Author: Patrick

ThickJam is gone, so here is a free story

    Patrick

The below story was previously published in the online journal ThickJam. (Issue #279, May 2013)

Since that publication is no more, I am posting “Madame Regret” here.

Free words for your brain!

Madame Regret
P.R. O’Leary

Most people call me looking for a reason. A reason to do something. It’s always different. Some want to get a divorce. Some want to quit their job. Some want to have a baby. Some want to get an abortion. They call me, asking, pleading with me to rationalize some epic change in their lives. They don’t say this outright, but I know what they need.

Why me? Well, I’m just the one that picks up the phone. The 1-900 number they call sends them through a touchpad maze until, after they have signed away their credit card, they are redirected to me.

When my phone rings, I pick it up. “Psychic Hotline, this is Madame Elsa, how may I be of service?” Sometimes I call myself Madame Olivia, or Madame Grace. It doesn’t matter. After I say that there is always a pause. Then they speak.

“Yeah… Hi Madame Elsa” Olivia, Grace, Greenroot. “I have this problem. I want to know if I should quit my job.”

Divorce my wife.

Have this baby.

Buy a house.

This is where the psychic part comes in. They expect me to read their future. To karmically sense the outcome. I do, in a way. I have no special powers, no sixth sense or anything. I just know that they all want the same answer. “Yes.” I tell them.

Yes, you should quit that job. You should have this baby. You should get divorced. You should quit school. Yes. Yes. Yes. I rationalize things. I make things okay. They use that little three-letter word as a reason to do what they really wanted to do anyway.

Their response is always the same after that. A heavy sigh of relief. A pause. Then a grateful “Thanks so much, Madame Julie.” Madame Earthwand. Madame Tigerpaw. Madame Silvertop.

I tell them it’s no problem. I have seen the future and they are going to make the right decision. Then they hang up. One minute is all it takes. One minute at $9.95. They have just spent ten bucks to put their minds at ease.

When I first started I would wonder if I was doing the right thing. Telling them to go change their life, just like that, without knowing anything about them except the sound of their sad pleading voice. I always told myself yes. I was helping people. I was making a difference.

Then one day things started to change. I got a call. “Psychic Hotline, this is Madame Rosewood, how may I be of service to you today?”

Silence. Then a man’s voice. Crackling loud. “Madame Rosewood.” I wait. The voice comes again. Solid and angry.

“Or should I say, Madame Orchid.”

Maybe I have used Madame Orchid before, and the voice is as unfamiliar as every voice I hear over that phone.

“I divorced my wife!” The voice is screaming now.

“I divorced my wife and now my life is over! She bled me dry, that bitch! Fuck you Madame Orchid! Fuck you Madame Rose! I have nothing left! Did you see that in my future you fucking hoe bag!”

I hang up. I was just called a hoe bag. Someone just spent ten bucks to call me a fucking hoe bag.

The phone rings again. I gather myself.

“Psychic Hotline, this is Madame Opal, how may I be of service to you today?”

Another voice this time. Female. High and piercing.

“Madame goddamn motherfucking Opal my fucking ass!”

There is screaming in the background. A kid crying. A baby.

“You told me to have that fucking baby you fucking shank! Madame fucking Opal!” The screaming in the background gets louder. I try to talk back, to say that she is just overwhelmed with having a child.

“Overwhelmed! Overwhelmed! You don’t know what over-fucking-whelmed is Madame goddamn Opal! My baby is fucking retarded! Did you hear me? Fucking retarded! I am gonna have to feed him with a bottle for the rest of his life! You told me to have a fucking retarded baby you fucking sick twisted—“

I hang up.

Again, the phone rings.

This time it’s a man yelling that he just quit the best job he ever had because I told him to. He calls me a pube rat.

The next call is a young couple. Each taking turns with the phone. Cursing me for telling them to buy this house. This goddamn crackpit that they just bought. They call me an ass worm and a pus bag.

After that, I stop answering the phone.

I only pushed people toward the decision they were already going to make. They needed me to be their inspiration, and then they need me to be their fall guy. Someone to blame. It wasn’t their decision. I told them to. It was my idea.

After that, I quit my job at the Psychic Hotline.

I got a job at a Tarot Card hotline instead. When people call, I ask them what they want to know. I pretend to shuffle cards and deal out cards and read cards. I make up meanings for the Emperor card and the Lovers card and the Judgment card. After I have dealt all my imaginary cards and told all about their imaginary meanings, I always tell my client exactly what they need to hear.

You are going to regret your decision no matter what you do.

What I Learned While Writing My Fifth Novel

    Patrick

I recently completed the first draft of my fifth (unpublished) novel. The tentative title is The Intruders. Out of all of the long fiction I’ve written, I am happiest by far with how this one has turned out.

Not to say it’s a great book, but I can see the potential there for something that people will enjoy reading. Something that will hopefully hit them in a primal place and not let up. It’s in there for sure, but it is still a few drafts away.

Now that the basic story is complete and down on paper, I can look back on the experience of writing it. And I can see that I learned a lot. Maybe some of you have figured most of this out already, or maybe you haven’t. Either way, here is a quick list:

1) I found out what type of writer I am.

A discovery writer. Previously, whenever I sat down to write long fiction, I always had an outline ready. A chapter by chapter summary of what was going to happen, all the way through to the ending.

That’s no fun! For The Intruders, I had nothing planned. In fact, it was supposed to be a short story but once I got going I could see there was much more to it. By the time I was done it was full novel length. I didn’t plan anything out in advance, so it was like I was reading the book instead of writing it. Discovering what happened as it went on.

Which brings me to number 2.

2) Writing can be fun.

There were moments while writing that I was smiling because the events I was creating were so much fun to write. Or when some great twist or turn or scene just fell into place like a puzzle peice. It was so much fun to see that happen and to feel that momentum just build and build until the finale.

3) Stuff needs to happen!

Writing 101, right? Well, it took me a while to figure it out. Yes, my other long fiction had things happening, but the character’s never drove the action. And alot of the prose took place inside the character’s heads.

The Intruders has scenes. Scenes that the characters themselves initiate, and scenes that move the story forward.

4) Character is important

I used to write mostly for story. I liked ideas for tales, and whoever happened to get slotted in as the characters in those tales was secondary. But I can see now that the characters are just as important as what happens to them.

Mainly, because they should be driving the story forward. They should not be passengers as the story happens to them. When the plot moves forward, someone in the story should cause it to do so. And that someone should be a character that people want to read about.

5) I have a long way to go.

I am happy with The Intruders, but there are problems. It’s too short. One of the characters is pretty bad and needs better motivation. The opening chapter needs to be rewritten to have a stronger hook. I need to research some things that happen in the book because in real life they might not work. The events might be in the wrong order, depending on how you look at it.

In short, editing a novel is a little more involved than editing a short story. I can edit one of my short stories in twenty minutes just by reading it out loud with a red pen in hand. But that’s not going to work for this. There are too many moviing peices, and I want them all to work together like a well-oiled machine. But I’ll get there, and maybe some day soon this will be the first of my novels that I try to legitametly publish.

I know that I can do better and I look forward to applying all I learned to the next one. And learning even more when I write that one.

And then so on and so forth until the day I die.