The Detective Writer: Sirloin On A Black Eye

05/30/2018 by Pat Shiplett 1 Comment

Three years ago the guy who created me lost interest in the detective novel he was writing.

He left me in limbo with a slab of sirloin plastered to my eye.

He had read somewhere that in crime fiction every chapter should close with a cliffhanger. So he had some goon land a roundhouse punch on my right eye. Putting meat on a shiner is something they used to do in gangster movies. It doesn’t stop the swelling and it poses significant bacterial risk.

During my stay in purgatory, waiting for him to start writing again, I managed to break out of my Word doc, wriggled out of the folders I was trapped in and burrowed through 301.84 GB of data on his laptop. I’ve read every email he’s ever received.

It has been an education.

I discovered that people who aren’t active in their careers anymore still crave recognition. A lot of them of them never learn to relax. They’re like those pelagic bony fish that drown if they stop swimming.

My creator has tried a lot of stuff that hasn’t panned out. He’s approaching this novel of his in bits and spurts, not investing great hopes in its prospects.

I am thrilled to tell you that, as of this morning, he’s back in the window at the coffee shop, clacking away on a new chapter.

He’s a few hundred words in and already I know my fate. I get booted out of AA. I work undercover as a used-car repo man. My frig is empty. My sainted mother doesn’t return my calls. There’s zero chance he lets me log into eHarmony or Christian Mingle.

The pop-fiction workshop at our local library offered an introductory “problem-solving” session. They impressed on the guy that private detectives are more engaging if they have some kind of disorder to overcome.

At this very moment he’s browsing through a bookmarked list of medical websites hoping to find an affliction that will make you like me. And so it goes.

Will Pierce Meets The 1500s

04/30/2018 by Pat Shiplett 2 Comments

He logs onto the Wi-Fi network and immediately finds himself in the sixteenth century. Will Pierce’s commute takes less time than you might imagine. It’s just a few steps from the barista station to a stool in the window.

Will has spent almost seven years exploring the religious conflicts that swept Christian Europe. His observations are gestating in a PhD thesis he’ll soon defend.

Martin Luther challenged Roman Catholic dogma by posting his Ninety-five Theses in 1517. They gave birth to the Protestant Reformation. And thanks to the Gutenberg Bible, the faithful had started to read the Word of God for themselves.

John Calvin preached that our lives are ‘predestined.’ You’re prosperous because God rewards righteousness or you’re wretched because you’re a sinner. Will explains that Calvin’s idea that a person’s destiny is a secret unto God caused monarchs to see their Divine Rights as threatened. That meant trouble ahead.

When the Pope wouldn’t approve Henry VIII’s divorce, the king created the Church of England with himself as its head. Then ‘Bloody Mary’ took the throne and earned her nickname by persecuting Henry’s Protestant followers.

Five years later, Queen Elizabeth I flipped the state back against the Catholics. The consecutive queens martyred the faithful of both religions. You were trapped on one side or the other. There was no such thing as being an atheist.

Will’s work pays special attention to the methods ‘Good Queen Bess’ developed to root out apostates, heretics, and traitors. What do religious strife, secrecy, and state surveillance do to a society?

As a member of the civil-liberties watchdog group Lucy Parsons Labs, he’s pushing back against data collection that ensnares arrestees who haven’t been tried or convicted.

Light pours through the windows at our corner coffee shop even on overcast days. Given that Will spends his time exhuming the remains of a dark and ungodly century, he needs all the light he can get.

Gus, Piano Tuner

03/12/2018 by Pat Shiplett Leave a Comment

There’s a moment before the start of a symphony when vibrations float above the orchestra.

It isn’t music exactly.

But it isn’t cacophony either.

Certain instruments break through the drone and send out sounds like mating calls in a forest — a piccolo looking for a willing woodwind, one tuba looking for another.

Symphonic tuning is more theater than necessity. Virtuoso artists take their chairs knowing their tools are, forgive me, fit as a fiddle. Read more…

Clare and Resiliency

02/19/2018 by Pat Shiplett 1 Comment

“…The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” — Genesis 2:15.

You don’t have to be religious to understand why this passage appears in the scriptures that define three world religions.

We learned to work with fire. We shaped stone and smelted metals. We came to manage water and to cultivate lands. We domesticated animals for the nutrition and the labor they provide.
Read more…

Firefighter Tom

12/21/2017 by Pat Shiplett 1 Comment

You’ll find the ladder truck from Fire Station Two double-parked outside our corner coffee shop some mornings.Tom Howard will run in to pick up a round for his crew.

You might think idling a hugely expensive firefighting vehicle for a coffee run is a waste of taxpayer dollars. It’s not.

Think of it as readiness training. Every minute on the street sharpens the team’s knowledge of traffic patterns, access points around town and behavior of equipment under weather conditions. Every emergency call sets off a mesh of calculations and responses.

Tom is part of an eight-member team that pulls a 24-hour shift. They stand ready at all hours to hit that pole and engage with sixty pounds of gear, tools and breathing packs.

Two meals are prepared each shift. You get your fussy eaters, restricted diets and meat-and-potatoes holdouts. It seems that leftovers don’t play well on Sundays.

There are occupational hazards. Firefighters seldom talk about fear but they worry about mistakes. A drop in adrenaline between shifts can feel like a loss of purpose and camaraderie, an isolating work cycle doesn’t help. Tom manages a hotline to deal with exactly those problems.

As an engineer he drives ladder trucks and fire engines and is certified in medical response and Hazmat. His thing is opening cars with kids locked inside. “Good enough to be a cat burglar.” he laughs

The 25-year-veteran firefighter earned a master’s degree in divinity after a deepening of his faith and has been asked to preach at various congregations. There’s that quality about him.

Physical realities catch up with even the fittest firefighters. Tom will be ready for the next chapter of life. “I believe the Lord has called me for something.” he says. And the good Lord willing a ‘98 Harley and a Yamaha Motocross will be part that something.