Adios, Scheherazade

Rod will get here soon. I’ll read the Paul chapter, he’ll give me a pep talk, I’ll ask him to call Samuel tomorrow and get me a stay of execution, and then I’ll come in here and I’ll really and truly write Chapter 2. I still have all evening, I can get Chapter 2 done with no trouble at all. Granted I’m a little tired, I only had four hours’ sleep last night, but I can surely stay up long enough to write another fifteen pages.

The funny thing is, this stuff is going faster than the sex books ever went. Three hours, some of these chapters, which is really fast. Of course, I suppose that’s because I don’t have to worry about plot or continuity or sex scenes or anything like that. All I have to do is open my head and spill the brains onto the paper.

Brains?

3

Brock Stewart hefted his suitcase and watched the red taillights of the car disappear down the road, headed due north into the mountains. Cold mountains. Wintry mountains.

“Go on, lady,” Brock said under his breath. “That country’s too cold for me. And it’s too cold for you, I can guarantee you that. I can guarantee it, you won’t like the cold nights up there.”

She had been fun, an unexpected bonus on this trip, but now that the lady fleeing her husband was out of sight she was quickly out of Brock’s mind. He looked around at where he was, trying to decide what to do next.

And so am I.

Oh, come on. It’s Brock Stewart time. I hate this, I swear I do, I hate these fucking interruptions all the time. Get out of here, Ed, it’s time for the hitchhiker chapter.

You see, I figured I’d skip over the Beth chapter and go straight to Chapter 3. Do the hitchhiker, have him meet another woman, sex scene, take that woman into Chapter 4, and so on. Then, when the book was done, I could go back and write Chapter 2, it would be less emotional a problem for me by then. At least that’s the way I had it figured.

I’ve had second thoughts about the baby-sitter. I sat here for a while thinking about the beginning of the chapter. I even had a name for her, I called her Donna Warren, and I gradually began to see that it wouldn’t work out, I’d be painting myself into a corner even if I did manage to write a chapter about the baby-sitter, because the two characters just aren’t that connected, Paul and the baby-sitter, and there’s no way to get a whole book out of the two of them.

I seem to have millions of ideas for Chapter 2’s that I can’t write. That’s why I decided to go ahead and do a Chapter 3 and maybe even finish out the book, leaving Chapter 2 until last.

And now I can’t even do Chapter 3. And I have to. If I have any last chance at all, this is it. Rod says he will call Samuel tomorrow, and he says he thinks he can talk Samuel into taking the book one day late, on Friday instead of on Thursday, but it won’t do any good unless I write the hitchhiker chapter right now.

All right. I’m going to write it, that’s all. I’m going to go back to it as soon as this paragraph is done, I’m going to repeat the last usable paragraph I wrote and then I’m going to continue with Brock Stewart until I’m done. And if I drift away again I’ll come back again. I don’t care if this chapter takes a hundred pages to write, fifteen of them are going to be concerned with Brock Stewart. And when I’m done, all I have to do is retype.

What the hell, I can’t leave this room anyway, not for several hours. I’m stuck in here, because of Rod and—

No. I said I was going back to Brock, and I am.

She had been fun, an unexpected bonus on this trip, but now that the lady fleeing her husband was out of sight she was quickly out of Brock’s mind. He looked around at where he was, trying to decide what to do next.

He’d gotten out at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere, and with night falling fast the place had a really bleak and empty look. There was a gas station on one corner and a diner diagonally opposite, but the other two corners were just fields, and more fields stretched away on all sides toward the horizon, broken here and there by small copses of trees.

There was no traffic at the moment. Brock hefted his suitcase, thought things over, and decided a hamburger might be a good idea for next. He ambled across the road toward the diner.

From outside, the diner looked warm and comfortable and inviting. Steam misted the windows, softening the light within. And after a while I begin to hate all these descriptions.

That’s all I do, month after month, is describe things. If I’m not describing sexual congress I’m describing some mist-windowed diner. Or a bedroom. Or an office. Or a street. Or a car. Description description description, and who gives a shit?

You see, Brock’s going into the diner and it’s going to be empty except for this young girl behind the counter.

I don’t even want to talk about it.

Outside, it’s really taking place. Beyond that door over there. That’s why I have to stay in here. If she stays the night, I’m locked in here till tomorrow sometime. Rod said she’s unlikely to stay the night, but I feel pessimistic.