It’s kind of weird to see the cyclical nature of time. I’m starting to see it better now that I’m older and have a better sense of what came before me. Watching this whole Wall Street thing is starting to harken back to the sixties a bit, but with more reasonable clothing and fewer mind-altering chemicals being distributed. At least, that I can see. My generation is being wrapped up in this.

And what, pray tell, is my generation you ask? That’s a real good question. They technically say I’m Generation X. But that’s not quite right. My sister, born about six years prior to me is Gen X. She identifies with almost all of their tropes and experiences whereas I only identify with the very tail end of them. So that must mean I’m a part of the ‘slacker generation’ right? The one they call Generation Y. I identified with that moniker at first, though, I’m afraid I have to separate myself from that too. Again, I fit some of the scope of it – the familiarity and adoption of new technologies, the connection with the generation that birthed me – but I don’t think I wear enough black or have enough casual sex to fit into that crowd either.

I think that me and mine, this slice of strange, transitional outcasts had a fairly unique experience in watching this strange transition, that we were growing up in exactly the right time to witness the paradigm shift. Our parents, who were boomers, the largest generation of Americans our country ever birthed, watched the world grow up around them and cater to their needs. The generation before them wanted so very badly for their children to have that which they did not. And to some large extent, they got that. They got all sorts of new stuff and innovation. And when they came of age in the sixties, they realized that there was some hard stuff out there in the world. They responded in a lot of ways, but they said they were going to fix it.

Look back at the eighties. See how well that went. We tore down a wall, that was good. I don’t think anyone liked the Cold War. But, the rest of it… not so much good. Well, maybe with the exception of ALF.

However, our boomer forebears did their best, and some of them even lived up to the principles that they held dear. They in turn took their children and they did everything they could to help, just like their parents did. My parents are two of these people. From day one, they looked out for me, they helped me make the right decisions. My dad taught me how to spot bullshit when I saw it and my mom taught me the finer parts of tempering the decisions of the mind with the influence of the heart. They were there to help me when I fell. They were there to set me straight when I was about t do something stupid. I hated them for it in my teen years, but looking back, I see the value of the lessons learned.

Except for the college years, in which there was equal blame to be spread around for mistakes made.

Remember how I said there was a paradigm shift that only we could see? That shift came around the time I got to college. The nice people at my chosen place of ‘higher education’ were more than happy to take a fresh-faced child and extend to me a line of credit of $18,000 from the feds. Mom and dad took on about $10,000. They’d broke the bank on my sister’s education, so I would have to bear the weight. I chose an out-of-state option and lived on campus. I take credit for that. This money would go toward education in a ‘growing field’ in which I could expect a starting salary of $50,000 or up. I thought to myself once I snagged one of those jobs I’d pay back that college education in no time.

So, I went to school. It was a two-year job, an associate degree in Animation and Media Arts. It was a bad choice in many ways. I have always said, and will always assert though, that these mistakes let me meet fantastic people and to have amazing experiences, but in short, there were a lot of people who lied to me, and those people took a lot of money from me. And when they released me into the wild, I came to see the half truths I had been fed.

My parents had sent me to college based on their experiences. I cannot blame them. In their time, if you went to college, it was a given: you were going to get a job. Probably a good job. Something you could start a career from. And because of that, it became very important that we got that benefit. And so we did. We went out and got debt to cover it, and again, they told us, based on their experience, that this was natural. With those jobs we got, we’d pay it back. We’d become responsible Americans. We’d share the wealth.

Pardon my French, but what a crock of shit that turned out to be.

And the truth is, they didn’t lie to us. They told the truth as they knew it. Their experience could be replicated, they knew it. If it worked for them, it would work for us. And, for Gen X, it did. They got the very last trickles of that gravy train.

For the Sliver Generation, and for Generation Y, it has, decidedly, not.

Me and mine emerged from the crucible of college eager and willing to work. However, if those of us in AMA wanted work, you had to go West. I was $18K in the hole. My family is East Coast based. I had no one to assist with forging into new and hideously expensive California lifestyle. There was no way in hell I was going to be able to do it. I’d spent enough time also knowing that the LA scene, which is where you went for AMA jobs, was peopled with folks who didn’t get gigs that paid well enough to do anything else than live hand to mouth. So I went local. I got a real job in about six months.

The pay was, to be frank, insulting. It was forty miles away. It was night hours. But, I was paying the bills. And I had more of them now. On top of loans, I had to buy a car to get to the job. I had a cell to pay for on the chance that  got into trouble on the road. No rent yet, thank god. Mom and Dad were letting me live in the basement in typical twentysomething fashion. Mom and Dad were proud though. I was wearing a shirt and tie to work. I was paying my bills. Everything was going to be alright. The cycle had begun anew.

Then my company got bought out by a megacorporation. Comcast. And they decided that people like me just weren’t worth the time. Not only did they cut me since I was the newest blood. They cut the senior designer too because she made too much money. I had been downsized.

My parents were shocked I think. Boomers had the promise of careers. Jobs they could hold for life so long as they didn’t do anything catastrophically stupid. Some of them even had unions to keep them on the job and had pensions or tenure to work towards as incentives. They weren’t naive of course. They’d seen the eighties. Downsizing was something they knew about, but, surely it wasn’t going to happen to their college educated kid. They sent me off to college to avoid this exact type of thing. How did this happen?

I tried to find work for the next six months on unemployment. No one was hiring, not for a livable wage. When the unemployment money ran out, I put the loans on deferment. The interest started racking up. I couldn’t get work in anything but desktop publishing with my skill set, and even my skills were geared toward a format that I just wasn’t going to get local work in. My parents counseled me to return to school, to get a bachelor degree.

So, I did.

I added an even more impressive amount of debt. Doubled it in fact. Actually, more than doubled. And again, my parents told me that it was an investment in my future. By their experience, it was the right decision. They were half right.

I got out and started looking for work. I took a job at Borders to pay the various things off in my life and got behind on loans. It all racked up. I finally got a job in Jersey that used my degree.

Eight months later, I was let go and replaced by someone who worked for five grand less per year and worked for no health insurance. Purely a financial decision they told me. Not a reflection of my work or my ethic. Just dollars and cents.

Again, my parents just didn’t understand what I was coming to understand a little too well. Their paradigm was broken. I would still come to my parents for counsel – but I would begin to temper it with my own experience. It was that day that I truly became a cynic.

Because, at that time, it wasn’t just me. It was everyone I knew. My friends from home had come into their own as I went back to school and found the same difficulties. Businesses did not want us. We had no experience. It cost too much to hire Americans. Corporations were more than happy to keep making their employee pools smaller to maximize their return on investment. And our parents, dumbfounded, repeated the same advice. They assured us that things would get better.

Things did not get better for me until four years out of college had passed. I got lucky. Some people don’t have four years to catch a break. They get pregnant. They get sick. They get caught up in things too horrible to speak of. They get lost. And, often time, these people were led to these things through the soundest advice that they could get. We listened to the promises of our forebears, and they turned out to be wrong.

Don’t blame them. They’re our parents. They love us, most of them. They never wanted to hurt us. But times changed. And we were there to see the change. And it confuses the living crap out of them.

I look at the Occupy Wall Street folks and I get it. These aren’t lazy people. These aren’t welfare mommas and leeches. These are the people who finally saw through the advice that no longer works.

Our parents are confused because hard work doesn’t pay off anymore. Our parents are confused because education no longer guarantees you a better life. Our parents are confused because companies don’t foster careers any longer, don’t offer overtime for hours above and beyond and cut benefits to keep profits up. Their world rules no longer apply.

But my generation. We were there to watch that oh so subtle change. Some of us caught it in time. I didn’t until I was already in the shit so to speak.

And Generation Y… they’re out in Wall Street.

Maybe they can save both our generations.

I’m just resting.

Or playing City of Heroes. This is why I shouldn’t MMO.

You may notice that the comments have been disabled and that only user can post comments. Until Russia stops posting links for casinos and China can behave itself, you need me to create a user name for you in order for you to post. If you want one and you know me, you know how to find me.

I’m waiting inside one of the many dockside bars for almost an hour before  see Case ‘Brock’ Brockton stoop into the small confines of the establishment. Brock is every bit as big as I was told he was. If I had to guess he’s easily six and a half feet tall and topping out 280 pounds of slabbed muscle. His fists are huge and the jagged scar that runs beneath his eyes and across the bridge of his nose is prominent. The kindest term I can come up to describe him is rugged, but he simply looks mean without even trying.

He sits next to me at the bar and I hear the stool strain as it supports his weight. The leather jacket he’s wearing creaks and occasionally I hear a stud or buckle from it hit the bar with a heavy sound. He briefly acknowledges me and brings over the bartender who fearfully prepares to take his order.

“Whiskeys,” he grunts. “And keep ’em comin’.”

The bartender skitters away. As I survey the establishment I see that everyone is pointedly minding their own business in traditional Exham Bay fashion. Brock pulls a cigarette and lights it up. I almost remind him that the city has a smoking ban in public places and then remember that if I want this interview to be anything other than posthumous, I might want to keep my mouth shut unless it has something to do with the interview.

“So you’re the reporter, huh?” he says. There’s no malice in the voice, no anger. It’s a very calm tone, if unsurprisingly deep. But, it’s also clear he isn’t impressed. I answer in the affirmative.

“Figured. You got any money on you?”

I tell him that I do – I agreed to pay him and I won’t Welsh on the deal.

“Good, I’m broke, so you’re buyin’. Let’s get this over with. Got work tonight.”

I break out my recorder and we start the interview.

—

Me: So, Mr.-

Brock: Oh no, guy. No names. Not on that recording doodad or in the paper. Part of the agreement right? You want the dope on the seedier elements in the Bay. I want anonymity and the cash you have in your wallet. Those are the terms and the rules follow suit. Got it?

Me: Absolutely.

Brock: Good. Now, what was the question you were gonna ask me?

Me: Well, I guess the first question is what do you do?

Brock: I do odd jobs.

Me: That’s pretty broad.

Brock: Sure is.

Me: Can you be more specific?

Brock: Yes.

[a silence hangs between us for a moment when I realize that while he can, he’s not going to]

Brock: I’m just screwing with you, man. You wanna hear about the illegal stuff, right?

Me: I guess, sure. I won’t ask for the nuts and bolts or any names.

Brock: Everyone wants to hear about the illegal stuff. Can’t say I blame you, though it ain’t really as exciting as it sounds. All right. What do you know about Maroney?

Me: I thought you said you-

Brock: Everyone knows Maroney’s a goddamned crook. Mobbed up with the Micks seven ways ’til Sunday. He don’t bother to hide it and don’t care who knows. It surprise you that a guy like me took work from Maroney every now and again?

Me: I guess not.

Brock: Surpise, surprise. I started all of this stuff with Maroney. Drop-offs. Pick-ups. I never did any hits or legbreaking – he’s got his own family guys that do that, and despite my looks, it ain’t my thing.

Me: But… you’re so big.

Brock: [grunts] Yeah – but just cause I got size on me don’t mean I got no other uses for it than crackin’ skulls.

[our whiskeys arrive. I politely sip at half the shot and Brock knocks it back like water and hails for another]

Brock: People see a guy like me, see the scar, y’know. Assume I wanna fight ’em. I’m not really all that bad. Mostly. My momma always taught me not to start fights, but that it was okay to finish them. I mean, sometimes I hurt people, but I’m usually more reasonable than that. Mostly I was loading trucks for Maroney’s smuggling jobs. Sometimes we’d have to hijack a truck and move the contents into new vehicles quick. Nobody busted their hump faster than me on those jobs. It got me steady gigs.

Me: Obviously though you don’t work for Maroney any longer though right?

Brock: You mean since he got pinched and ‘rehabilitated?’

Me: Well, yes, I guess.

Brock: Rehabilitation my ass. He’s still the same guy. Still pullin’ jobs. But, you’re right. I’m not working for the Mick anymore.

Me: Other dons then?

Brock: Nah. You know the money ain’t as good from those bozos as you’d think if you aren’t ‘the right people.’ Besides, I’m so much of every kind of nationality that none of them really want me in la Familia. Can’t go to the Yaks either and the Triads ain’t looking for any more help. They got that all sewn up. The Families would never bring me up to join them at the big kids’ table.

Me: So, who do you work for now?

Brock: The people who ain’t shy about spending the money on whoever comes to hand.

Me: Care to elaborate?

Brock: Sure. People like Samhain Jack.

Me: Seriously?

Brock: I stutter?

Me: No, but… Jack? He kills people.

Brock: Who doesn’t?

Me: I don’t kill people.

Brock: Whatcha talkin’ about, man? ‘Course you do. I hazard to guess you killed at least a dozen people.

Me: I assure you, I don’t know the first thing about murder.

Brock: Sure you do. You make it happen all the time. Exham Bay’s got the death penalty, don’t it?

Me: Yes, it does, but-

Brock: Who you think pays for the injections, or for the voltage on ol’ sparky, huh? Who pays the guards who beat the shit out of the guys who die during interrogation?

Me: The taxpayers, but-

Brock: No buts about it, man. You pay your taxes, you’re responsible. You’re paying them to do it. They pretty it up behind services, sure. Roads and cops and whatever else they decide to spend it on. But, that money gets blood on it every time the hit the plunger or throw the switch. You bet your bottom dollar, you and everyone else in this city on the grid pays for that. Don’t care if they deserved it – hell, some of ’em probably do. Ain’t like assisted suicide. I’m pretty sure most of the guys on the table or in the chair ain’t really thrilled to be going out. But killin’ another guy is killin’ another guy. Last time I checked, that was murder.

[another whiskey arrives. It is devoured in the same ritual that the last one was]

Me: That’s a bit of a stretch.

Brock: Okay, let’s try it another way. You spent a lot of time with the papers, right?

Me: Of course. I’m a reporter.

Brock: You ever write the blotter or cover a crime, or, better still, you ever cover the aftermath of something one of those costumed dopes breaks up?

Me: Of course. The Cowl has been prowling the streets delivering vigilante justice for what, twenty years now?

Brock: Okay, so what happens when those guys get rounded up by the capes, huh? They end up in the papers. High profile. Everyone who reads the rag gets a good picture and a list of names. Take a stab [he grins] how many of those guys get a chance to become repeat offenders?

Me: I don’t follow. there are plenty of career criminals out there.

Brock: S’a lot of dead ones too. Those guys show up in the paper too sometimes, but the Obits ain’t as exciting news as cape nabs. The guys they work for have a way of cleaning up messes that’s surprisingly messy.

Me: I never thought of it that way.

Brock: ‘Course you don’t. You’re doing your job. Spreading the news. Selling papers. Never crossed your mind that some of those guys end up pushin’ up daisies cause people like Samhain Jack don’t like snitches?

Me: I don’t think I spend a lot of time thinking or caring about what happens to the kind of folks the Cowl or the G-Men pick up.

Brock: Few do. But, I assure you. The people these hoods work for? They give a shit. This business don’t like fuck ups. You fuck up bad enough, you’re gonna find yourself in a world of hurt working for people like Jack.

Me: So you’ve met Jack?

Brock: Plenty of times.

Me: And you…

Brock: No. don’t get excited. Everyone knows that Jack likes to do his own killin’. I don’t do it for him. Like I said, not my thing.

Me: And somehow this excuses you from-

Brock: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Get off your high horse. It is what it is. Ain’t no more than that. Just like it ain’t no more than that when a guy that wears a suit costs more’n this bar writes off a bad mortgage and throws a family out on the street. Or when some exec closes another Exham plant down and sends the work overseas, letting loose people with no other training into the alleys where people like me pick them up and pay ’em good. Legitimate and illegitimate business alike cause people to die or suffer. May as well make a buck while I can. Ain’t no sense in doin’ otherwise. It’s a circle of life kind of thing.

[The next whiskey arrives and vanishes just as quickly]

Brock: You gonna finish that? [He points at my half shot]

Me: Be my guest.

[He finishes my shot. Two more shots appear. If he is getting drunk, I can’t pick up on it]

Brock: Point is, people like me, we never had a chance to play in the ‘clean’ system you and yours come from. And you know what? I don’t care. We all get born into something. We all get tied up in the thread of other people’s lives. You got caught up in the Exham Bay Intelligencer. I got caught up with the local rogues’ gallery. We both get paid at the end of the day, though admittedly, you probably get better dental. We both go back to the places we’re from. We both have blood on our hands for something – direct or otherwise. We both have a beer of six and go to bed. Our lives, more similar than you think.

Me: That’s a grim outlook.

Brock: It’s a grim world. You either make the most of your lot or you get the hell out of the way of the people who can get things done. I got nothing against you. Hell, I got nothing against any of the straights of this town personally. I sure as hell don’t let ’em get in the way of what I need either, though. What was it Harvey Keitel said in that movie with the guys in the ties and the suits?

Me: Reservoir dogs?

Brock: Yeah, that’s the flick. He said something about the choice between going to county for the rest of his life and shooting some dumb motherfucker who got in his way ain’t no choice at all. Wise words. We all do what we gotta do to stay out of jail. Cops don’t care if you’re straight or crooked in this town. Mayor Scarsdale just wants order. Doesn’t care how he gets it so long as the blood doesn’t overflow in the gutters and the tourists don’t get dead. The cops in this town are animals anyways. There may be law and order in this town, but it’s the kind that comes at the end of cudgels and bribes.

Me: I don’t mean to offend you, but for a career criminal you’re more… philosophical than I expected?

Brock: Well not to come off as an asshole, but it’s because I’m smart. Don’t gotta get letters after your name to make you think. Had nothing growing up, but library cards were free so I got myself literate and got myself informed. Exham’s public schools were nightmares, but since I was big even as a kid, no one ever thought to pull a book outta my mitts or to give me a hard time about being bookish. Had plenty of time to reflect. To learn how things really worked and how the stuff in my books applied to the world outside the library. I been working the streets for twelve years now. Never got pinched – leastwise not for anything huge that I couldn’t weasel out of – and mostly kept my nose clean even after pulling jobs. I know who to bribe and when. I know how to move through the dragnets the cops set up. I know how to make sure that when I lend my services out to people like Samhain Jack, or the Chiller or the Red Rage that I get my money, and I stay outta jail. I know how to keep my head down.

[Two whiskey shots appear again. I take one and pound it and Brock grunts and lets a little smile out. It’s surprisingly warm – the smile, not the whiskey.]

Brock: And I know – yeah, some of these villains are scumbags. So are CEOs and politicos and even priests for Christ’s sake. No one ever goes out of their way to stope them for shit that’s legal but low, or even the illegal stuff. They just go on keeping on keeping on. We all work for crooks. If you’re wondering, sometimes it keeps me up at night. Not for long mind you. Like I said, crooks all, no other way to make a living. but I try and keep to the jobs that just call for a little brains to go with the muscle, you know? When you stack me up against the rest of this place, I’m a much lesser evil.

Me: I’ll have to agree to disagree.

Brock: S’a free country. One of the things to love about America.

[He bottoms ups the whiskey and I realize I’m tipsy]

Brock: Pay up, fella. We’re done here.

Me: One last thing.

Brock: What’s that?

Me: The scar. How’d you get that?

Brock: ‘Nother story, ‘nother time. Too many specifics in that one. Maybe sometime you ain’t got that tape recorder runnin’ we’ll talk about that.

Been having some real problems with a few pages that spambots have latched onto, so if the comments are missing from a page, it’s because they were inundated. That is all.

Been a while since I posted any kind of progress on my work. So I thought I ought to remedy that today.

Bob has come a small way in recent efforts. The Many Labors of Bob stands at a full quarter edit on revision draft one. I have made some conscious efforts to step away from it in order to allow it to steep. I was once told by an academic director I respected from my time in college that sometimes you have to step away from your creations and leave them be for a bit. When you come back you’ll have a more critical eye and will see the best way to make the proper adjustments.

So, I’ve been doing that. In the meantime I’ve been watching a bit of television and film. I’ve read quite a bit. As Dennis Tafoya is so fond of saying in our Novel In Nine Months course: “read well to write well.” I got through The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins), The Strain (Guillermo del Toro/Chuck Hogan), The Fall (Guillermo del Toro/Chuck Hogan), Greek Street (Peter Milligan), False Gods (Graham MacNeil on audio), Machine Man (Max Barry) and For the Emperor (Sandy Mitchell).

I also started drawing again. Many things from my Ossua idea came about again. Then there’s also been the odd doodle here or there (Cube Jockey comes to mind). But, sometime in the past couple of days, a new idea has arisen to nest in my brain and it’s now a tidy little twenty-thousand word sprint towards a more full idea. It’s also a completely different type of story from TMLoB. It has a more sci-fi/horror vein to it, set in an ecologically ravaged American South. It’s been fun following Cale and Adrienne through Okeechobee Bay (you read that right – the lake is now a bay) and getting involved with more than they can handle.

However, it is time to focus on Bob again, and that started tonight. The work progresses and I find more and more rookie mistakes as I go. The first half of the novel is truly different from the latter half in terms of tone and polish – I have a long way to go, but I am getting there.

I also have registered for NaNoWriMo this year under the handle Burtacamoose. Feel free to hit it up and keep track of things once November hits.

And with that said, there’s work to be done.