Polishing a Turd

This week, to stay inspired and keep my positivity enema circulating, I decided to try the impossible. I decided to polish a turd.

Ghastly and tasteless, I know, but poor taste is kind of my thing.

By polishing a turd I mean literally cleaning a piece of shit. No, actually I mean taking a hideously bad story I wrote a few years back and trying to improve it.

I'm already rewriting the end of "Jesse Rules" yet again and continuing the first draft of "War of the Twin Gods: The Fall of Gorge", so it's not like I needed another project. But I felt drawn to it, so I broke it out of storage and took a jackhammer to it.

Below is the beginning. It's the story of a tormented gay eighth grader's coming of age on 9/11. The story was originally "Nick and the Insect Kingdom" and now it's just "Insect Kingdom". One way to polish a turd is to simplify it. Okay, it's official, my metaphor has collapsed.

Also, here are the links to my published works. Please buy the Saints and Sinners New Fiction from the Festival 2012 collection. My story "Divine Hand" is in it, a fine tale of an expose reporter going undercover at a religious conversion camp for gay teens. The winning story is a heartbreaker by Jerry Rabushka, "Wasted Courage", about a love that's up against racism, classism, and even Matriarchy. Every story in the book is entertaining and thought-provoking.

http://www.amazon.com/Saints-Sinners-2012-Fiction-Festival/dp/1608640841

 

“The Camp Seminole Weiner Wall” (A friendship is tested by a sexually cruel camp ritual.)

http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/the-camp-seminole-wiener-wall/

“Friends and Pyromaniacs” (A young man’s awakening requires a Molotov cocktail.)

http://issue3.thequotablelit.com/fiction/friends-and-pyromaniacs/

“The Gay Bomb” (A C.I.A. agent unleashes the ultimate weapon in the war against Islam – a pheromone bomb that causes gay arousal.)

http://blipmagazine.net/archive-4/winter-2011/15-james-russel/

The other three are free for now, and with any luck I'll be charging for them as part of my short story collection "Strange Arrangements" by the end of the year.

Here's "Insect Kingdom" pages one-two-threeish:

Insect Kingdom

Nick had a ritual involving dust and insects. It filled some of that awful time, after his mother had shoved him out the door, before the growling yellow bus slouched over the crest of Mountainview Ave, on its way to take him in.

He dropped his backpack at the edge of the road. He lifted the rotting log on the border of his mother’s garden.

There they were – the slithering and scuttling things. They were already alarmed at their exposure. Nick imagined how he would react if some godlike creature flipped his house or his town over, upset the structure of his world. He felt bad for them, the lower life forms. He felt bad for them, for a second.

Then he kicked the dry soil all over them. Their slithering and scuttling increased its frenzied speed. However low they were, slimy and segmented creatures living in the moist darkness, they had it better than Nick, and he hated them for it.

No bus was coming for them. Whatever else they were, they had peace.

They didn’t have to go to school.

He heard the grinding engine before he saw the white roof and yellow face of the bus. He rolled the log back over the insect kingdom. He shouldered the burden of his books.

The breaks sounded their steam release. The door scraped, folding itself to the side. Ms. Anderson had a big white smile across her thick black face.

“Mornin’ Nickie!” she blared. Her tone was as tangy and tropical as her pink and orange hair.

“Morning,” Nick confirmed. He slouched up the stairs and stared down the awful aisle.  

On the left, two girls argued with an opened Math book in their laps. On the right, a sixth grader who looked and smelled like a meatball.

Nick took two steps down the aisle.

On the left, two seventh-grade girls who had just discovered makeup. They sneered at Nick like they smelled fart. On the right, a tiny boy with a large head, in a purple sweat shirt.

Nick took another two steps down the aisle.

On the left, a skinny girl digging through her bag. She had an asthma inhaler and a rattling cough. The right seat was empty.

Nick sat. The bus growled forward.

He heard Kyle McGillis and Paul Johnson in the back, or at least he heard the lowness of their voices. It reminded Nick to take inventory of what he hated about himself. He started with his voice, the highness of it, the rodent squeak quality it had, especially compared to the manly baritone of boys like Kyle and Paul.

Nick stared down at his feet, remembering to hate them, remembering to hate his body for starting its puberty renovations there, of all places. It was like the puberty gnomes cut off his feet in the middle of the night and tacked on these giant flippers.

Before he could move on and hate his chicken legs, a ball of paper landed in his lap. Kyle grunted laughter from the back of the bus.

“Mistah McGillis, much too early in the school year for that!” Ms. Anderson said.

The ball of paper shifted as the bus made the sharp turn onto Franklin Street. It had one word on its crumpled side: Open.

Nick tried to think of other things. He thought of what his mother always said about not letting boys like Kyle get to him. Nick thought of his mother and home, of safety and shelter. He thought of his room and his shelf. He loved his shelf. It had his X-box games and pro-wrestling DVDs. It had notebooks full of awesome hypothetical video game sequels and pro-wrestling events. It had books by King and Rice, Tolkien and Lovecraft. It had Halo, Summerslam, and “The Silmarillion”.

The shelf meant escape to elsewhere.

But he wasn’t there – he wasn’t safe at home in his room. He was nowhere near his shelf. He was on the bus, three minutes from school. And the paper ball was telling him what to do: Open.

Nick opened it. He heard Kyle’s guttural laugh in response to the crackling of paper.

Nick recognized his deep brown helmet haircut in Kyle’s drawing. It was a side view of his head. Kyle even managed to draw the little red zit on Nick’s chin. He’d taken the time to find a red marker just for that one detail.

Cartoon Nick’s mouth was open. A leg-like penis complete with a two-basketball nut sack was aimed at his face. There was no body attached to the floating dick-and-balls, but it was coating cartoon Nick’s face with a torrent of jism just the same. Underneath the drawing was a sentence: Nick M. sucks cok.

Reading that, Nick wanted to be one of the crawly things under the log. He wanted to be hidden away under a pile of slimy life. He wanted to be still in the cool dark, and for all other things to scuttle and ooze around him.

He thought of the dreams and the wrecked pajamas and boxer shorts. He thought of how good it felt, physically, but the things he was thinking about when it happened, the showers at swim camp and things happening there with the other boys, things like what was happening on the paper in his lap, they’d left him with questions he wasn’t ready to answer.

How did Kyle know? How did everyone seem to know about what Nick didn’t want to desire?

The school building was coming toward the bus. The sign out front read: Welcome back! Underneath that it read: First School Board Meeting this Thursday, 9/13/01.

(end of free preview)

-James Russell

Smile, for Fuck's Sake

My psychiatrist had a great line: “The cure for self-pity is gratitude.”

Of course, understanding the sentiment is easy. There was a Drake and Rihanna song a couple years ago that said the same shit. (“Just live ya’ life?” It might’ve been Wiz Khalifa or Flo Rida or some other rapper du jour.)

The point is, it’s a simple sentiment to grasp the meaning of, but acting accordingly is the hard part.

I bring it up this month because the end of the school year was particularly stressful. I definitely drifted into the self-pity camp. Actually I set up a lounge chair and grumbled my way through most of June.

Part of it was a natural let-down. May had my wedding and my first author reading – and author events always mean getting to congregate with similarly crazy writer types. I love my town, Harrison, for its cheap dive bars and completely unpretentious personality, but there just aren’t a lot of other writers, or even a lot of creative types here. In May I got a taste of the life I want, the one I’m aspiring toward – that exciting and rewarding life, that creative life.

June… June was final exams and those child care days that follow final exams. June was prepping for my summer camp job on my weekends. June was working like a dog to keep the air conditioning on. Not a lot of writing in June. Not what you’d call an inspiring atmosphere.

Yeah, I got grouchy there.

But whether it’s depressive heading back toward manic or just the fact that I’m finally down to one full-time job again, I don’t feel very shitty at all about July. In fact, the summer camp environment is inspiring. The people I work with are inspirational, positive. A lot of them are college students, about to enter an economy ravaged by de-unionization and thirty years of trickle-down horseshit economics (negative, yes, but also researched) but they don’t bitch that much at all. They pursue their dreams. They are comics, coaches, artists, and actors. They work and study; they party and date. They reach for the life they want while enjoying the life they have.

They’re a great reminder to aspire towards gratitude, away from self-pity. I need to remind myself to stop being a walking menstrual cycle and just work my days and write my stories by night for another seven weeks.

After that, I’ll be grateful to have two weeks to really try to polish my novel, “Jesse Rules”, for another run at publication. My writing group this week gave me some excellent suggestions about my flat-soda ending and how to carbonate it. I just took my fantasy novel “War of the Twin Gods: The Fall of Gorge” across the 40,000-word mark (about halfway). My short story collection “Strange Arrangements” is under review from an excellent potential publisher.

So find something to be positive about. The corporate cunts didn’t steal our health care. Justice Roberts temporarily grew his soul back. It’s a dry heat. Your condition is treatable with penicillin.

In that spirit, I’m grateful for the people at work who wanted to read my published works. Here are the links, including the first collection I’m in that’s on the e-shelf. I don’t get money if anyone purchases the collection, but it will help to keep a great literary festival going:

http://www.amazon.com/Saints-Sinners-2012-Fiction-Festival/dp/1608640841

My story is “Divine Hand”, about an expose reporter who goes undercover at a religious conversion camp for gay teens.

And here are my freebies:

“The Camp Seminole Weiner Wall” (A friendship is tested by a sexually cruel camp ritual.)

http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/the-camp-seminole-wiener-wall/

“Friends and Pyromaniacs” (A young man’s awakening requires a Molotov cocktail.)

http://issue3.thequotablelit.com/fiction/friends-and-pyromaniacs/

“The Gay Bomb” (A C.I.A. agent unleashes the ultimate weapon in the war against Islam – a pheromone bomb that causes gay arousal.)

http://blipmagazine.net/archive-4/winter-2011/15-james-russel/

-James Russell

The Pitch (Take Three)

If it's not there yet, it's almost there. With any luck I'll have sent "Strange Arrangements" and this pitch to a very good publishing lead by tomorrow night.

Here's version three. Nick and Alina from my writer's group really helped me cut it down to the essentials. And John was "cruel to be kind" as always. (Love that in an editor.) Despite some critique of the title, I think I want to give "Strange Arrangements" a chance to sell itself.

STRANGE ARRANGEMENTS PITCH

A young man’s awakening requires a Molotov cocktail. An anger-management patient confronts the unwritten rules of hetero manhood. A  C.I.A. agent controls the ultimate weapon in the war against Islam – a pheromone bomb that causes gay arousal. These are the stories of men in strange arrangements.

STRANGE ARRANGEMENTS is a 45,000-word short story collection, my debut. Thank you for your time and consideration.

-James Russell 

I'm hoping brevity leads to interest and it sweeps my prospective publisher right into the work.

I also thought I'd make use of a refined version of the original pitch to lead readers into each story. For the e-version, hyperlinks will allow readers to cherry-pick which story they want to read without even the minor tedium of scrolling downward. Click-and-read might lead them to give a second story a chance if the first one they pick amuses them, provokes thought, or gives them a minor orgasm. (Like bad pizza, it's still pretty good. What? No one else remembers "Threesome"?)

Here's the text for that.

A graduation speech becomes uncomfortably honest. (Graduation)

Two old queens learn the hardest truth a gay bar can offer. (Last Gay Bar)

A young man’s awakening requires a Molotov cocktail. (Friends and Pyromaniacs)

A professor regrets a lost moment of faith from his high school religion class. (Period Three Damnation)

An anger management patient confronts the rules of hetero manhood. (Compliment)

Compromise leads to disaster for two miserable cat-owners. (The Cat is Sick)

An expose reporter goes undercover at a religious conversion camp for gay teens. (Divine Hand)

A haunted writer tries to bury his lost childhood friend once and for all. (Kevin’s Elm)

In 2029, a Corporate-national school inspector documents the test run of fascism's latest classroom tool. (Equality Chair)

A boy learns about sex and karate, friendship and denial. (Hear No Evil)

Seeking a mid-life "reboot", a teacher reacts belatedly to a student's revelation – the reaction involves meatloaf. (The Meatloaf Reclamation)

Kevin Woods sees the collision of his birth and first sex, as he commits suicide. (Echoes of Kevin Woods)

A C.I.A. agent controls the ultimate weapon in the war against Islam – a pheromone bomb that causes gay arousal. (The Gay Bomb)

As always, your thoughts are welcome.
-J

The Pitch (Take Two)

The reviews are in on my rough draft pitch for Strange Arrangements.

Here are some words and phrases that came up: clunky, awful, disconnected, a mess, and "train wreck."

One guy in my writing group said it literally scared him.

'k, that's why we draft.

My writing group did give me some quality feedback about where to go next with it. After swinging the other way and writing a pitch so abstract it sounded like the opening narrative of a classic Twilight Zone, I came up with a better attempt.

I'm learning it's much harder to pitch a short story collection than a novel. This makes sense. A novel has a singular focus (hopefully). A short story collection needs to be united by some kind of a theme and the pitch has to thread them together. Also, rather than writing a one-sentence description of each story, I decided to highlight three of the best in the hopes of drawing would-be publishers in, rather than scaring them with a big, fourteen-sentence paragraph with fourteen seperate ideas.

Here's the improved attempt:

STRANGE ARRANGEMENTS PITCH

Life is full of odd people, in bizarre circumstances. A young man sees a connection between transformation and fire: his awakening demands a Molotov cocktail. Another young man earns court-appointed anger management therapy and confronts the unwritten rules of manhood. A war-weary C.I.A. operative plants the secret weapon in the war against fundamentalist Islam – a pheromone bomb that causes gay arousal. Then he turns it on its makers and broadcasts the results. These are a few of the stories of men in strange arrangements.

STRANGE ARRANGEMENTS is a 45,000-word short story collection, my debut. Thank you for your time and consideration.

(Feedback is always welcome.)

-J 

The Best Week (Readings)

What a week! I wrote my own vows and had to read them in front of an intimate group of friends and family. I was invited to read a piece for the first time and was privileged enough to do both in the same calendar week.

The vows were scarier, but not by much. In both cases I had to kind of dive head first into the paper and hope what I'd already written was good enough to carry me. I basically broke every public speaking rule I've ever taught my students about eye contact, especially at the author reading. (Having Shane to look up at and share the stage with me certainly helped with the vows.)

Two people helped me at the author reading. Obviously, my husband, who whooped it up just like he did when we went to see Brokeback Mountain together (right when Heath Ledger crudely seized Jake Gyllenhall to the horror of the stuffy art house queens in attendance). The other one was my new sister Flower Conroy, poetess extraordinaire, who wouldn't let me hide and helped me to mingle, terrified creature that I was. The two of them cheered so loud they reminded me of the table of folks who came to my Master's graduation. You can always tell a Jersey table at a graduation.

I met some of the other authors in this year's Saints and Sinners Anthology, including the winner, Jerry Rabushka. I had to have an honest moment with him after his reading: the egomaniac in me really wanted to hate his story. I couldn't. It was too damn good.

I was also privileged to meet Jeff Mann, my instructor, who reminded me of the many subtle differences between a good story and one that's ready to be published. The pieces we reviewed in the course, and the ones in the anthology, had a "clockwork effect" going for them - each part of the story aided the central metaphor, motifs, and overall theme. This is what makes a story something greater than a collection of clever lines.

Another big takeaway for me - self-publishing won't meet the goals I have for my short story collection. Therefore, I needed a better pitch for the traditional route. I wrote one that I think is pretty solid. This is it:

STRANGE ARRANGEMENTS PITCH

A graduation speech becomes uncomfortably honest after Pete Petucci loudly moos. Two old queens learn the hardest truth a gay bar can offer - sometimes you have to recognized when a place has passed you by. A young man discovers the beauty of transformation and learns how to make a Molotov cocktail. An Agnostic college professor looks back on a lost moment of faith from his high school religion class. For an unwilling patient, anger management means confronting the unwritten rules of hetero manhood. Compromise leads to disaster for two miserable cat-owners. Expose reporter Joshua Mendham goes undercover as a "Guide of Christ" at a gay-to-straight conversion camp. A haunted writer tries to bury his lost childhood friend once and for all. Corporate-national school inspector Charles Vance Cohen documents the test run of fascism's latest classroom tool. A boy learns about sex and karate, friendship and denial. Seeking a mid-life "reboot", a teacher has a delayed reaction to a student's revelation - a reaction involving meatloaf. Doomed teen Kevin Woods sees the collision of his birth and first sex, as he commits suicide. The military's ultimate weapon in the war against Islamic fundamentalism - a pheromone bomb that causes gay arousal - is turned against its masters.

These are the stories of men in strange arrangements.

Now all I have to do is get one of the gatekeepers to open the damn gate...

More to come.
-J   

A Milestone Week

This week I have two events to celebrate that are kinda-sorta related.

The first is I'm getting married on Tuesday. I was going to say united or "unioned" or something but fuck all that. Tuesday is our eighth anniversary and we've been living together for more than seven years. It's marriage. To hell with semantics. The culture war is over. We won. The sexually retarded minority can move to Utah and mope about it. Thank you, Mr. President.

Digress? Sure.

The best thing about it is how nervous I'm not. Yes, I'd like our brief ceremony to go off without the proverbial hitch but I've never for one moment doubted that we were amazing together. We love each other. He's supported my little writing dream more than anyone. We both love bar games. He cooks. He's there for a playful butt slap or supportive back rub and rarely gives the wrong one at the wrong time.

And I guess I must do something for him too. My foot rubs are outstanding. You would feel that shit in your neck if I was on my game. I also break a crossword puzzle logjam like nobody's bidness.

We're honeymooning in New Orleans, where I'm participating in my first author's panel to talk about my fourth published piece, "Divine Hand", which will be part of QueerMojo, an anthology of up-and-coming (pun?) gay authors. The discussion is part of the "Saints and Sinners" festival, a collection of homophile bibliosexuals or homosexual bibliophiles depending on how stimulating the book you're reading is.

My better half was the key editor. We spent much of October and November working and re-working "Divine Hand" to get it under 7,000 words and leave only the narrative that was contributing to the main storyline. The process left me with two related writing certitudes:

1.) Sometimes you have to cut clever shit out of your stories when it (said clever shit) isn't contributing to the main storyline in some way.

2.) The best stories have a "clockwork effect" - all the gears fit into one another and they turn with shared purpose. Every phrase of every sentence contributes to an effect far greater than the final word count.

This week, I simply celebrate the benefits of some great decisions past. The main one is my choice to ask for my future hub's number way back in the spring of '04. (His cousin is the only reason I knew about Saints and Sinners to begin with.) In my tragicomic love life, there is at least that one decision that added love, support and happiness.

-J

Here's the except I'll be reading from "Divine Hand"

What do they do at a gay-to-straight conversion camp?

I know why they exist – some parents choose to believe they can change their children. They believe they can write a check and drop off a theater boy, a softball girl. Then in a few weeks, pick up their quarterback, their prom queen.

The best of them believe it because they don’t want life to be any harder for their children. The worst of them believe it because the Bible told ‘em so.

But just what the hell do they do there? What is their success rate? How would one even judge if the kid had turned?

As an exposé reporter, I had to know.

Arrogance and decency are the engines that motivate my profession. They play off each other like some great emotional dynamo, driving the reporter to fulfill the journalist’s mission. As they teach it in journalism school, “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted.”

That takes arrogance. Who am I to determine who the “comforted” are? Who am I to label the “afflicted?” Are Wall Street brokers comforted, and the homeless they step over afflicted? What is my Edward R. Murrow duty then? Grab the broker’s Brooks Brothers case and afflict him in the head with it, handing it off to the newly-comforted bum?

It also takes decency. If one ponders the last quarter-century, it’s really the tale of greed, the few causing the suffering of many. A good exposé reporter goes to war against the powerful few, feeding his ego while freeing the world from ignorance. Photographing the CEO in bed with the Senator; patting ourselves on the back on national television for months. Think of my profession, think of me as Superman, without that tedious humility.

My editor at the Village Voice likes to say “The ego has landed” when he sees me at the office. I don’t argue that point with him.

So when my ego decided it wanted to go undercover as a “Guide of Christ” at Divine Hand, a gay-to-straight conversion camp, my editor gave me his blessing.

As far as comfort and affliction, Divine Hand deserves to be afflicted. I’ve never been more certain assessing any institution. They operate their conversion camp under no outside supervision. They are a church, and a corporation, with no distinction made. They are completely tax exempt. They receive hundreds of thousands of dollars from various Mormon groups in Utah, proving that mutual prejudice can unite. They take tens of thousands of dollars from Midwestern parents, desperate to “convert” their teenagers. Their motto is “Finding the power to change, in the touch of Christ” but “Praying the gay away since 1989” would have been far more bold and candid.

I went to find my inner “reformed gay.”

Reformed gay.

Eye-widened Asian.

Bleached Negro.

Read them all back and see if they aren’t equally ludicrous and appalling.

As to my own sexuality, I will only say that I’ve had sex with men and with women, all kinds of sex with both genders. I always enjoyed ejaculating and always enjoyed giving pleasure to others. I might be old fashioned, not Donna Reed 1952 old fashioned, more like pre-Constantine Rome old-fashioned. I have more use for orgasms than prayers, though I realize how silly it is to compare. One can have both, though I prefer to keep my prayers separate from my orgasms. I don’t even like it when my mattress pal says “Oh, God” or “Jesus, fuck me.”

I contacted Ben Harris, who was both the Divine Hand assistant Human Resources Director and one of the head counselors. I introduced myself as Matthew Rosenstein, followed by a battering of hyphens: Ex-bi-sexual, Born-again, ex-Jew, teacher-track coach. They paid my air fare and flew me to this collection of flat dirt called “Municipal Air Field” in Cherry Tree, PA. It was the least they could do with their Mormon friends’ dollars.

Ben met me right on the dirt strip they called a runway. Gym teacher describes him perfectly. The Divine Hand shirt he wore was an orange polo with Jesus on the cross slapped on the tit. The way Jesus bulged I could tell Ben had spent some time on his chest. Before he told me, I guessed he fancied himself a “reformed gay.” If he bent over to touch his toes these days, it was only to stretch his hamstrings. When on his knees, it was only before the lord, though I noticed later, during our thrice-a-day prayer sessions, he would still stare a bit too long at the risen lord’s shredded midsection and that just barely clinging loin cloth.

He crushed my hand in his. I had to squeeze back, to fight for life. He asked if I worked out and I told him I did. He led me to his Hummer. He drove.

We discussed scripture. He asked if I believed the Bible was literally written by God. I said yes. He asked me if I believed a homosexual could change, through the power of prayer and a renewed commitment to God’s love. I told him that it was possible, but not easy, and needed a day-by-day approach, similar to Narcotics Anonymous. Those who were expecting to rid themselves of homosexuality overnight probably never were ready to submit fully to the Lord’s will. He ignored the road for a moment, to turn to me and smile. He said he couldn’t wait to hire me. 

I felt like an outstanding little liar.

As we bonded, Ben said that hobbies were essential to keep a man productive and occupied. “Waiting gives the devil time,” he said, probably echoing some adage-spewing conservative uncle. We exchanged small talk about our hobbies. Ben was fond of jogging, lifting weights, fishing, and reading. When I asked him what he liked to read, other than the Bible, of course, he said his favorite stories were tales of sacrifice and heroism, tales where an unlikely hero finds a part of him that is selfless, and acts to protect the weak.   

He said the first book he’d ever really loved, at the age of ten, was S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. As the youngest of three brothers, Ben could relate to Ponyboy. He fixated on the scene where Ponyboy and Johnny rush into the burning church to save the children. He’d never read a better portrayal of sacrifice and brotherhood, even in real war accounts. He teared up a bit.

By the time we reached Divine Hand’s gay-to-straight conversion grounds, I was madly in love with Ben. 

(end of free preview)

Mission: Omission

Time for something new.

This week, I thought it might be fun to issue a writing challenge. The "creativity at gunpoint" thing does wonders for self-censoring writers. (writer's block = bullshit)

The challenge is inspired by "The Wire". You've never seen it? Go. Click red X in corner. Actually, just minimize. But leave. Go watch the whole sixty-hour series. Order take out and wear an adult diaper. Then you can come back.

No, the whole thing.

Good?

Wasn't that awesome? David Simon lets no one off the hook and every character is some shade of grey, 100% fully realized.

The idea for this writing challenge came from Season 2. Since you just watched it, you'll remember Season 2 is the one where the port union conspires with smugglers so they can finally have the same political voice (money = speech?) as the downtown corporate types. (corporations = people?)

It's all brilliant, but the best part is when union president, Frank Sobatka, meets with the smugglers under a bridge, unaware that the smugglers are in the process of receiving a phone call - one informing them that Frank was going to enter witness protection and inform on all of them.

The next episode begins with a body being fished out of the water. The body is Frank's.

What struck me about this was the balls it must've taken for David Simon to omit the murder scene. Season 2, Episode 11 ends with "The Greek", the head smuggler, getting the phone call as Frank walks casually toward them for a scheduled meeting. Episode 12 opens with a dock worker sipping his morning coffee, then his curiosity is piqued when he sees the police boat pulling up a "floater".

He left "the big scene" completely out.

What really blew my mind: the show was better without it. Simon does such a brilliant job table-setting that everyone except Frank knows he isn't walking out from under that bridge - the viewer is just as well-informed as "The Greek".

We find out everything we need to know about what happened when the cameras were off. The dock workers are visibly stricken over their fallen brother, but unsurprised. Each of them must've heard a rumor that their union president was doing some off-the-books business with some dangerous people. The police say he must've fought. They had to stab him many times and cut his throat "to be sure"; he had defensive wounds on his hands.

So we imagine what we didn't see. We have an invitation to fill in part of the story.

So that's this week's challenge: write a short story where the "big scene" is implied, or omitted somehow. I'll try it for myself as well, and post in a few days.