Humorous chapter from my new novel, feedback?

[moderntimes]

Here’s a chapter excerpt from my newly published private detective novel “Blood Vengeance” -- the novel is pending review on the forum right now. As you know, authors strive to create rhythm and pacing in their stories, and even dark, action-packed thrillers like my book need to have lighter moments. If you remember, Shakespeare knew this well, as evidenced by his “cranky gatekeeper” scene just after the sleepwalk in Macbeth and of course the famous gravedigger scene in Hamlet.

So I want to share this humorous chapter with you. Note that a few words have been redacted due to the auto-censor, but otherwise it’s intact. And in a couple of places, inserted text fills in gaps where characters were introduced earlier.

What has gone before: Houston-based private eye Mitch King has been going thru some stressful times, and needs to lighten up. So he calls his good friend Kate Morley.

The feedback I’d like to receive deals with a few specifics: Are the characters believable? Is the humor “realistic” as something which might really occur? Does the situation seem “forced” or does it flow naturally? Does the narrative also flow well? And of course, any other comments, please. PM me if you wish. Thanks in advance!

- - - - - -

Okay, I’ll admit. I was tense and unruly and needed a break. So I phoned my friend Kathryn Morley to see if she was free.

Kate and I have been dating about a year, off and on. I met her in conjunction with the Albertson case, she having been a pal of the tragically murdered Valerie Albertson, mother of Cheryl Stern. Kate wasn’t involved, innocent and unaware of the whole sordid mess. She therefore became my friend, a go-to gal when I needed to vent. And I was the same for her.

It’s customary that fictional private eyes have sex with any woman they meet who’s between fifteen and fifty. Okay, sixty. My imaginary [private eye] Bugsy Binton would immediately bed Kate, then dump her because a shamus, well, just has to go it alone, y’know.

So it may be amusing to some that Kate and I hadn’t made the beast with two backs and likely never would. But this is real life, not a hardboiled private eye novel. And in this modern society, men and women often become friends, not lovers, and maintain this status despite—no, because of the genuine semi-sibling affection they feel for one another. This bond is as solid and authentic as a physical relationship might be, perhaps stronger.

Yes, Kate and I contemplated the sexual connection, flirted and smooched occasionally when first dating, but it never gelled, never led to sex. And so we remain close friends, each of us greatly benefitting, having one another to gripe and complain to, knowing that someone special is listening intently, someone who cares.

Kate picked up on the first ring. “Morley speaking. And if you run across that two-bit bum Mitch King, stay clear. He’s no damn good.” She’d seen my ID on her phone. Or so I hoped.

“Busy tonight?” I asked.

“Depends. I’ve been busting my butt all day, not in the mood for a lot of folderol. What you got in mind?” Kate’s a commercial artist, a good one, and toils in the gardens of advertising, often to excess. She knows her trade, enjoys a top reputation and lucrative career, has garnered two Houston Addie awards, but at the cost of long hours.

“Say I grab some barbecue, you come by and we sit out by the pool, maybe swim, kick back, drink ourselves silly, gobble the food?”

“Keen. Just what I need. Seven, seven-thirty?”

“Be there or be round,” I joked, lamely.

* * *

Three years ago I helped an insurance firm uncover the vice president who was embezzling their accounts, took their very generous bonus check, put in a small pool and Jacuzzi out back. Not long after I inaugurated the pool, the whirlpool and much of the surrounding lawn with the help of one of the female attorneys at the firm. It was monumental and if not for the fairly high fence around my back yard, we’d have had our fifteen minutes of fame with the cops. But she later took a new job in Dallas and we rarely talked these days. It comes, it goes.

I swung by Goode Company, great Houston BBQ, picked up brisket and ribs, splurged on one of their amazing pecan pies, more than enough food to suffice for a squad of hungry Marines. Next to Spec’s liquors, a couple six packs of St. Arnold Elissa Pale Ale, a fave of Kate’s to go with food.

It was just after seven, still light. I was by the pool, sitting in a bent-up lawn chair, sipping a Bud. I wore my intensely awful swim trunks, the ones with garish pink flamingos, an old faded NRA pullover, flip-flops.

My [African-American] neighbor across, Ernie Banks, walked over to drink beer with me, and his son Malcolm soon joined us, a pleasant surprise.

Ernie came through the Vietnam Tet Offensive without so much as a bruise. Promoted twice in the field, Ernie won several decorations but always deferred, saying he’d just been doing his duty to the country he loved.

Ernie Banks loves baseball, too, and amassed a decent collection of memorabilia of his more famous namesake, the great Cubs shortstop. That, he bragged about eternally. Ernie and I made it to quite a few Astros games together, enjoying as true fans. What seemed to frustrate Ernie wasn’t the Astros losing games particularly, but their switch to the American League. He rarely got a chance to see his favored Cubs anymore.

Ernie’s son Malcolm is a huge, strong young man, highly intelligent. Like many, he joined the Army principally for the tech training and college tuition toward what he expected to be an engineering career. Posted to Afghanistan but assigned to a brigade maintenance facility, back marker to the action, Malcolm’s luck inexplicably ran out. His second week in country, an insurgent mortar struck the building where he was and rendered him a paraplegic, paralyzed from the mid-thighs down.

For a long time after, Malcolm rode a path of hatred and vindictiveness. He blamed his father, his country, all whites, the world in general. He drank himself into a daily stupor, crashed his wheelchair several times and it was only by the good graces of the police who picked him up that he was escorted home or to the ER instead of jail. Nevertheless Malcolm lashed out incessantly at everything, himself especially.

I knew some Gulf War disabled vets and got them visiting Malcolm regularly, hoping they might help. If Malcolm thought he had it tough, he’d never met these guys, Wounded Warriors all. One of them, another black guy who operated his mechanized wheelchair by puffing into a tube, befriended Malcolm and refused to let go.

Persistence came to fruition, and gradually Malcolm became less angry and withdrawn. He broke off the excessive boozing, began to treat his father Ernie better and the veil of hatred finally began to dissipate. Recently Malcolm was playing wheelchair basketball and training for the Paralympics. He would come home in his van almost too tired to work the lift gate, let alone lash out at his father. He even began to say hello to whitey, me.

So when Malcolm rolled across the street to my house and pulled around back to poolside, I said nothing, not wanting to break the moment. I just reached into my cooler and handed him a beer.

“Thanks,” a low reluctant sound from him but a big move forward. He popped the top and drank a gulp, smiled. I still didn’t say anything, we simply clinked cans, three of us, and sat quietly, sunset and a gentle breeze making the beer taste especially good.

Malcolm looked at me, gestured to the flamingos. “Those swim trunks you got?”

“Yeah?”

“They really suck, dude.”

That got us all laughing and we were still sounding like goofballs when Kate drove up in her vintage Mustang convertible, custom pipes rumbling, briefly setting off my next door neighbor’s car alarm.

She got out, carrying a tote bag, habitual Marlboro dangling from her other hand. She was dressed casually, cutoffs with a kind of paisley pattern, a bulky Texans sweatshirt, sandals. Kate had recently changed her hairstyle, a cute short bob or whatever they call it, my knowledge of women’s fashion totally clueless.

Kate Morley is fairly tall, decidedly not thin, and some might say hippy but not in my presence. She has a pixie face with curved up nose, blue eyes, honey hair. She’s a lovely woman, a treasure.

I got up, flipped open another lawn chair, handed her a Coors Light, her regular kick-back brand. She leaned over and planted a big smooch on my cheek and I said “Mmm.”

“Me and Malcolm could go,” Ernie joked. “Don’t wanna cramp your style, y’know.”

At that, Kate stepped over to Ernie, kissed him on the cheek, turned and did the same for Malcolm. “Nobody cramps my style, Ernie,” she laughed. “How you been, Malcolm?”

“Fine, ma’am.”

“Kate. It’s Kate. Don’t you ma’am me.”

“Since we’re stayin’,” Ernie said, “You got another of those?” Gesturing to her cigarette. “Left mine at the house. Mitch here don’t smoke, totally rude of him.”

Kate reached in her carryall and retrieved a small chrome case. She flipped it open to disclose about a half dozen joints, nicely rolled. “Maybe this instead?” She handed a joint to Ernie, then her lighter.

“Girl, you bad!” Ernie laughed. He took the doobie and lit it, a long drag, passed it back to Kate. After a moment he let out the smoke, grinned widely. “Good weed!”

“Only the best for my friends,” Kate replied, taking a toke and handing the joint to Malcolm. He took a hit, passed it to me. We sat quietly, sipped beer, finished the joint.

“So tell me,” Kate asked. “What were you all laughing about when I got here?”

Ernie pointed at my trunks. “Malcolm says that Mitch here is wearin’ the most sucky and most honky swimmin’ suit ever made. You think?”

Kate sipped her beer, studied the flamingos carefully, nodded. “Malcolm’s got a point. But you gotta cut Mitch some slack. After all, he is a honky and it’s expected that he dress like one.”

“And you’re not a honky?” I complained. “Or at least honky-ette?”

Malcolm’s voice was faux angry. “Mitch doesn’t get to say who’s honky or not. A honky can’t tell the difference between honky and real, and anyway, only us black folks get to say who’s honky. Besides, no way Kate here is honky. She’s the most un-honky gal ever.” Then added, “For a white chick, that is.”

We all just sat there staring, Ernie and I particularly, as Kate was newly acquainted with the Banks men and didn’t realize what a big event this was, the longest and most cogent speech I’d ever heard from Malcolm, funny too.

I giggled, breaking the silence and opening the floodgates. Kate snickered loudly, making a sort of cow sound and a second later we were all howling, coughing, red-faced, even the two black guys showing a rosy glow.

Somehow I remembered the barbecue. I got Ernie to help me retrieve it, warm it up, more beer, too. Meanwhile Kate and Malcolm struck up a deep conversation, subject of which I never thought to ask. Another joint and we ate up all the food, pecan pie included, and it disappeared faster than a box of spiked brownies at a Deadhead reunion.

It had been a while since I’d cut loose, consumed alcohol for the pleasure in it and not for its anesthetic feature. Hadn’t been stoned in a long time, either. And somehow drinking only enough beer to become generously happy, topped off with the pot and most important, being among friends, was just what I needed. I was at peace with the world and all was in order. At least for tonight.

It was past midnight when our little foursome broke up. Kate insisted on cleaning poolside, dumping cans and other trash into the recycling bin at the side of the house. We three guys helped. At least I think we helped, all of us wobbly. That was okay, however, no driving and just a little happy but erratic stumbling (and rolling) for Ernie and Malcolm to make it home. I stood there with Kate at the front of my house, called out into the dark, “Watch out for cars!”

To which Ernie’s voice came back, “Damn honky, we already been across the street a hour!”

And of course this set off yet another laughing fit, a loud one, prompting all my neighbors to flick on their authentic Edwardian LED yard lamps, a mute protest that made me laugh even harder before I tapered off into low chuckles, finally quiet.

[felsep47]

Hello my friend, the characters are definitely believable. The story flowed smoothly and the situations appeared real. As for humorous I got a kick out of the "beast with two backs." There were other humorous parts, but I didn't laugh out loud. I don't know if that was your intention. The only thing I can offer is that I have come to find out that lol humor must be totally unexpected. Here's an example of something I read. "I was talking to my doctor in his office the other day. My wife was with me. He said to me seriously, 'We are going to need a sperm sample, a urine sample and a stool sample from you.' My wife looked at the doctor, then looked at me and said, 'Give em your underwear.'

[moderntimes]

No, laugh out loud jokes weren't my focus. I wanted to describe a possible realistic scenario during which friends would laugh and enjoy themselves.

Not telling "jokes" per se.

Thanks.

[DATo]

There is no real story here, at least not one by which a reader would expect to be entertained, just some basic background material on several people and some light banter during an impromptu beerfest ... and I was thoroughly hooked. It takes a special talent to tell a relatively simple story, or to describe a scene which contains no drama or thought provoking dialogue or action in a manner which can hold an audience spellbound and thirsting for more.

Reading this piece reminded me of a brother of mine who passed away some time ago. When I think of him the first thing that comes to mind is how he could tell a story. There could be a room full of people talking, shouting, laughing, each engaged in his or her own little world of affairs and there would be my brother starting a conversation with one other person. Within five minutes the entire group would be attentively focused on what he was saying. He was a modern day Homer.

This is the kind of effect your story had on me. I was drawn in and found myself sitting beside these people and feeling that I have known them all my life. To accomplish this in so few words is the hallmark of an accomplished storyteller. This piece, though I know it was but an excerpt, could serve as a stand-alone story in its own right. It was a delightful and well described diorama of an interlude between friends. This entire piece was a "device" in itself - different and compelling. It says absolutely nothing ... and doesn't say it in a marvelous and glorious manner! *LOL*

Very well done!

[moderntimes]

Thanks so much DAT, your comments meant a lot to me.

Part of the story is based on personal experience, of course, the remainder just invented.

When I started writing my private eye novels (this is from the 3rd and newest) I wanted my characters to grow and change as time proceeded. Too often in a series, characters never change. They're "pluggable" and have no humanity, no movement. Which makes them unrealistic.

Now in my chapter, the once-hateful son Malcolm is changing, and in the 4th novel (in progress), he has a major role. So I keep evolving my characters, especially my narrator and protagonist. And thinking of them as real? It also helps me write better episodes about them.