06/09/2010

By Christopher Stokum & Sarah Schiavoni
Writers Rules 2-5 were taken from Kurt Vonnegut's Creative Writing 101

Attention: WritersNewsWeekly is preparing a series on the impact childhood books have on their young readers. If you’re an author interested in being interviewed, or if you think you have a unique perspective on the topic, contact us at submissions@writersnewsweekly.com.

Your Sweet Man

"My contribution to CHICAGO BLUES (Bleak House, 2007) was way out of my comfort zone, but that’s what I loved about writing short stories. They allow me to stretch and experiment with different characters, plots, eras, and settings. This story is about a Blues bass player whose ability to love and forgive is tested by events out of his control. There’s also a historical element: the story takes place both in the 1980’s and the 1950’s. It turned out to be one of the sweetest stories I’ve ever written..."

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Mr. Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett

By Carlotta G. Holton

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, unemployment and homelessness ravaged the social and economic landscape. Many traveled westward across America's heartland to find work at migrant camps. Within this vagabond lifestyle, legends were born. Perhaps the most chilling among these is that of “Mr. Shivers” – death personified. He's been around since Father Time, the workers used to say, and no jail cell can hold him. “He has a train made of night that rides straight to hell,” writes Bennett. And he hurts people...

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WNW Talks to Peter Damian Bellis

Peter Damian Bellis refuses to be pigeonholed. He is a unique blend of scholar and writer, combining an English professor’s encyclopedic knowledge of literature with an artist’s organic view on creating art. Not surprisingly, Bellis’s style reflects his dichotomous up-bringing where he benefited from both the academic influences of his father, and the story-telling traditions of his grandmother. Bellis graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in English Literature. Over the course of his career he’s worn many hats, including but not limited to high school English teacher, college English professor, policy analyst for the Pennsylvania Workforce Investment Board, Workforce Development Specialist for a non-profit agency, inn keeper, and chief bottle washer. His most recent work, The Conjure Man is described as “part myth, part fable, part satire, and part coming-of-age story.”

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By: Christopher Stokum

When J.D. Salinger died back in January, I couldn't help but feel guilty. Same with David Foster Wallace in '08 and Hunter S. Thompson in '05. It wasn't any latent sense of responsibility for their deaths that brought the guilt, though I suppose if the sense was latent, I wouldn't be aware of having it. It was rather the notion that perhaps I felt a little too badly about their dying, considering my relationship with them. That perhaps, given that they were survived by mothers, fathers, wives, siblings, children, friends, acquaintances, even pets, none of which categories that I was even remotely a member of – that perhaps out of consideration for all of these folks with legitimate claims to sadness, I should get a grip.

But I did fit into a category that obituaries couldn't possibly list the members of in the allotted space. I was a reader. I am a reader, one who cares intensely for those he reads. So much so that I spent the day Salinger died wondering if I had had some sort of bond with him in a past life – also, of course, wondering if there were such things as past lives to have such a bond in. It seemed the only scenario that could explain the weight that had settled uncomfortably in my stomach.

The reader-author relationship is rarely explored. The converse, the author-reader relationship, is standard turf for writing classes and manuals, but the rhetoric here focuses more or less on how to keep the reader's interest, not waste their time, convince them that you're being forthright when you're lying unabashedly out of both ends, etc. Please take a moment and note how remarkably similar the author-reader relationship seems to be to a hell of a lot of romantic relationships. The closest one ever gets to covering real personal connections between authors and their readers is when discussing how to avoid betraying one's reader-directed loathing in one's writing. Again, note how this is pretty much like every relationship you've been in up to this point.

Reader-author relationships are noticeably sweeter. They're characterized by trust, reverence and forgiving, and thus there are few relationships that one can honestly compare them to. When one of your most beloved authors dies, you feel, above all else, betrayed. You feel as if you've lost a confidant, one of your few true comrades, and you feel as if that comrade should have told you that he was planning to leave back when he booked his ticket, not with a postcard from the other side, especially not with one that reads, “You can't visit me; I can't visit you. Do not respond. The mail service here is shit. We may meet up again, depending on who's right about the cosmos.”

How seriously you take all of this betrayal and sadness hinges on readers having relationships with the authors they read that resemble friendships. If they don't, then the situation is more like receiving the above letter from, say, a friend of a friend – essentially, someone you don't know, only know of. To feel badly about their leaving would be strange and presumptuous. It would assume some kind of active communication between the departed and yourself that had never actually taken place. Hence the guilt.

The analogy crumbles, however. There is active communication between the reader and the author. Regardless of the effort that an author puts into his novel, he will never complete it, not until the novel is purchased or found or borrowed or whatever and read. If the author is responsible for laying the groundwork, for selecting the proper materials and arranging them in some comprehensible fashion, then it is the reader who constructs the story. The reader must build the world of the novel mentally; he must give the characters faces and voices, and he must fabricate the scenery. Film, for sake of contrast, doesn't hold the same potential. Actors come with faces (generally); sets are built to look precisely how the director wants them to. While one simply takes in a film and interprets it, one must complete a novel before interpretation even becomes a real option.

Instead of friends, we'll call our favorite authors our co-conspirators. They're the ones who hatch the plans, and we're the ones who carry them out. My depression over Salinger's death didn't stem from an unfulfilled desire to meet the man, nor was it the result of some unhealthy obsession with his work. The latter is almost unimaginable, for his work is, in a sense, my work. No, this is nothing more than the sadness of an crook who has lost one of the few fellow criminals he trusted. Before he completes his next heist, he'll have to find a new thief to get behind.

Or he'll have to find some thieves who will get behind him.

By Sarah Schiavoni & Christopher Stokum

We recently spoke with aspiring author and active blogger Liz Borino. She has just finished the manuscript for her first novel and is currently working on editing, promoting her novel with a unique blog, and making contacts in the publishing industry.
In describing her novel, Expectations, Borino says it “depicts the struggle between what we desire for ourselves and our familial obligations. This is personified by Chris and Matt Taylor, identical twins, who are trying to win their overbearing father’s approval and acquire their trust funds. Their best friend and roommate, Aiden O’Boyle, left his family behind in Ireland to pursue a career in dance. Robert Taylor, Matt and Chris’s father, has set certain conditions that must be met in order for them to receive their trust funds. Matt must work at a job he hates, while struggling with alcoholism. Chris has to deny his own desires and deep love for Aiden, to get married to Matt’s girlfriend. All the while, their father continues to use extreme measures to ensure his sons’ compliance. The story takes place against the backdrop of preparation for Aiden’s upcoming performance.”
To help promote her novel, Borino created a blog through which her characters speak. She explains that it is “a diary from the different character's points of view. It's distinct from the novel because that's written in third person omniscient point of view.” She plans to use her blog as part of her marketing plan for when the book comes out.

Interview

WNW: How has your experience as a first-time author attempting to publish your first novel been?
Borino: My experience as a first time author has been…complicated really. I’ve learned a lot in the past few months. There’re a lot of different angles to go into the publishing industry with, many back and side doors, so to say. What I’ve learned, and am still learning, is the best way to work those entrances. How to be innovative, not only in my writing, but also the business.

WNW: What authors have influenced your writing?
Borino: The authors who have most influenced my writing are S.E. Hinton and Michael Cunningham. Very different authors, I know. However, neither is afraid to take risks and write honestly. Cunningham can do it all, write captivating novels and then turn around and make them into screenplays. I’d recommend A Home at the End of the World to everyone.
WNW: Can you run us through a basic timeline of your manuscript? Writing, editing, etc.
Borino: The first draft of my novel was written between October and December—my word count was 130,000. I know, extremely high. So, I’ve since been editing and putting together my marketing plan, which includes my blog Write Words.

WNW: What have you run into that you didn’t expect? Obstacles, opportunities, etc.
Borino: I definitely didn’t expect to receive so much support from other writers. With all the competition out there, I really thought people would want to cut each other down, but I’ve found just the opposite.

WNW: Where did you get the idea for the accompanying blog?
Borino: I wish I could remember exactly where I got the idea for my blog. I read an article about ways a fiction writer could use a blog. This one was most appealing to me because I’m not an expert at book publishing and promotion—I’m just a writer and I want people to experience my stories.

WNW: What do you hope your readers take from reading the blog, not just the novel?
Borino: The main thing I want is for people to get deeper into the character’s psyche. The book is written in third person omniscient, but the blog is in first person. It allows readers to see how each character perceives themselves, each other, and their situations. The other thing I do with the blog is allow the antagonist to share his “side,” in “Rebellion.”

WNW: Do any of the scenes you describe in the blog appear in the novel?
Borino: There are a few scenes played out on the blog that are also in the novel. Some of these have the same dialogue and others are just summarized. When I do this, I add in the flavor of the character’s perspective.

WNW: When do the blog entries occur? Before the novel? After? During?
Borino: The very beginning of the blog came long before the novel, when the three main characters were in grade school and younger. Then it showed their lives in high school. The post titled “Fear,” is really where the novel begins. From there it’s all progressed in time with the novel, almost parallel.

WNW: Have you gotten to know your characters better since starting the blog, or does the novel explore them thoroughly?
Borino: The novel explores the characters fairly thoroughly, but the blog gives them even more depth. The blog has helped me get to know them even better.

WNW: Blogging is still a fairly new medium for writers. Do you use any other technology in your work? Facebook, Twitter, etc. If so, how has this technology affected your writing?
Borino: I use Twitter. I love using Twitter. It’s helped me connect with so many great people and it’s an outstanding way to spread the word about your own blog.

WNW: Do you intend to continue work on your blog after the book has been released? Should you choose to write a second novel, would you utilize this type of blog again?
Borino: I plan to keep this blog for every novel I write from here on out. I’ll just put the description in the heading like I do for Expectations.

Elizabeth Borino is an avid reader and writer. Recently, she’s been spending her time editing her manuscript, writing her blog, and completing her final summer at Hofstra University. Though she’s hard at work with school and her novel, she’s preparing to move down South with her fiancé, where she intends to “change the world one word at a time.” You can find out more about Ms. Borino, her novel, and her blog by visiting her Twitter page and her blog Write Words.

Your Sweet Man is a short story from the collection Nice Girl Does Noir I by Libby Fischer Hellmann (http://www.libbyhellmann.com).

"Who’s Gonna Be Your Sweet Man When I’m gone?
Who you gonna have to love you?”
…Muddy Waters

1982: Chicago

Calvin waited for the man who’d been convicted of killing his mother. Outside Joliet prison the July heat seared his spirit, leaving it as bare and desiccated as a sun-bleached bone. Sweat ringed his armpits, grit coated the back of his neck. Almost noon, and no shadows on anything.
He extracted a Lucky from the crumpled pack on the dash and leaned forward to light it. The ‘74 Chevy Caprice never failed to start up. As long as he kept enough fluid in the radiator, the engine ate up the highway without complaint. Even the lighter worked.
He took a nervous drag. He hadn’t seen his father in fifteen years. His granny had made him come when he graduated high school to show him that Calvin had amounted to something, after all. Calvin remembered clutching his diploma in the visitors’ room, sliding it out of the manila envelope, edging nervously up to the glass window that separated them. He held it up against the glass, hating the sour smell of the place, the chipped paint on the walls, the fact that he had to be there at all. He remembered how his father nodded. No smile. No “atta boy – you done good.” Just a lukewarm nod. Calvin imagined a yawning hole opening up on the floor, right then and there; a hole he could sink into and disappear.
Now, the black metal gates swung open, and a withered man emerged. Calvin was still wiping sweat off his face, but his father was wearing a long sleeved shirt and beige canvas pants. Even from a distance, his father looked smaller than he remembered. Frailer. The cancer that was consuming him, that had triggered his early release, was working its way through his body. He walked slowly, stooped over. His skin, a few shades lighter than the rich chocolate it once was, looked paper-thin, and he blinked like he hadn’t seen sunlight in years. Maybe he hadn’t. His father looked around, spotted Calvin in the Caprice. He nodded, took his time coming over.
Calvin slid out of the car, tossed his cigarette on the dirt, ground it out with his foot.
“Hello, Calvin…”
Calvin returned his greeting with a nod of his own. Cautious. Polite.
“Appreciate you coming to get me, son.”
A muscle in Calvin’s gut twitched. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had called him “son.” “Son” was a word that belonged in the movies or TV, not in real life. Calvin gestured to the gym bag his father was carrying. “Let me take that.”
His father held it out. Calvin threw it in the back seat. His father stood at the passenger door but made no effort to open it. Calvin frowned, then realized his father was waiting for permission. Twenty-five years in prison did that to a man. “Just open the door and get in.”
His father shot him a look, half-embarrassed, half-grateful, and slid into the car. Calvin waited until his father was settled, then started the engine. As they pulled away from Joliet, he said, “Thought we’d go back to my place.”
“You still in Englewood?”
“Hyde Park now. Got ourselves a house near 47th and Cottage Grove.”
His father’s eyebrows arched. “Well, that’s mighty fine.”
“Jeanine fixed it up nice. Even got a little garden out back. She’s a good girl.”
His father didn’t seem to notice. He should have. It was Jeanine who shamed Calvin into coming in the first place.
“He’s dying, Calvin” she’d said. “And he’s paid his dues. Twenty-five years of ‘em.”
Now his father turned to him. “How’s that job coming?”
“What job?” Calvin made his way back to the highway.
“The one you was talking about when you come to see me. Janitorial supplies.”
“I opened my own company six years ago. I got five people working for me now.”
“Well that’s mighty fine, son. Mighty fine.”
But it didn’t feel fine. It felt false. Calvin imagined that black hole opening up even wider. That was why he never wrote or visited his father, except for the Christmas card Jeanine made him sign every year. Any time he thought about him, even a stray fragment, the night his mother was murdered flooded back into his mind. He couldn’t help it. Better not to think about it at all, his granny would say. “Just go on and live your own life.”
But Granny was dead, and the people at Joliet called him when they found the cancer. Calvin stole a glance at his father. He was quiet. Just staring out at the road, a dreamy look on his face. Calvin remembered that look. His father’s body might be in the front seat, but his mind was miles away. Calvin knew he was thinking about his mother.
He tightened his grip on the wheel. How dare he? “So… You feelin’ okay?”
His father pulled his gaze in and looked at Calvin. “For the days I got left, I’m doing jes’ fine.”
Calvin turned onto the interstate. “You sure? Jeanine talked to our doctor. He can see you tomorrow if you want.”
His father gave him a sad little smile. “Appreciate it son, but don’t go to no trouble.” His father went back to looking out the window. Calvin turned on the radio. The all news station was blaring out something about Israeli troops in Lebanon. His father didn’t react, just kept gazing out. He seemed somehow smaller, less distinct than he’d been just ten minutes ago. Like his shadow was slowly fading from black to gray. At this rate he might disappear altogether.
Calvin snapped off the radio. For a while the whine of the air conditioning was the only sound in the car. Lulled by the air blowing through the vents and the rhythm of his wheels on the highway, Calvin was startled by the abruptness of his father’s voice.
“You start making the arrangements?”
Calvin cleared his throat just loud enough. “Not yet.” He wasn’t sure what to expect. Would his father lay into him? Cuss him out?
But all his father did was to wave a weak hand. “I guess I got to do it myself.”
“Why don’t we talk about it later?”
His father’s shoulders sagged and he closed his eyes. “I ain’t got many laters, son.”

***

1950’s: Chicago

The hot breath of the blues kissed Jimmy Jay Rollins when he was little, leaving him hungering for more. His mama -- he never knew his daddy – took him to church in the morning and the blues joints at night. By the time he was seven, he was playing guitar licks with whoever his “uncle” of the moment happened to be, and by the time he left school at 16, he knew he wanted to play bass guitar.
The bass wasn’t as flashy as the electric slide guitar of Little Ed or Muddy Waters, but it was the glue that held everything together. No one could play a 12-bar chorus without him; no one could start a lick or riff. The bass was there through every number, from beginning to end, setting the pace. Steady. Unrelenting. The lead guitar, saxophone, even the drummer could take a break; not so the bass. Willie Dixon became Jimmy Jay’s personal hero.
By day, Jimmy Jay worked in a steel factory near Lake Calumet, but at night, he bounced around playing gigs on the South side. You could smell stale cigarette smoke and yesterday’s beer in the air, spot a few guns and knives if you looked real close. But none of that mattered when the music started. The Blues flowed through his veins, transporting him to a place where he could let go, soar above the world, tethered only by an electric guitar, wailing horn, or harmonica riff.
He was jamming at the open mike set in the Macomba Lounge one hot summer night, a thick cloud of smoke, perfume, and sweat choking the air, when a wisp of a girl – she couldn’t have been more than 18 -- came up to the stage. She was wearing a red dress that skimmed her body just right. A curtain of black hair shimmered down to her waist, and her skin looked pale blue in the light. She tentatively took the mike and asked them to play in G, then launched into a bluesy version of “Mean to Me,” an old Billie Holiday song.
By the middle of the second verse, people set their glasses down, stubbed out their cigarettes, and a hush fell over the room. Her voice was raw and unpolished but full of surprises. At first a sultry alto, she could hit the high notes in a silver soprano, then dip two octaves down to belt out the Blues like a tenor. At first he thought it was a fluke – no one had that range and depth. He tested her, moving up the scale, changing the groove, even throwing her a sudden key change. She took it all with a serene smile, bobbing her head, eyes closed, adjusting perfectly. Her voice never wavered.
After a few numbers, the band took a break, and Jimmy Jay bought her a whiskey. As he passed her the drink, he noticed the contrast between her face, soft and round, and her eyes, dark and penetrating. Her name was Inez Youngblood, she said, and she’d just moved here from Tennessee. She was part Cherokee, once upon a time, but mostly mountain white.
“A hillbilly?” Jimmy Jay joked.
She threw him a dazzling smile that made his insides melt. “A hillbilly who sings the Blues.”
“Why Chicago?”
“I listen to the radio. Chicago Blues is happy Blues. You got Muddy Waters. Etta James. Chess Records. Everybody’s here. Sweeping you up with their music. There just ain’t no other place to sing.” Those dark eyes bored into him. “And I got to sing.”
By their third drink, he began to imagine the curves underneath that red dress, and what she looked like without it. She had to know what he was thinking, because she smiled and started to finger a gold cross around her neck. Still, she didn’t seem put off. More like she was teasing him.
Another set and half a reefer later, a fight broke out in the back of the bar. Inez, who was singing “Wang, Dang, Doodle” took it in stride, even when knives glinted and someone pulled out a piece. She just pointed to the fighters, asked the bartender to shine a spot in their direction, and leveled them with a hard look. The brawl moved into the alley. Jimmy Jay was impressed.
It was almost dawn when they quit playing. Someone bought a last round of drinks, and Jimmy Jay was just thinking about packing up when Inez came over.
“You’re pretty damn good, Jimmy Jay.”
He grinned. “Thanks, Hillbilly. You got a set of pipes yourself.”
She laughed. “We oughta do this again.”
Jimmy Jay suppressed his elation. “I could probably get us a couple of gigs.”
She nodded. “I’d like that.”
He nodded, just looking at her, not quite believing his good fortune.
She offered him a slow sensual smile. “Meanwhile, I got a favor to ask you, baby.”
Jimmy Jay cleared his throat. “Yeah?” His voice cracked anyway.
She turned around, and lifted her hair off the back of her neck. “Help me take off my cross.”
She ended up in his bed that night. And the next. And the night after that. She might only have been 18, but she was all heat and fire. All he had to do was touch her and she shivered with pleasure. When he ran his fingers slowly up her leg, starting at that perfectly shaped ankle, past her knee, stopping at the soft, pliant skin of her thigh, she would moan and grab him and pull him into her. Sliding underneath, rocking him hard, like she couldn’t get enough.
“You are my sweet man,” she would whisper when they stopped, exhausted and sweaty. “My sweet, sweet man.”
***
They were a team for almost ten years. Inez, the hillbilly, soaring like an angel in one number, moaning like a whore in another; and Jimmy Jay, steadfast and sturdy, setting the beat, making her look good. Inez drove herself hard, and her talent grew. Her timing was impeccable. She rolled with the band, but could carry the show. If someone missed a chord, she covered them, and if they messed up their solo, she’d make light of it by singing scat, humming a chorus, or talking to the crowd.
Before long they were headlining at places like the Macomba before it burned down, South Side Johnny’s, and Queenie’s. Their only disagreement was over Chess Records and the two white owners who wanted to sign them. Jimmy Jay was all for it -- not only did his idol Willie Dixon work for Chess, but a record contract was something he’d dreamed of all his life. Inez kept saying they should hold out for a better deal. So far they had.
Even Calvin’s arrival didn’t slow them down. Calvin was a good baby who turned into a good boy. The same face and nappy hair as his Daddy; the high cheekbones and coffee-with-cream skin of his Mama. Inez seemed thrilled. She cooed and sang to him all day, but if Jimmy Jay figured she might retire, he figured wrong. Calvin came with them to the clubs on the South and west side, even to Peoria and East St. Louis. They’d bring blankets and put him to sleep in the back room on a ratty sofa, sometimes the floor. When he was older, Jimmy Jay or Inez would drop him off at school before they went to bed themselves. Jimmy Jay didn’t mind. His own mama had brought him to all the Blues joints.
Inez started calling them both her sweet men. Jimmy Jay would grin. They were happy. Real happy. Until the gig at Theresa’s.
***
It was late autumn, and a chilly rain had been falling for two days, flooding the viaducts and lots of basements. Jimmy Jay and Inez were headlining at Theresa’s Lounge on South Indiana. The place wasn’t as upscale or as large as Macomba’s, and the regulars, mostly people from the neighborhood, treated the place like home, dancing and talking with the players during the set. Tonight the smell of wet wool mixed with the smoke and booze and sweat.
A promoter from Capitol Records was in town and supposedly coming down that night. Inez was excited -- Capitol was huge, much bigger than Chess. Jimmy Jay was glad he’d talked a new lead guitar into playing the gig with them. Buddy Guy had just come up from Baton Rouge, and everyone was saying he was gonna change the face of the Blues.
It was a knockout performance. No one missed a chord and the solos kicked. There were no amp or mike problems. Jimmy Jay and the drummer locked into a tight groove, and Buddy Guy’s guitar was by turns brash, angry, and soulful. Inez’s voice was as rich and mellow as thick honey. Even with the lousy weather, the place was packed, everyone swaying, dancing, bobbing their heads. It was like great sex, Jimmy Jay thought. Hot, sticky sex that trembled and throbbed and built, and ended in a long, fiery climax.
During the break, a white guy came up to the stage. He’d been at one of the back tables, smoking cigarettes. With his baby face and eager expression, he couldn’t have been much older than Jimmy Jay. But his tailored suit and hair, slicked back with Bryl Crème, said he was trying to look well-off. He bought the band a round of drinks and nodded to Jimmy Jay. Then he turned to Inez and started talking quietly but earnestly. She looked from him to Jimmy Jay, then back at him. When she nodded, he took her hand and covered it with thick fingers. She didn’t pull away. After the next set, Jimmy Jay caught them talking behind his back. By the last set, Inez was favoring him with the same smile she’d shot Jimmy Jay the first night at Macomba’s ten years ago.
By the time Inez left town with him a week later, the rain had changed to snow. Jimmy Jay went to fetch Calvin at school. When he got back, she was gone. At first he thought she was at the store, picking up something for dinner, but when she didn’t come home by six, an uneasy feeling swept over him. He checked the closet and drawers. Most of her things were gone. Except her gold cross.
Word got around that she’d run away with Billy Sykes. He hadn’t worked for Capitol, it turned out. He did work in the record business, but dropped out of sight after he shorted some men who’d been financing a label with mob money. He reappeared a year later as a promoter. No one could say who his clients were.
That winter Jimmy Jay sat for hours on the bed, running Inez’s gold cross and chain through his fingers. His mother moved in to look after Calvin who, at nine, was just old enough to realize his world had shattered. Word filtered back -- someone had seen her in Peoria, someone else heard she was in Iowa. Jimmy Jay tried to play, but he sounded tired and flat. Inez was inextricably bound up in his music and his life; with her gone, it felt like part of his body – worse, his soul -- had shriveled up and fallen off.
One day Calvin came in and saw him on the bed, fingering the cross with tears in his eyes.
“Don’t be sad, Daddy.” He came over and gave Jimmy Jay a hug. “I know what to do.”
Jimmy Jay gazed at his son.
“Mama just got lost. She don’t know how to get home. All we got to do is find her.”
Jimmy Jay smiled sadly. “I don’t think she wants to come home, boy.”
“Granny says every mama wants to come home. All we needs do is find her. Once she sees us, it’ll be just fine. I know it. ”
Jimmy Jay tried to discourage him, but Calvin clung to his idea like a leach to a man’s skin. He talked so much about finding his lost mama that after a while, his intensity infected Jimmy Jay. Could it really be that simple? Maybe Calvin was right. Sure Inez wanted to be a star, but she had a family. If they went after her, maybe she would realize what she’d given up and come home.
The following spring Billy Sykes brought Inez back to Chicago for a show on the West side – no one on the South side would book her. She was singing with some musicians from St. Louis, Jimmy Jay learned. They were staying at the Lincoln hotel, a small shabby place near the club.
Jimmy Jay waited until Calvin was home from school and had his supper. Then they both dressed in their Sunday best and took the bus to the hotel. Jimmy Jay slipped an old man at the desk a fiver and asked which room Inez Rollins was in. The man pointed up the steps. Jimmy Jay and Calvin climbed to the third floor and knocked on #315.
A tired female voice replied, “Yes?”
“It’s me, Inez. And Calvin.”
The door opened and suddenly Inez was there, her body framed in the light.
“Mama!” Calvin ran into her arms.
Her face lit, and she clasped Calvin so tight the boy could hardly suck in a breath. When she finally released him, she turned to Jimmy Jay.
“Hello, Jimmy Jay.”
She looked washed-out, Jimmy Jay thought, although it gave him no pleasure to see it. Gaunt and nervous, too. Her eyes were rimmed in red, and her black mane of hair wasn’t glossy. He thought he saw a bruise on her cheek, but she kept finger-combing her hair over the spot.
“Hello, Inez.” He looked around. “Where’s Sykes?”
“He’s at the club. Getting ready for tonight.”
Jimmy Jay nodded. He got right to the point. “We want you to come home. We are a family. Calvin needs you. So do I.”
At least she had the decency to look ashamed. Her eyes filled. She gazed at Jimmy Jay, then Calvin. Then she shook her head.
“Why not?”
“Remember what I told you the first time we met?”
“You told me a lot of things.”
“I need to sing, Jimmy Jay. And Billy’s gonna make me a star.”
Jimmy Jay saw the determination on her face, as raw as the first time he’d met her. His heart cracked, but he struggled to conceal his grief. He might have lost her, but Calvin didn’t have to. “Take the boy. He needs his mama. I’ll – I’ll pay you for him, ‘ifin you want.”
“I’ll think about it.” Inez looked down at Calvin, trailed her fingers through his hair, and smiled. Calvin snuggled closer. “I’ll talk to Billy when he gets back.”
Jimmy Jay nodded. “I’ll leave the boy with you. I’ll pick him up at the club when you start your gig. We can talk more.”
Inez looked sad but grateful. Calvin looked thrilled.
***
Two hours later, the band had finished setting up but there was no sign of Inez. Or Billy Sykes. Or Calvin. Jimmy Jay saw the uneasiness on the musicians’ faces, heard one of them say, “Where are those damn fools?”
He retraced his steps to the Lincoln Hotel.
No one was behind the desk when Jimmy Jay got there. He went up the stairs and down the hall. Music blared out from Inez’s room. The radio. Benny Goodman’s orchestra, he thought. He was about to knock on the door when he saw something move at the other end of the hall. Something small. He wheeled around and squinted.
“Calvin? Is that you?”
The figure trotted toward him. Calvin, looking small and lonely.
“What you doin’ out here, son? Where’s your mama?”
Calvin didn’t say anything, just shrugged.
“Is she inside?” Jimmy Jay pointed to the door.
Calvin nodded.
“Is Sykes back?”
Calvin nodded again.
Jimmy Jay turned back to the door, leaned his ear against it. The music was loud. He knocked. No one answered. Probably couldn’t hear him above the music. He knocked again, and when no one responded, started to push against the door.
“Inez, Sykes…. Open up!”
Nothing. Except the music.
Jimmy Jay looked both ways down the hall, then threw his weight against the door. It almost gave. He backed up, turned sideways, and rammed himself against it again. This time the door gave, and Jimmy Jay burst into the room.
***
He was still holding the gun when the police arrived. Inez’s body was at the foot of the bed, but Sykes’ was half way to the door. A pool of blood was congealing under each of them.

1982: Chicago
Three weeks later, Jimmy Jay no longer had the strength to get out of bed. Calvin was putting in twelve-hour days. He knew it was an excuse for not dealing with his father, but he couldn’t bear to come home to a place where death hovered in the air.
One night, though, was different. As he trudged inside, Calvin heard music from upstairs. And laughter. When he climbed the steps, he saw that Jeanine had moved their stereo into Jimmy Jay’s room. An old album revolved on the turntable. His father was in bed, eyes closed, snapping his fingers. Jeanine was sitting in the chair smiling too, her head bobbing to the music. Calvin peered at the album cover. Chess Records. Muddy Waters.
His father opened his eyes. “Hey, Calvin.” His face was wreathed in smiles. “There ain’t nothing like Muddy for an old soul. With Willie Dixon and Howlin’ Wolf on back up. Lord, it makes me see the gates of heaven.”
“Don’t talk that way, Dad.”
Jimmy Jay dismissed him with a wave of his hand. When the song came to an end, Calvin lifted the needle and turned off the stereo. Jeanine went downstairs, claiming dishes that needed to be washed.
“Calvin,” his father said, “We can’t put it off no more. It’s time to talk about the arrangements.”
Calvin stiffened. He dug in his pocket for his Luckys, pulled one out and lit it. He sat in the chair. “I don’t know why you want to be buried there.”
His father eyed him. “She was my wife, Calvin. And your mama.”
“She was white trash!” Calvin exhaled a cloud of white smoke. “White trailer trash.”
“Don’t you ever talk that way ‘bout your mama!” His father’s voice was unexpectedly strong. “And she was from the mountains of Tennessee, boy,” his father added. “The Smoky Mountains.”
But Calvin wasn’t mollified. “She ran out on us. You and me. She left us. And for what?”
His father just looked at him. Then he turned his head toward the window. “She was my woman,” he said quietly, his burst of energy now dissipated. “And I was her sweet man.”
Calvin felt his stomach pitch. The black hole was opening up again, and all he wanted to do was jump in and let it consume him. He stubbed out his cigarette, letting the window fan clear the smoke. Jeanine ran it all the time, even though it didn’t do much cooling. Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead .
“I still miss her, son.”
Calvin swallowed. “Pop, don’t.”
“I ain’t got no regrets.” His father said. “At now, in a little while, if the good Lord is willin’, I’ll see her again.”
Calvin’s throat got hot. He felt tears gather at the back of his eyes. He tried to blink them away hoping his father wouldn’t notice. But he did.
“Why you crying, Calvin? You’re a good son. And Jeanine is a good woman. She been taking good care of me.”
“It’s not that.” The words spilled out.
His father cocked his head. The slight movement seemed to require more energy than he could muster.
“I – I got to tell you something.”
His father’s body might be wasted, but his soul seemed to expand. His eyes grew huge, taking over his entire face. “What’s that, son?”
The black hole widened. Calvin had to take the plunge. “That – that night...” Calvin’s words were heavy and sluggish, as if the hole was already sucking him down. “The night mama died ….” Calvin whispered. “It was my fault. I killed Mama.”
An odd look registered on Jimmy Jay’s face.
“After you left …” Calvin’s voice was flat and hard.“… Mama sang to me. And hugged me. It felt – so good... So right.”
“Your mama had the voice of an angel.”
Calvin held his hand up to stop him. “Then Billy Sykes come back. He was pissed when he saw me. ‘What’s that kid doing here?’ He yelled. He and Mama -- well, she told him she wanted to take me with them. Sykes wouldn’t have none of it. ‘Are you crazy?” He said. ‘It’s bad enough that you’re a hillbilly. And part Injun. I ain’t taking your nigger kid, too. Get rid of him.’
“Mama begged him. ‘He won’t be no trouble,’ she kept saying and looked at me. “Will you, sweet man?”
“But Sykes kept saying no. ‘I put too much of my money in you to throw it away. What are people gonna think when they see you with a nigger kid?’
“Mama and me were on the bed. She was hugging me real tight. ‘I want my son,’ she said.
“’He’ll be in the way,’ Sykes said. “You want to be a star? You got to make a choice. Me or the kid.’”
Jimmy Jay didn’t say anything.
Calvin shuddered. “Mama said, ‘Don’t make me do that. I’m his Mama!’”
“’Then I’ll make the choice for you.’ Sykes says. And he pulls out a gun and aims it at my head.’” Calvin looked at the floor.
“What happened then, son?” Jimmy Jay asked, his voice almost as flat as Calvin’s.
Calvin covered his eyes with his hand. “Mama got up from the bed. She looked scared. ‘All right. All right. Put that gun away, Billy. I’ll send Calvin back to his Daddy. Just put the gun away. Before someone gets hurt.’ Then she looked from me to Sykes. She didn’t say nothing more.”
Calvin pressed his lips together. He couldn’t look at his father, but he knew his father was staring at him.
“Sykes started to put the gun away, but then -- I don’t know, Pop -- something came over me. I jumped up and tackled Sykes. Right there in the room.” He hesitated. “The gun went off. And Mama dropped off the end of the bed. Just dropped dead right in front of me.”
His father whispered. “And then?”
“Sykes was like a crazy man. It was like he couldn’t believe what happened. He started screaming, first at mama. Kept telling her to get up and stop foolin’ around. But she didn’t, Pop. She never got up.” Calvin’s voice cracked. “Then he dropped the gun and started for the door. He was gonna take off! Just leave her there.” Calvin paused again. “I just couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t. When he was half way to the door, I picked up the gun and shot him in the back.”
Calvin felt tears streaming down his face.
Jimmy Jay, his eyes veiled, let out a quiet breath. Calvin heard the hum of traffic through the window above the fan.
After a long time, Calvin said haltingly, “I guess it’s time to go to the police.”
“You won’t do nothing of the kind, son.” His father raised himself on one elbow. “I already done the time. For both of us. And…” His features softened. “…I figured out what happened a long time ago.”
“You knew?” Calvin’s stomach turned over. “How?”
“There was no way your mama could do anything to hurt you. Or you her. I knew it had to be an accident. At least with her. And Sykes… well…” Jimmy Jay shrugged as if it didn’t matter.
“You knew? All these years?” Calvin felt his features contort with anguish. “I killed them, and you took the rap for me?”
Jimmy Jay nodded. “And I’d do it all over again.”
Calvin searched his father’s face for an explanation. The silence pressed in.
“You were just a boy,” Jimmy Jay finally said, gazing at him with an expression of infinite sadness, compassion, and love. “I done the time for you both…so you would grow up and turn into her sweet man. Now…” He paused. “We got to get back to that plannin.’ The Lord ‘ll be givin’ Inez back her other sweet man, and I needs to be ready. We still got a lot of music to make together.”

THE END

By Christopher Stokum & Elizabeth Milo

Peter Damian Bellis refuses to be pigeonholed. He is a unique blend of scholar and writer, combining an English professor’s encyclopedic knowledge of literature with an artist’s organic view on creating art. Not surprisingly, Bellis’s style reflects his dichotomous up-bringing where he benefited from both the academic influences of his father, and the story-telling traditions of his grandmother. Bellis graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in English Literature. Over the course of his career he’s worn many hats, including but not limited to high school English teacher, college English professor, policy analyst for the Pennsylvania Workforce Investment Board, Workforce Development Specialist for a non-profit agency, inn keeper, and chief bottle washer. His most recent work, The Conjure Man is described as “part myth, part fable, part satire, and part coming-of-age story.” You can find out more about Bellis and the book at http://www.conjureman.net/.

WNW: Your father was an English professor. Where did he teach?

Bellis: My father taught English at the College of Notre Dame in Baltimore, MD, St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN, and St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, MN. His area of expertise was 19th century and early 20th century American and English literature; his dissertation was on Moby Dick, which means that from a very early age I was surrounded by great literature.

WNW: Where did you grow up? How has this affected your writing?

Bellis: Most of my childhood was spent in a small town in Minnesota. In Minnesota my life alternated between diving into Huck Finn style adventures (it seemed we were always getting into trouble of one kind or another), and reading great books. My father would pay me a quarter for every book report I turned in to him, and I remember earning upwards of $3 a week some weeks.

But my education was not limited to reading alone. Every summer we lived with my grandmother in Pensacola, Florida, and it was during those summers that I entered the world of oral storytelling. Every afternoon I would sit on a bench outside my Uncle Walter's Funeral Parlor, and I would watch the old men squatting on the sidewalk, chewing on grass stalks. I would listen to them tell stories about the war or nights spent hard-drinking or some "sumbitch" who stole someone's car and drove off to Mobile. These were the stories during the day. Every evening we sat out in the side yard and listened to my grandmother tell stories, and the pitch of her voice would rise and fall with the sounds of the evening. I learned to write from my father, but I learned to tell stories from my summers in Pensacola.

WNW: You have a fairly extensive list of canonized authors as your influences. Who do you think has influenced your work the most?

Bellis: You can find echoes of everyone I have ever read in my work, or at least I can find those echoes, but in terms of my approach to storytelling, particularly my belief that all story is rooted in a strong, almost mythic sense of place, I feel the closest connection to Twain, Faulkner, and Gabriel García Márquez.

WNW: When did you first encounter magical realism? What did you find so engaging about it?

Bellis: You could say that my first formal encounter with what is called magical realism was Gabriel García Márquez. But that is not quite precise. American literature was grounded in the very beginning in a cultural ethos that embraced the supernatural, the mythic, the legendary. We did not separate that aspect of our lives from the everyday routine. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle, the Brer Rabbit stories, Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill (and other tall tales) -- all of this was part of our oral storytelling tradition. Our great writers pulled from this tradition. Hawthorne was simply the first to weave the magic of this folk culture into a complex social, political, and moral tale, The Scarlet Letter.

For me, magical realists do a better job of capturing the essence of what it means to be human than do psychological realists more concerned with what it means to be contemporary. Too many of our "literary" American writers seem to have forgotten that the role of the writer is to reinterpret the myths of our culture and breath into them new life, and hence new meaning. The writer is the shaman, the bard, the mystic who uncovers for us the truth about our relationship to God and the world and each other. If this role is neglected or forgotten, then we are robbed of an understanding of our very soul, and that is what I think has happened in America.

WNW: Parts of your book have a very colloquial tone. Would you say that is a definitive part of your style, or was it simply a tool for this novel?

Bellis: For me the voices of the novel are the voices of the novel, which is to say the voices chose. Tone, narrative perspective, viewpoint, all come from listening carefully to these voices. Indeed, my job as a writer was to listen to what those voices had to say and to capture what I heard as best as I could. So where do the voices come from? That is more difficult to say. For me, each story is a gift from God (or from Jung's Over Soul, our collective unconscious, if you prefer). I believe as writers we need to be aware that every story is a gift, every story has come into our hands and no one else's, and the only thing we are supposed to do is to sit with each story long enough to bring it to the world. If we sit long enough, we will capture most of it, never all of it, but most of it, enough of it - and then we birth it and move on to the next gift.

WNW: You have a very spiritual view, for lack of a better term, of writing books. What has shaped your beliefs about writing books?

Bellis: When I was six years old I told my father that I was going to be a writer, and then, of course, I wrote nothing for the next twenty years. But I read everything, science fiction, fantasy, the classics, mythology, boy’s books, westerns, detective novels – and each book spoke to some part of me. Then I went to Northwestern University to study English Literature; I felt that if I were going to write great fiction, I better first become a student of great fiction. So for twenty years I was preparing myself to write by listening to the voices of story tellers. When I finally sat down to write (and this was in the days of typewriters) at the age of 26, the words began to flow quite easily. They still do. They always do. But when I think about where the words come from I cannot always say. I sit and listen to myself, to the voices that seem to swirl around me. While writing The Conjure Man, which was the first thing I ever attempted, I felt at times as if I were detached from myself, that something was writing through me. So to answer this question, all I can say is that the progression of my life, lived in a sort of communion with books, has shaped my understanding of the writing process. All I do is sit down and open myself up to the words, and if I have enough time, I can hear the voices, and the words flow.

WNW: Where did you get the idea for your novel?

Bellis: I was teaching high school in Florida and the summer was almost over and we were visiting friends at the beach and we went down to the water where the St. John's river rolled into the sea, and there it was, the beginning of The Conjure Man, right there in front of me. Three little boys were scrambling after crabs, and their mother, a big woman with elephantine legs, was hammering away at them with words, telling them to stop wasting the chicken heads and get those crabs in the bucket, that was going to be dinner. It was an extraordinary scene, and I couldn't get it out of my head. That evening, as we ate our own freshly caught crab dinner, the novel began to unfold. I spent the next two years following the threads of the story and writing what I hoped was going to be one of the greatest books ever written

WNW: You seem to be borrowing from various religious and mythic traditions. Which myths have had the most influence on your work?

Bellis: I did not begin with any particular notion in mind about the nature of religion or myth. However, I did feel that the story was on some level about the prophet Elijah passing on the spiritual torch to the next prophet. I was also reading about the Manichean heresy when I started the book (the Manicheans believed that the God of the Old Testament was in reality the devil and that Christ came to deliver us from this false god) and so throughout the book there is some degree of uncertainty about whether or not Thaddeus is of God or of the devil. But these ideas are merely undercurrents, whispers, echoes, for the story is about transformation, the transformation of Thaddeus, and the transformation of Kilby. And because all such stories of transformation have their roots in the archetypal myths identified by Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, and others, The Conjure Man is mythic in both texture and impact. So I was not borrowing from any one particular mythic tradition; I was embracing them all. Thus, in spite of the setting and the dialect, the story goes beyond black and white and so moves the reader beyond black and white and so what you experience is the humanity of these people, of their pain and their sorrow, of their joys, however limited. You have the essence of what it means to be human, and that once again brings it back into the mythic realm.

WNW: You said you’ve been “sitting with” The Conjure Man for 23 years. Have you been sitting with other projects at the same time?

Bellis: I am currently working on nine novels, all in various stages of completion, as well as half a dozen outlines of other books, and one screenplay. So yes, I have been sitting with these other works for a number of years as well. But The Conjure Man was the first. I also have three completed one act plays (one premiered in Chicago, the other two are seeking premiers), two completed novellas and one half completed, maybe 3 dozen poems (mostly sonnets), and a few essays scattered about.

By Carlotta G. Holton

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, unemployment and homelessness ravaged the social and economic landscape. Many traveled westward across America's heartland to find work at migrant camps. Within this vagabond lifestyle, legends were born. Perhaps the most chilling among these is that of “Mr. Shivers” – death personified. He's been around since Father Time, the workers used to say, and no jail cell can hold him. “He has a train made of night that rides straight to hell,” writes Bennett. And he hurts people.

In this well-written story, Bennett effectively depicts the landscape of the Great Dustbowl of weary wanderers, reminiscent of Steinbeck. He draws his inspiration from this tragic era in which hopelessness was as palpable as the dry red earth. The promising tale depicts the journey of Marcus Connelly, a young father from Tennessee, who endlessly seeks Shivers to exact revenge for his murdered daughter. “Someone has to put this world right,” Connelly decides. Amidst the sound of wailing trains, hobo camps and cheap carnivals he encounters numerous failures as Shivers manages to elude him.

Along the way, Connelly meets three quasi-religious characters who join him in his quest to find and kill Shivers. There is irony in one of these men, Pike, who seeks revenge though he is a former preacher. He asserts that there must be revenge for “those he has taken from us and for those he's taken from others. It will end in blood.”

Despite the presence of these characters, it is Connelly who is the most developed and who transforms. He effectively propels the story forward while experiencing his own metamorphosis as he determines how far he will go to attain revenge.

Tension builds as Connelly nears his prey. There is no ray of sunshine in this story. Omens abound. When the teenaged psychic at the carnival predicts the end before a new beginning, the theme becomes apocalyptic. Rebirth – be it of an individual or a nation – demands a death.

Mr. Shivers is a fast-reading, compelling story that depicts not only the soul searching of men during a devastating time, but also the individual who must suffer in order to move forward. The book's darkness is at times uncomfortable, but it is very worth the read.

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact, Touching The Dead and Vampire Resurrection, and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.