross enough?

    “It’s that one percent that counts.” She smiled.

    I could breathe. My lock clanged as Matt moved down through the hall, trudging through those meandering to class.

    "Moo," he laughed as his black-capped friend received the butt end of the cased badminton racket.

    Waiting eyebrows across the hall perked at Kimmy then darted a leer to Leslie’s back. Kimmy leered back with a bounce of her unplucked eyebrows. Both girls turned back to their lockers and Kimmy pulled her badminton racket out. I felt her eyes glance for mine. She didn’t bother. I hung my earphones around my neck and pulled my discman into my chest.

My Input: Can you create the eyebrows across the hall before they come into play? That old rule from comics: Create the element before it’s needed. If you create it only in the moment the element completes an action, you risk the reader thinking: Where did that come from?

    She shook her head, “So, speaking of one percent devil, did you hear what Matt and Leslie do to not get pregnant?” Kimmy's toothy smile went wild. My ears perked. I hated him.

Kimmy smiled. “Walk you to Bio?”

   “If you have to.”  

    Our arms linked above her flats that tapped along the side of my feet, covering her mouth at my ear as we slowly passed down the halls. My thoughts filled with gossip from the girl’s locker room.

My Input: Can you give us the feeling of her arm? Skin? The slide of their sleeves in contact? I see what you’re doing, revisiting the locker room gradually, via thoughts. You’ve introduced the flashback, now you’re eventually going there… Let’s see how well you pull it off.

  “You should have seen Elsa’s face when she heard. She like ran up to us and was like ‘omigod’ with her hands,” Kimmy held up her hands and shook them, “She almost fell out of her bra because she tried not laughing and tried telling us without laughing!”

   We walked tightly down the hallway. My mouth gaped. I stopped. I looked around and she pulled me back to her whispering. “It’s why she didn’t want to use butter, it would stain her sheets. So he used spit on her ass instead. Is that how you guys do that in that?”

     “Can’t make babies in that,” I laughed.

     The period bell rang. We approached my bio class. She clung on my arm.

My Input: Would you consider cutting “on her ass”? You’re walking a fine line. Can you trust the reader to go there? I’m not a prude, I just want the reader to make that crucial connection.

“Just sit in the back and ignore him. Don’t think about him. Think about playing the game the way you play it in morning practice. You just gotta hold on for two more classes. Don’t psyche yourself out.” Her breath froze.

My Input: And you’re doing a great job at implying attribution in quotes indirectly.

I walked into bio class

    It’s only fifteen minutes into bio before Matt turned an eye to me. The bio instructor drew on the whiteboard, with a black pen, wearing his usual Sunday best: Black cardigan on white. The back of his black cardigan was to us. Matt slowly rolled a paper ball. The teacher paused. Matt paused. The teacher looked down at his notes. Then back up to the board. That black marker squeaked forth. Matt spat into the center of the crumpled paper. He crumpled it up. Squeezed it in. A perfect spitball cradled in those large, Leslie buttering hands. His friend, in a backwards, black cap glanced back at me then nodded to Matt. They both smiled. I didn’t know where to look. I looked at the teacher’s back.

My Input: Let’s talk about elapsing time. Here you use a clunky — forgive me — abstract: “fifteen minutes later.” How else could you elapse this time? Would you consider cutting to Big Voice? The issue is that you’re being very linear. That means one moment needs to bridge to another in a literal way, and that’s the problem with staying In The Moment. But consider that manumission — moving the reader through a story, without losing that reader — has lots of solutions.

Yes, one solution is to state the time passing. “Two days later” for example. Other solutions are to use choruses. Or, use “long story short” sorts of relative clauses that imply a jump in time. Another solution is intercutting: Jumping us to another thread, so that when we cut back we assume time has passed. Another solution is to cut to Big Voice. Big Voice means using philosophical observations and truisms. When you cut between reality and philosophy (Little Voice & Big Voice) you can imply time has elapsed.

Another solution is to cut to montage: The smell of pickled frogs, the snowy view beyond the windows. Just bear in mind: What is “fifteen minutes” to this narrator?

By the way, your series of action in creating the spitball is very well done. Can you specify what paper Matt’s using?

It’s great how the spitball keeps the spit of anal sex present. That suggests that Matt is flirting with the narrator. Instead of stating “ass” in the earlier dialog, would you consider stating it here instead? Some version of “the same spit that split open his girlfriend’s butthole”?¹ Allow the reader to grasp that Matt’s spit and the sex act are alluded to here in “Bio.”

Everyone but the teacher watched as Matt turned and threw that balled spit. It flew and fell short and landed in front of my shoes. Matt blushed. Matt flipped me his meaty middle finger then turned forward. My chest froze with my gaze fixated on the teacher's back. Mr. Crushuck turned around, startled and asked, “Caleb, you’re looking at me like you have a serious question?”

    I held for a moment. I knew not to say anything. My foot found the spitball. I squished it under my skater shoes. The saliva foamed out as a girl sitting aside my foot briefly eyed the foaming spit. She scowled. She said, “Since you’re the bio teacher, uh, Caleb wants to know if spit can give you AIDs.” She looked towards Matt’s back.

    I froze. So did Matt's back.

My Input: Can the scowling girl witness name Mr. Crushuck? Putting a proper name in someone’s mouth might be a better way to introduce it. And allowing a secondary character to say it might work better, right?

A few girls laughed. Matt turned and leered at them. The girls went quiet. The teacher waited for silence. It’s silent for a moment. Snow fell outdoors.

    “Did you need to go to the counselor, Caleb?” He felt under his collar. I saw a silver chain sparkling like Leslie's.

   I looked out the window. The teacher went back to the white board. The white board squeaked. The snow outside ran into the horizon with the overcast clouds. Cold grey. It’s only grade ten. Everyone faced the front.

My Input: The short staccato sentences make a great series. Each revisits an element you’ve established and keeps those elements present.

Can you establish the teacher in the parking lot earlier? Perhaps as Caleb enters the school? As it is, you’re forced to crowd so much into the latter half of the story. If you created the car/teacher on your way in — with her music blaring and cigarette — your story might have a better balance.

The bell rang. Bio ended. First break. The class flooded out into the hall leaving me to follow. Matt was waiting just outside with Leslie. White, french manicured nails gripped that bulging bicep as her other hand waited in a fist. Leslie's green eyes sharpened as those nails tugged on the strap of Matt's badminton casing. Watching me she put her hand to Matt’s chest. Those perfectly aligned teeth closed in on Matt's ear. I veered away as Matt tsked, “Kimmy’ll get aids if she keeps hanging out with girls like him.” I pulled my Discman from my backpack and put on my earphones. The music screamed for me.

    First break meandered away as songs yelled through my head. The halls slowly emptied. Through open doors the teachers wrote on whiteboards. Through the school entrance doors the snow was still falling on the parking lot as my feet crunched along. Fresh footprints meandering from cars to class slowly faded. The mall in the distance waited behind a blur of flurries.

My Input: Cameron, can you see that you’re a little trapped in the unfolding moment-to-moment? That’s why intercutting is so useful to elapse time. Can you keep the spitball present, perhaps as a bump sensation under the narrator’s step? Even a bump and squish? To morph the object that’s already evocative of Leslie’s backside being squished.

Have you considered using songs — real songs or invented tracks — as a device for elapsing time? The concept of “playlists” is a good way to externalize the narrator’s feelings and elapse time. Songs and playlists were always Nick Hornby’s go-to to depict a character’s emotional state.

For now you’re just speeding us through time. Is there a better way you can carry us through this day? Is it necessary to follow the narrator through this day? Just asking.

For on-the-body, can you evoke that feeling of foam against ears? That’s such an out-dated sensation, that and the trailing, thin wires. Do you see how intercutting to on-the-body can also help elapse time?

    I trekked through the cars. Pretending to find one that I might own. Hoping to look like a student who forgot a textbook, or anything of the ordinary. All of the cars were frosted. Frozen and crystalizing. Completely still. Music thrashed through the stillness. Between me and the mall I saw the platinum-blonde hair thrashing in the driver's seat. The music was coming from the car just ahead of me. A teacher sat in the driver's seat screaming and head banging to the screeching beat. Blasted music. Too much eyeliner. Smoke rested around those bare shoulders that banged that blonde hair back and forth. The snow had stopped. She jerked still. The music went quiet. Those heavily lined eyes, those platiunum bangs turned to me as the window rolled down.

    “Hi! Hello! I can see that you’re happy.”

    “Yeah.” I responded. My eyebrows pulled together. The collar of my hoodie was pulled up over my nose.

My Input: Careful. If the narrator’s plugged in and listening to a Discman, how can he also hear the music blaring within a parked car? And how can it go quiet? Can you see how the presence of music in the Discman becomes likes the falling snow: The world you’re moving through?

Can you give us the details that allow us to realize the person in the car is a “teacher”? By using the abstract “teacher” you bring in associations that I was forced to reevaluate once you gave me more details. Are you suggesting this person in the car was the eyebrows we first saw in the hallway? Is it the person’s age that suggests she’s a teacher? As always, please consider me your slowest, dumbest reader.

If you establish that she’s a teacher when we first glimpse her in the hallway, this might go smoother in the parking lot.

    “Come join me. It’s ok. I’m one percent angel.” Those heavily lined eyes tried to wink. The eyelid stalled and black-cherry fingernails pressed it back in place.

    I looked around. The collar of my hoodie released from my chin.

    The inside of the car was frozen. The heavy smell of cigarettes. The platinum blonde hair looked straw like up close. She turned to me exhaling a drag. I wondered if she was a substitute. She nodded. The air smelt sour. 

    “Smoke?” She offered forth her pack.

   “No, I’m good. I pass out from smoking.”

My Input: If the character fails to respond to the question, or responds with an ambiguous gesture, wouldn’t that give the scene a beat more tension?

   She shrugged. Those cherry black nails popped a white cigarette into her mouth. They lit it. The cigarette peeled into grey. Smoke exhaled. The smoke fell from her mouth, and slipped up out the window. I looked in her rear view mirror.

My Input: THAT was a nice beat of action. Very well done. Now, how did she light the cigarette? It’s a small point, but striking a paper match v. flicking a Bic v. using and old-school car cigarette lighter is too good a detail to skip.

   “Then what are you here for? The bell is about to ring.”

   “I don’t care.” I said.

   Those heavily lined eyes nodded. The last of the smoked dragged back and exhaled past those black cherry nails. The butt flicked to the floor of the driver's side. A  combat boot twisted it out.

    “I can tell that you care about something.”

    "I care about not getting beat up by Matt."

My Input: Be careful. Tennis match dialog seems clever, can you see how it cuts your tension? You’ve done such a careful job of getting us to this moment!! You’ve allowed us to connect this scene with the opening vignette. Why are you suddenly being clever?

    “Oh, I know Matt." She said. "He made a joke about his badminton racket being a cattle prod as he called me a fat cow in the hall today, yes. Just as I was trying to find which class I was subbing for. He was with that Christian girl of his. She is also good. With that pretty silver cross? Religion does help.”

My Input: Can the person introduce something that seems miraculous? Right now, do you see that you’re using dialog to repeat details we kind-of already know? Yes, you’re relieving some tension, by completing the set-up you alluded to earlier — the fat cow beat — but, you’ve placed us in a strange situation: In a car with a sexy, odd adult. What can you introduce here to increase the tension?

    I looked at the substitute's loose chin. There was no chain or cross. That platinum blonde hair looked preserved. All that mascara seemed to run into her eyes. Then there was that sour smell. She sucked on her smoke. The white cigarette capped by a fire-red ring. Ashes. Smoke exhaled. The period bell rang. My head jerked towards the school. Last class before gym.

    “Hi, Hello! So what’s going down with Matt?’

    “We have that badminton tournament. I'll have to go one on one with him.”

    “Will you try to win?”

My Input: And I’m lost. Damn, you’ve had me so enrolled, but without attribution I stumble on even simple dialog. We already know the narrator dreads a potential drubbing at badminton. What else can you introduce to up the stakes?

If Caleb said, “I think I might have AIDS” do you see how a non sequitur would help set-up the trip to the nurse’s office? And it would reveal what’s going through Caleb’s mind in this scene. With this in mind, would you consider having Caleb and the teacher talk more at cross purposes?

  “I’m trying to get away.”

    “I hear that. One on one is very personal.”

    I shrugged.

    “You wanna know that? What I see is it isn’t just you facing him. It’s everyone seeing you push back. Smashing his power. They will see you differently. They will see you as power. They will think differently because of what you did to him. They will look to you and listen to what you will say. I can see. You’re different, obviously,” Those black cherry nails limped a wrist at me, “ which makes you special. Which is what scares him. Which is why he oppresses. I bet you listen to smart music as well.”

   Something in my head nodded. She lit another cigarette and sucked back the smoke. It exhaled and floated around her chest. The wind sucked the smoke up and out the window. It dissolved into the weather. Overcast. Grey. I felt the door handle to my right.

    “What if you saw a way to win?”

    My hand froze. “I can’t. He’ll throw me off.”

     I couldn’t think. She smiled, eyeing my forehead, “You need help to see. Do you have visions when you listen to your Discman?”

   The thoughts I had while music thrashed in my ears: cars driving off the main road and smashing into the church group, sewage dropping from the sky on their prayers, me pushing Matt down the stairs onto shards of broken glass in the parking lot. Those thoughts were always screaming through my head.

    “That's close. But it's not the future. It's not visions of.”

    “What?” I could feel my eyebrows trying to grasp.

My Input: I loved “Something in my head nodded.”

Again, you’ve established your conflict. What else can you mix in? Would it be possible for Caleb to fret about his larger future so that the upcoming vision of himself as a musician plays on that idea?

Can you use the racket as a stand-in for a guitar? Just to morph the object.

    “The future. I want to help you. To see you through this oppressiveness that keeps pushing you down. Do you wanna see the disc that I use to see through these things?”

   Those black cherry nails raised in front of my face and pointed that one pointer up, then pointed it towards the dashboard. My eyes followed to the CD dock. The console lit up. The smell of incense and ashes flushed the car of that sour smell and cigarettes to a point that I thought I had entered some church. I heard no prayers. No music played.

    "You don't want to listen to it just yet."

My Input: You’ve done such a bang-up job of establishing your objects. Truly praiseworthy but instead of using dialog to imply the miracle of the CD, is there a smaller-scale way you can demonstrate that power? To dramatized the miracle? So we can see the CD have its effect in the short term and begin to build our faith in the disk’s greater promise?   

A little demo will hook us better than a lot of talking.

The two-tone sound bars bounced up and down to our silence. I heard something burning. The substitute smiled. There was something about her teeth. She sucked in her lips. Those layered eyes focused on the CD console as one black cherried fingernail pressed forward and stabbed the eject button. A blank CD popped out. The silent church smell went away. Those painted nails held it in front of me.

     “You want me to see your mix tape?” I asked, “Sorry, mix CD?”

    “This. Yup. Heloooooo,” She peaked at me through the center hole of the disc, Green eyes and tense brows reflected on the plastic metallic backing with that one makeup layered eye peaking through the centre at me, “So good to use to see the future, to see what’s coming. Then see what can be done to change it. Then take it. Then that’s all you'll need to be ready. See the cracks to stay on track.”

   Over the intercom I heard my name. My eyes widened. I crouched down behind the dashboard. Cramming my legs upwards. The substitute rolled up the driver's side window. She slid under the steering wheel, pinning down her sides as she did.  

    She whispered, “Don’t worry. Let me show you. This is special. Ok? Listen, I’m here to help. I wanna show you.You’re almost there. You wanna get there. You are special. You need to win. People will look to you. To show them. To help them."

The CD passed into my hands. The reflective silver back dragged light across the interior of the car.      

    "Keep Looking at your reflection in the back of the CD. Now, that hole. That one in the middle. Where the CD hooks in. Go over your other eye with it. Nice. Now close it. OK. OK. Close it. Now, look at the other eye in your reflection. The silver backing. Just think of those thoughts, those rhythms that fuel so much fantasy when you listen to music. See in that reflected eye your fantasies without fantasizing. Where the visions form. Where they show. Now, close it. Close that reflected eye. Open that centered eye. Release into the center and show yourself the future.”

My Input: Ah, here comes exactly the small demonstration I was craving! Would you consider doing this demo earlier in the scene, before the teacher foresees the narrator’s promise and duty? Can you demonstrate the Impossible Detail — like the house being larger on the inside than on the outside in House of Leaves? If you demonstrate the impossible you’ll hook us better before you make a promise of future power.

    My one eye was still closed, “What future?”

    “Think of the parking lot in spring.”

    I opened my eye. My mouth dropped open. Through the small circle in the CD a grey parking lot, tufts of grass, and bright sun, blue sky appeared. Huge clouds. White. Spring in prairie blue. A yellow flower breezed.

    Then I saw myself in spring approaching the flower. Some shorter guy walked next to me. I went to smell the flower and he rubbed the top of it with his foot. I didn’t smile. He laughed under that black, backwards cap and bent over and plucked it. Smelled it. Swiped it back and forth across my nose. From behind the disc I wondered of the smell. The smell of cigarettes permeated instead.

My Input:  Exactly. Can this demo come before any pep talk? The Impossible Detail will enroll your reader far better than a promise spoken in dialog. 

Those black cherry nails clawed the CD from my face.“Stay more focused on what is coming. That is more helpful. Here, let me see. Believe me. To get you ready to change out of this.” Those fingers rested on my wrist.

    A heavily eye-lined eye eyed through the opening in the disc. And closed. And opened. Deflated lips mumbled with disapproval. Blinking, the disk lowered, “ Ok. Wow. Awkward. And mean. So bigoted against people like you. You’re sitting on paper. It’s that ball Matt threw. They are accusing you for being you. Everyone in the office is talking about you. They shouldn't be allowed to do that.”

My Input: Careful. Has the spit wadded now stuck to Caleb’s ass? If so, can we see it reappear in scene rather than have its presence stated in dialog?

    “What!?”

    “Don’t worry. She just wants you to suffer. That’s what makes them feel like god. That’s the real reason why she will be saying those things. Good Christians have a good community. They chat. We’ll chat! Head on in. Don’t worry. See you in a bit! I promise I’ll hold your CD for when you come back. I know you will.” I heard my name over the intercom again.

    The empty halls weighed with silence until I heard the muffled buzzing of the office behind its closed door. My feet were still cold. Shoes slightly dampened. The door clicked open to the clerks desk. The office clerk looked up. She had a sweater on with a kitten hanging by a paw from a clothes line. The office clerk curtly nodded. No smile.

    She lead me throguh a red door and gestured to the paper-covered bed. It crinkled. The door clicked close and through the small, rectangular window the clerk went back to her desk and picked up the phone.

My Input: Again, the moment-to-moment might not be serving you. Like the songs on a playlist, is there a more inventive way to depict events? Do we really need to move along through linear time?

As always, keep the contrast of snowy silence and loud music in mind.

   The nurse approached the desk hugging close a clipboard. Both momentarily exchanged words with nodded gestures and the nurse turned towards the small rectangular window. Her thumb and finger pinched at her collar bone and tucked behind the collar of her shirt. I watched her power towards me.

  The nurse slid in and stood on the other side of the small office. Those bony, scrubbed fingers brushed her bangs aside to reveal a you-need-to-know-better look.      

    “One out of two men who have sex with men will get HIV in their lives. Being young doesn’t prevent HIV, even if your partner is young. Use protection! It’s on the rise in men who have sex with men. Is this why you are asking weird questions about AIDS? It’s not AIDS you can catch. It’s HIV.”

  The nurse waited during my disbelief. My heart in my face. I choked. “I’m scared of getting beaten up.”

    “Things will get a lot scarier when that virus beats your immune system up. You need a full screening. Who have you been having sex with?”

    Something meandered through my head.

   “How many?” She continued.

   “I’m not having sex. Leslie is having anal sex with Matt’s spit so she doesn’t get pregnant! Matt threw his spit at me!”

   “You don’t throw spit. You. Spit. It. You need to take unprotected sex seriously. Not blame a couple that are clearly in a monogamous relationship which is none of your business and, of which, is a sure way to protect oneself against a virus that can’t be cured!”

   Something about her neck sparkled. Clean, scrubbed fingers covered her collar. I thought about ashes. I glared at her knuckles. The paper bedding crinkled. It stuck to my palms. I wanted to wipe my chest. I wanted her to say something so I wouldn't have to hear it.

    “I haven’t hit puberty yet.”

    That Christian mouth pulled to the side.

    The nurse forced a hall pass at me to reconsider if I felt the need to “be more honest." The pass crumpled and dropped into the library returns bin as I headed back out to the parking lot.

My Input: Okay, the visit to the nurse elapsed time. But would you consider the nurse asking, in closing, “Don’t you have a badminton match to lose?” as an added indignity? The nurse’s question would underscore that the entire school knows what’s at stake. That they’re ALL hoping he loses.

   “Hey! Can I use that burnt CD?” I opened the passenger door to the substitute's car.

   “Hi! Yes. Let’s get you ready to ride.”

    My heart raced. That game with Matt and the chance to win and the opportunity to shove his anal-sex monogamy back in his face. The disc reflected my eye. It felt cool. The reflection closed off and I pressed the view into the future.

    Matt was in front of me. Mesh net between us. Kimmy yelled from the bleachers as Leslie looked anxious. The score-board showed a tie. A match. The phys-ed teacher nodded with satisfaction. Arms crossed. Everyone stood and watched. Matt hesitated and looked around wildly then released his swing. The shuttlecock came flying at me. But something happened. What was I doing? Move! I saw myself standing there. Facing Matt. The shuttlecock arched over me and beyond my back. It tapped the floor behind me. I then swiped at the empty air. The score board cleared.

    “Is this choking?” I said with the burnt CD over my eye. I lowered the disc to my lap.

    “What did you see?”

    “I saw me losing. Choking. I could have beat him. I lost. Why did I choke?”

    “So you know how you lost?”

    “Yeah, I gave up?” I started to get angry with myself.

    “It’s not your fault. That's what oppression does to us. It chokes us. You know how you lost, so now, you'll know how to win. Now, I have a surprise for you. Look further into the future. Now that you know how to win, look again. See what's down that path. Find what is waiting for you when you do. Imagine that future. Give it to yourself. Trust yourself to take it.”

   I looked for my victory. It wasn’t in the gym, with me giving that final smash instead of stalling. Instead, Elsa laughed, “He just left the gym without even changing. His face was sooo red.”

    In the halls everyone surrounded me. Some friends, and friends of friends, took pictures of me with their disposable cameras. Someone put an arm around me and said, “We always new Matt was a dick, man.”

My Input: Okay, you’ve just set-up a possible object. Cameras and photos that now exist of the moment and outcome. Keep these photos in mind for possible pay-off later. Do you recall the Polaroid photo in the film The Hunger, and how it’s taken early, then discarded and discovered only once the lead vampire is defeated?

What can you do with these snap-shots later?

You’ve worked so hard to establish the crucifixes. Can you do more with Matt’s during the game? How can it be used to demonstrate his loss?

   People looked to me with congratulations. Down the hall Matt’s faux hawk bobbed along to his locker. The arm around my neck pulled me in closer, “Hey Matt, it smells like shit.”  

    Matt glanced his crotch. A few girls laughed.

    Kimmy started, “Omigod, so, Leslie is not happy. She was putting her crucifix back on when someone," Kimmy's smile beamed, "bumped her and it dropped to the floor of the locker room. Elsa accidently stepped on it and smiled, ‘Maybe you should put some science on instead?’”  

    Kimmy looked to me. So did Elsa. Elsa and Kimmy walked me to my locker where I saw one of the band students waiting with his guitar slung over his shoulder.

    “Hey, Cal. Cali. Like California. Where all the good music comes from. Nice job pinning it to Matt. I heard he was always an ass to you.”

    “Thanks,” I glanced at his golden shark-tooth pendant.

    “Man, sorry, but watching you serve it in that last swing, you’re voice fucking fried Matt on the spot. Like he was waiting to die in some headlights. Where did you learn that death growl? I was like, whoaaa, this dude needs a band behind him. Those cords are fucked!”

    I shook my head and caught my reflection in the back of the CD.

    “I could be in a band?” My mouth hung open.

    “It’s ok. Be happy. This is what’ll happen when you push back. When you reclaim your power. When people look to you. You will empower others. See!”

My Input: Consider that if you cut away at “Trust yourself to take it” you could then leave the car and enact the actual victory.

You’d leave the reader in anticipation: Would the narrator be able to enact a new, better outcome? At that point, you could cut away and build tension a little longer. Then, you could still enact the victory without having to recount it through dialog. In effect, show Matt doing the growl without having to relate it after the event.

Then, with the power of the disc proven the narrator could return to the car and steel himself for a longer look at his future.

And, how can you resolve and fully pay-off the spit wad?

    I closed my one eye and peered back into the disc. This future was years from now. My skin was old. My hair looked dry. My face layered in makeup. My chin sagged. My teeth looked different. I was on stage in front of a huge crowd surrounded by musicians. I watched my future self scream into the microphone, "Smash the binary."

    The audience responded, "Smash them free."

    We all sang, "If it's not fair for all bodies. It's not fair for me."

    I sang, "Smash the binary."

    The audience sang, "Smash us free."

    We all sang, "They're for everybody. No one is free."

    I sang, my mouth moving against the back of the CD,"Smash the binary."

    They sang, "Smash 'em free."

    We both sang, "If you're not here for everybody. You're not here for me."

    The audience cried, waving red banners and colorful flags with math symbols.  At the front of the stage a male blow up doll crowd surfed and bounced above punching fists. Golden lipstick painted around its O-shaped mouth. An oversized band T-shirt draped over its shoulders read "Gnostic Sex Cult". The over-sized T-shirt tented over the inflated doll's inflated boner. I looked back and noticed my mouth sparkling as I thrashed and screamed about. Smoke blasted the stage.          

My Input: Okay, you’re doing great at gradually moving us forward. But now that we’ve seen the future, have you cut too much tension? What’s still at stake?  

Would you consider having Matt still choke? Thus you get the dark ending and a huge sense that everything that was possible is lost?

A black cherry thumbnail rested on my wrist and pushed my hand down from my face, “Just glimpse at the future. Just a taste. Don't dilute it. Let it happen the way it will happen. It’s all you need to motivate yourself. Focus on getting there. Don't fantasize about getting there. Then you'll be ready when you arrive.”

     The cigarette loosely hung from those deflated lips. The CD clicked into my Discman.

      The bell rang. It’s time for phys-ed. I looked one last time at the substitute.

    “But what if I still choke?”

   “You won’t choke. You hate him. Remember all he did to you when you did nothing back.”

My Input: Careful, if you cut on “But what if I still choke?” do you see how that might put more at stake?

    Gym started the way I saw it. Except for the sweat. I played the way I played it. Holding my game. My skater shoes took flight as I remembered how I saw myself fight. So I let myself go. Making the rounds. Winning the games over and over. Taking out the other guys in class. Smacked down the shuttlecock and stared them off the court. Matt won over and over and kept darting glances at me winning over and over until it was time, the last two on the board, Matt and I, were to go head to head. We both sweat. I still smiled. We walked to the last court. The bleachers packed. The cheering went silent. Matt tried to shake it off.

     I served. People cheered. Back and forth the Shuttlecock flew. The rally flowed. People called from the bleachers. Point for point. Smash for smash. All eyes on the shuttlecock. Swears flowed. We swung hard. Our shoes screeched at each other. Kimmy and Elsa called down from the bleachers. Thumbs up. Arms raised and waving. Leslie's knuckles turned white. My breath burnt as it came up to his serve, that final serve. It was there. That match point on the board. That vision I saw. This was happening. A new future to swing open.

My Input: So in real life the narrator has lost?

Would you consider a sexual tension between Matt and Caleb? It’s not overt, but there’s already a rivalry and attachment. Matt’s bullying is a form of engagement. How can you use that energy? The match is a form of passionate, public domination, almost sex.

    Matt sweat a wild look. He looked at me with direct eye contact. I couldn't remember seeing his eyes before. His shoulders tensed. Eyes went wider. They widened more as I looked back into them. It made them dart. He looked around. No one cheered. He turned back to me. Everyone cheered. He teetered from the turn. He looked away. He faced the net and thumbled the racket and his eyes opened wider. I wasn’t scared of him. I could see it in his eyes. The racket swung over his shoulder and served. I couldn't stop feeling what I saw as he watched the shuttlecock fly over to me.

   I felt Matt for the first time, the memories of limp-wrists and spitballs and name calling falling to a distant memory while weakness realized in my mind. The shuttlecock floated over the net as Matt looked like he was about to cry. It never felt like he was about to cry. It felt awkward. I didn’t feel like winning. The shuttlecock continued sailing. It passed a couple feet overhead and continued behind to tap on the floor. The gymnasium went silent. Those eyes, opened wide, swelled with relief. Almost tears. I got why I swung at the empty air. So I swung at the empty air above my head. I smiled. Things went quiet.    

My Input: Can we have confirmation here? Either an I’d won or an I’d lost.

Whichever it is, it marks the end of this anticipated match-up.

    Then, some girls laughed awkwardly at the silence in the room. Matt quickly glanced a nod to me then swung his face down and turned and walked off the court with his head held high towards his friend in the black baseball cap. They walked lockstep to the change room. Chests puffed with smiles like nothing happen. Leslie tried to peek at him through her fingers.

    The gym teacher yelled, “Caleb, go change. Now.”

    I shook my head. “The nurse wants to see me! I have a pass.”

My Input: Can we see the nurse among the people watching? It would add tension.

    He lifted his chin, yes. He kept his arms crossed and looked away and yelled, “Ok ladies. Court’s yours. Get it done!”

     The parking lot snow crunched under my feet. The substitute's head jerked to me from the driver's side window. She stiffly startled. She started the car just as my hands slammed the hood, “Why didn’t it show me how scared he was?”

    Layered eyes leered through the windshield. The heavy make-up darkened. That dried face sagged as those black cherry nails pushed her forehead back. The nails pushed so hard that I noticed her stubby golden teeth for the first time. The wind kicked up the snow.

    She screamed, “fucking listen you cog” and revved the engine. The hood flew forward. The snow crunched under my back pack as it rammed my spine while my shins tried to kick away the rolling tires. My fingers clawed into the cold packed snow and I cried out, “fucking stop!” The cold filled my lungs. Tears burnt my face. The sound of tires crunching snow faded. No engine revved.

    No tire tracks in the blank parking space. Fresh, blank snow. My head dropped back down. My breath faded into the atmosphere. White overcast above.

   Snow fell. It landed on my cheeks and melted like steam off of my face. Arms out. I could only see what the morning prayers saw. My foggy breath left my mouth and disappeared into the sky. My eyes began to sting as I covered my face with the wrists of my sleeves. I breathed out. Snowflakes tapped the packed snow of the quiet parking lot.

   I kicked and looked down. They were fine. I held up my palms. They turned red. Smoke rose up around my face. Exhaust revved up my back and I looked behind me. Two rear view lights of a brand new Honda Celica, 2002, glowered above a brand new silver muffler. Car exhaust shot up my nostrils. In the driver’s side mirror I saw Matt. He raised his face in the mirror. He stepped out in his gym shorts and shook his head at me.

    “I almost lost to you. Okay?” He grabbed me by the wrists, bringing me to my feet. I noticed his eyes were red, like mine. “And I’m not planning on offing myself!” He grabbed my shoulders. He gave me a deep, pushy look.

My Input: So Caleb and Matt do have an attachment? Or are they only now bonded over the match? Can you bring back spit here? It’s an object, it’s now charged with the idea of sex and death. What can you do with spit in this meet-up? A kiss? A handshake?

Or, can you finally revisit the spit wad, unroll it, and discover that it’s a note of some kind?

     I said, ok. We paused for a moment. Him in his gym shorts. He gave my shoulders another squeeze.

    "Let me know if anyone is pushing you around, okay?"

    I watched him pull out of the parking lot. I watched Matt go away, or to lunch, wherever. In the passenger seat sat his friend, sitting lower, watching me in the passenger mirror he turned his face away, pulling down a smile. His eyes still smiled. I looked back towards my high school covered in snow.

    “Did you try to commit suicide in the parking lot?” Kimmy asked at our lockers.

    “No.”

   “Well Matt’s telling people that you tried to commit suicide and that he saved you from getting run over. What were you doing in the parking lot?”

   “Did you ever meet that substitute?” 

    “What?” Kimmy asked.

    “The substitute in the parking lot?”

    “What?”

     I pulled my mangled Discman out of my hoodie pouch. The disc still pinned to the center. I held up the disc and looked at Kimmy through the centre. She was way older, sitting at a kitchen table. A younger person approached the table. Was it her kid? Her kid wore a t-shirt with a crawling baby whose arms were black tentacles.

    The kid said “Hi” then didn’t speak English. That kid's long curls covered their face. Except for its mouth. Future Kimmy swiped a manicured finger across a hand held television and said “yup” as the kid rummaged through a designer purse. Future Kimmy got up and left the table as those kid fingers stopped shifting for money. Future Kimmy left the room as I watched her kid standing still. Fingers clamped on the purse. Knuckles tense. Those kid knuckles shook. Tensing, they turned black. The blackness spread up to the wrists, then the elbows, then the shoulders, the collarbone, jaw, then the mouth. I looked at the kid's mouth full of stubby, golden teeth. The golden-tooth mouth smiled.

    “Hi! Hello! I can see that you’re happy.”

    I dropped the CD. It tapped the floor and rolled away through the meandering teenage feet. I turned for it, but Kimmy grabbed my shoulder.

    “No. Don’t. We left the 80’s. No one likes a mix tape. Sorry, mix CD? Why is it weird to say mix CD? Ugh, what next? Anyhow, Caleb, did you make that for someone!?”She silently shrieked. Fists shook. She linked her arm into mine. “Did you know there’s a thing called a café opening up in town. They have café mochas. It’s hot chocolate and coffee. Maybe meet him for one?”

    I told her, “I haven’t hit puberty yet.”

    “Uh, girls aren’t the only ones with locker room talks, you know.”

##

   Epilogue:

    She hesitated, and waited on the bottom step of the stoop of her mom’s new condo. She unfolded her new flip-phone with her french manicured fingers. Her bare fingers frozen, balancing a smoke, she began to text “You were touching Caleb…” when a CD rolled into her foot with a tap. She startled as the smoke balanced on her fingers. She picked up the CD.  

    She looked at the back of the disc to check for scratches, blinking at her reflection. As her eye came across the centre of the disc she saw a small fire through it. She looked closer. She closed one eye. She peaked through and saw the word brimstone on a banner. Closer. Her face pressed against the silver backing. She saw a white stage with a huge silver cross on it. She saw herself, older, a golden smile. She heard herself on a microphone, “Hi. Hello! I know you are so angry. So am I.” She watched herself point up to the sky. Someone yelled her name.

  “My song, y’all heard, it is also rising. Not just in the Christian charts but flying up to the lord’s number one spot in the top five sales of all time! Everyone, let’s “Cleanse Back The Nation!” Boom. Red fire exploded from the giant-silver cross. The crowd erupted.

   She held the CD in her hands and put out the cigarette. She clapped her phone closed and headed back into her mom’s condo, happy.

My Input: You have a great intuitive way of phrasing. Among my favorite examples are “Something nodded inside my head” and “Matt sweat a wild look.” In future rewrites, please consider the following:

• Establish another texture of information to cut to. For example, Big Voice or some device that represents the music Caleb hears. With something to intercut to, you can elapse time and not be trapped depicting your world moment by moment.

• Consider cutting out at least a third of your dialog. Doing so will give you more real estate for the new texture. Right now the dialog works too hard to be clever, to further the plot, and to re-state what you’ve previously told us.

• Be careful not to filter the world through your narrator. When you use “I turned to see Kimmy” or “I saw a silver chain…” you might have better use for that real estate. Also, by not filtering you can better submerge the “I”.

• Clarity. I confess, I’m not sure what the horizontal of the story was. What actually happened? If you don’t mind, would you give us a quick explanation? Then I could reread the story and I’ll see at what point I lost the plot thread.

  I think it was Kimmy in the opening sequence, and the teacher, right? And in the closing sequence as well? And that Kimmy knew the teacher in the hallway at school when Kimmy was first introduced. And that the “teacher” is revealed to be a menacing character, somehow.

As always, thanks Cameron for submitting work here. I truly loved so much of your phrasing.

Small world. As it turns out, my acting teacher also performs as a comic stage hypnotist. Yesterday he told us about entertaining several hundred high school students and hypnotizing several teacher and chaperones by accident. It seems that acting and hypnosis have a lot in common. I’ll bet that both can improve our storytelling.

I’ve chosen to post this at an odd time, to give other people a chance at seeing it first. Yes, it’s long, but Cameron does so many things well. I’m curious if other people were uncertain about the plot’s outcome.

1. Am I the only person who finds the Substack spellchecker to be frustrating? Why does it insist that butthole is two words?