1913 Massacre--Calumet, Michigan

The end of this year will mark the 100th anniversary of a crime of unthinkable proportions. It was December 24, Christmas Eve. Over 700 people, the families of copper miners representing several ethnicities and speaking several languages, were crammed into the Italian Hall to celebrate the holiday. Money was tight, and the miners were on strike. Outside in the street, mine boss thugs were gathering--and then one of them yelled, "Fire!"

Within minutes, 62 children and 11 adults would be dead after having been crushed or suffocated by panicked celebrants racing to get down the stairs and outside. There was, of course, no fire at all.

In 1941, Woody Guthrie wrote a song about the tragedy: 1913 Massacre, Woody Guthrie

In 2005, a film company released a documentary about it, inspired by Guthrie's song: The Documentary

In 2006, author/historian Steve Lehto, released "Death's Door," a detailed accounting of life in a copper mining boom town preceding and following the tragedy: The Book

I was introduced to Guthrie's song when his son, Arlo, released a newer version of it more than twenty years later. The words disturbed me, and hooked me. "Michigan," after all, was my home state. What was this story all about? I never found good answers...until I picked up Steve Lehto's book. That's what I'm reading now, a full century after all those children died, and all those families saw their Christmas dreams trampled into nightmares.

Inspiration

Here's a new one, hot off the presses! I'm not sure of the title, but.....

Inspiration

Pretend it’s a mirage.

Ignore it.

Walk away.

You can’t, can you?

It follows you

like a painting with haunted eyes

tracking you across the room

the desert

the ocean

the seven seas.

It finds you.

It always finds you

because you let it

because you want it to

because you need it as much as it

needs you.

It feeds you

your instincts

your desires

your endless, timeless appetite for

adventure without risk

comfort without pain

hurt without damage

scars that never linger

yet never heal

because they never really were.

It’s all make believe.

But for you

it’s as real as stardust

splashing over moonlit sands.

An Eternal Debt

An Eternal Debt

A maiden as pure as the mists of the dawn,
a widower, worn, and a warrior strong,
answered a calling to right an old wrong
giving voice to the words of a forgotten song.

In a tower so high that it dwelt in the clouds,
unseen and unheard by the citizen crowds,
they joined hands together and chanted aloud,
for the beast in their midst to be vanquished or cowed.

The beast writhed and squirmed as the spell gathered force,
then wove spells of its own, to turn theirs off course.
Attacking the three, it reached for the source
of everything evil, the darkness endorsed.

The three chanted louder, for one and for all.
The clouds roared with thunder, so great was their call.
Innocence, Grief and Honor stood tall---
Not one among them was willing to fall.

The assaulted beast saw its coming defeat.
It belched forth bright flames, attempting retreat.
The three were like statues, unmoved by the heat---
None would withdraw, ‘til the spell was complete.

In a dazzling flash, the fire was spent.
The beast burned with fury; it would not repent.
So to the young maiden it hastily sent
a sharp blade of steel; her cassock was rent.

Naked among them, she stood in despair,
but refused to pull back to effect a repair.
The two men before her locked her eyes with theirs,
and she knew in her heart that her honor was spared.

One more challenge lost, the beast changed its shape,
seeking a different means of escape.
While the widower watched, eyes wild and agape,
his dead wife enjoined him, screaming of rape.

Aware of deception, he turned his sad eyes,
and shut off his ears to her heart-rending cries.
Steadfast in his chanting, he looked to the skies
and prayed for an end to the beast’s cruel lies.

When the warrior knew that his own time had come,
he shielded his heart; he would not be undone.
But his shields were ill-formed; he wanted to run,
from the voice of the wind as his praises were sung.

The beast knew him well, for it told his whole life,
from the day of his birth, to his courting his wife.
Then came the finale: the pain and the strife,
he had given the world with the blade of his knife.

“You have no honor!” the beast told him then.
“What kind of profession is the killing of men?
Each blow you strike falls again and again,
on the widows and orphans to whom your blade extends!”

The warrior wept, but he held the spell fast.
Soon it would end; they were down to the last.
The beast howled and raged with the final words cast.
Then the world’s three protectors stood mute and aghast….

For standing before them, in place of the beast,
stood a man well-remembered, whom they’d thought long deceased.
He was clad in white armor, like an angel of peace,
and crying in gratitude for his welcome release.

They dropped to their knees out of awe and respect,
but he bade them to rise, his voice hoarse with regret.
Then he bowed to them, and vowed not to neglect
the service he owed them---an eternal debt.

An Archeological Dig through My Own Old Files....

I was digging through some very old files today--very old indeed! Some dated back to high school, others, to college, ca. 1979 ~ 1986. I wasted time I didn't have glancing at old papers. I touched on some pretty heavy topics, particularly in philosophy classes. But I left those files where they were for now. My main intent was to unearth some old stories I want to revisit. I barely remember the characters and worlds, and I want to remember them. I still believe there was value to the stories left untold. I won't rewrite so much as reinvent, and I'm excited at the prospect.

The most "recent" files were probably from somewhere around 1990. Among them, I discovered a poem. Well, I discovered several poems. It's amazing how many full or half formed poems I discovered among the lecture notes in some of the old class notebooks I managed to hang onto. But this particular poem I had in a file folder marked "Story Poem." And, well, yes, it *is* a story in a poem. A fantasy story. There was no title, but upon re-reading it I now title it "An Eternal Debt."  I re-typed it today, for "posterity." I changed a few words to improve the cadence and rhymes. But it's mostly as it was during the great archeological unveiling.

I will post it in a separate post, in a moment or two.....

Number Five

Number Five

He’s haunted me for more than twenty years now. Strange though…when I looked him up online recently, I didn’t recognize the picture. I guess in my head I made his face evolve—or devolve maybe—into something that made sense—or something like sense, anyway. How do you really make sense of any of it? How do you make sense of someone with a hunger like that, a drive to punish women?

He had the devil in him.

You doubt me. Admit it. You think the devil isn’t real. People do horrible things because their brains are wired wrong. Something snaps. Synapses misfire. I know that as well as you. I’ve studied psychology. I’ve read about brain physiology. But science can’t account for all the dangers that lurk in the shadows. There are other factors at play, things mere humans could hardly hope to understand.

Maybe he’d been a victim, too, a victim of the devil that overtook him during a dark, hellish childhood. But he would have to have been human once to be a victim. I don’t know if he ever was human, because I didn’t see him as anything but the devil. He was a devil who wore a human face…a face that, over time, devolved in my own misfiring brain into the most horrific human face I’d ever seen, a face that epitomized the devil in human form: Charles Manson. Yes, that’s who he became to me over the course of years. I realized it when I saw his photo online, when I saw how unfamiliar he looked to me now. My memories had changed him, remade him into something that made sense, in a sick sort of way. My own, personal serial killer took on the semblance of the most sensationalized serial killer of my lifetime.

But, unlike Charles Manson, this particular serial killer was never well-known. If you were around back then, you might remember. Or you might not. His spree was limited to four victims, his timeline to months rather than years. If you weren’t around back then, you wouldn’t have a clue. I could tell you his first and last name, and ask if you knew who I meant; you’d probably think I was referring to someone normal, someone human. If I said his name in three parts—first, middle and last—you might start to become suspicious. After all, everyone knows the media loves killers with three names…those other than Charles Manson, anyway. But even with that clue, I doubt you’d remember.

They caught him too quickly to spark a real media frenzy. Back then, anyway. In this instant-news era of today, the national and international media might have given his story a bigger impact. But twenty years ago…no. His spree has been forgotten. His victims…forgotten. The media neither remembers, nor cares.

But I remember. And I care. Because I stood right in front of him, looked right into his eyes, pressed paper money into his hand and let him drop coins back into mine. And I tell you now: I never saw even the slightest bit of human in him. I only saw that devil in his eyes, an evil so real, a threat so menacing it sent me running back to my car, locking the door the very instant I sat down and panting in terror while I fumbled to put the keys in the ignition.

There’d probably been no need for me to run. Yes, he was a predator. And yes, that predator had caught me in his sights. But he couldn’t attack me, not with a line of customers waiting to be serviced, a line of men, a line of potential witnesses who could have stopped him far more easily that he could have stopped me under those conditions.

No, he couldn’t have gone after me. But somehow I know…I know with a profound sense of certainty that he would have, if I’d been alone in that station. He would have turned that moment of eye contact into a crime of opportunity. The predator would have pounced, if he could have, if there’d been no one to stop him…no one other than me, a rail-thin, young…ish…blonde, epitome of the weaker sex. Yes, he saw my weakness. Just like he saw the weakness in the four, young girls who’d lacked the good fortune of a line of men to protect them.

He killed them. All four of them. The youngest had been fourteen, the oldest, eighteen. And I know I could have…would have?...should have?...been number five.

Number five.

I was well over the age of eighteen at the time, but I don’t think that mattered. He’d spent a long winter without releasing the devil before I landed in his sights. And then maybe he figured the devil was too hungry to settle for girls. Two weeks after our…encounter…another woman, a  woman of my own age group and unprotected by a line of men, ended up in the trunk of his car.

Had her misfortune been the result of something he’d seen in me? I’ll never know. All I do know is that opportunity had given him another chance at number five, a real chance. Fortunately, the police took that chance away from him. In a story truly worthy of a media frenzy yet buried in the annals of time, the woman was saved and the devil was imprisoned.

And I…what? I have no link to the story. Not really. I encountered a serial killer. I looked into his eyes. I touched his hands.

And I’ve been haunted ever since. Because I know what the rabbit sees in the eyes of the wolf, or the antelope in the eyes of the lion.

And what four young girls saw, before they saw nothing at all.

*   *   *

Remember them:

    Kami Marie Villaneuva, 18

    Cynthia Jones, 16

    Michelle Urbin, 16

    Melissa Urbin, 14

Hinduism's Beliefs About Suffering

Samsara, Karma and the nature of suffering in Hinduism....My latest sojourn into researching things for no particular reason other than the fact that it was something I had a smidgeon of curiosity about--and you never know where each little smidgeon you learn might end up in a story somewhere.

 Hinduism's Beliefs About Suffering

Prophecy's Drum, my first novel& Tad Williams

Chapters 7 & 8 were quietly posted on Prophecy's Drum a week or so ago. Chapter 9 is in progress.

Meanwhile...thought I'd share some photos:

First, my "book in a drawer,"  the first novel I ever wrote...on a typewriter, no less! I know, shocking, isn't it! But that was way back in olden-times, and I didn't have a PC. Heck, I was thrilled to finally have an electronic typewriter with one line memory! Yep. As long as I discovered the error before hitting "enter" I could correct it without liquid paper or using erasable typewriter paper! Awesome technology that was, back in the day. But frustrating, too. No matter how fast I typed, I had to stop myself at the end of each line. I still remember an error that made it to "print".... Instead of "her patience," I created a new word: herptene. We decided it was a disease in the herpes family. And maybe that's why the novel never made it to publication...hmm....

No. Honestly, the novel never made it to publication because IT WAS MY FIRST NOVEL. It wasn't ready, and neither was I. Yes, I went through the whole process of submission. After 12 months in the slush pile at Del Rey, Terry Brooks was even kind enough to ask someone to dig it up and give me an answer once and for all. Frankly, the folks at Del Rey were very kind, even with their rejection.

That first novel was the original story of Alan and Megan. The characters have changed and the story itself has changed quite a bit with the version I'm currently writing, i.e. "Prophecy's Drum." And the world of Anvaar has grown quite a bit. But it all sprouted from a seed planted back in the early 80s, with an in-class creative writing assignment at Wayne State University that earned me my worst creative writing or English grade ever: a B-. Bad grade or not, the scene stayed with me and kept me asking questions about how it came to be and where it was going. The rest, as they say, is history....

Next, in an interesting irony, I found Tad Williams on Twitter yesterday, after @MrsTad "found" me. And then, today, while packaging up some old photos to send to my sister, I came across a photo of me, curled up on dad's boat way back, ca. 1988, reading a hardcover, first edition of Tad Williams' "Dragonbone Chair." Yes, the glasses are way too big, and dark, and overpowering. And the jeans...well, not exactly high fashion. But the book was excellent--as I knew it would be, which was why I couldn't wait for the paperback.;)