Well this one was a bit of a surprise for me. Nanowrimo veterans will tell you that it's pretty common, a week or two into writing, to start to hate your story. This is often accompanied by all kinds of ideas for new, better stories. Although they are often merely "better".

Anyway, I find the best way for me to get through those periods is to just write a bit of whatever idea hits me, to get it out of my system. In this case, the idea was about an engineer who designs toothbrushes who discovers his wife is a gun runner and a mercenary. I was kinda going for a bit of a hard-boiled feel to it. See what I mean about how sometimes the ideas are merely "better"?

I wrote the opening scene for that story today at lunch and decided it would make a nice little mini-FFF. So here you go!

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The Engineer And The Gin Joint

A swirl of snowflakes and brown, desiccated leaves follows Max Reimer into his local pub, Eddie's Joint. It's the time of year when late autumn and early winter are vying for supremacy. Eddie's Joint is an institution in Max's neighbourhood; the current owner, Eddie Carmicheal, is merely the six in a series of Eddies who have owned Eddie's Joint, going back to the first Eddie, Edwin Purnell who started off in the 1880s with a pushcart hawking gin to striking workers, police officers and strike breakers alike. The Eddies have always prided themselves on their egalitarianism. After two years of running the pushcart, Eddie Purnell had enough cash stuffed under his mattress to purchase to the building he used to park in front of, and the legacy was begun.

Max leans his body against the door to shove it closed against the wind and then wipes his fogged-up glasses on his tie. He walks over to the bar, plunks himself down on a stool and drops today's newspaper on the bar. It's five o'clock and Eddie's is mostly empty. One couple sits at a table far off in the gloomy back, near the stage, leaning close and talking intently. They look like they are about to kiss, or maybe start to hit each other. Two other people sit along the bar, a few seats down from the one Max has picked.

Eddie saunters down and stands in front of Max, waiting. He doesn't ask, "What'll it be?"; why else would Max be here?

"Double gin and soda," says Max, unfolding the newspaper, "But today — hold the
soda would you, Eddie?"

Eddie reaches above the bar for a highball glass.

"Rough day at the office, Max?"

"Rough day at the world, Eddie," replies Max.

Eddie pours the gin, sets a coaster on the battle-scarred bar, puts the glass on top of it and slides it toward Max.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He picks up a large beer mug and begins polishing it with the rag he had tucked into his apron. He's been polishing that mug for fifteen years and someday he'll have polished it so much that it just turns to dust. That's when Eddie Carmicheal will know it's time to pass his mantle along to the next Eddie.

"You know," says Max, "You should use a brush for that. That rag'll just push grime and dirt around. The bristles on a brush give you some good abrasive action."

Eddie grins, his gold canine tooth gleaming in light cast by the electric beer logo signs above the bar. "You're off the clock now, aren't you Max? And besides, this isn't for the mug's benefit."

Max sighs, "You're right, Eddie."

He takes a slug of the gin and jabs a finger toward the newspaper.

"But take a look at that headline."

Eddie's reading glasses hang around his neck on a chain. He puts them on and leans toward the bar, polishing the mug all the while.

"Car bomb in Beirut. It's pretty unfortunate, but Lebanon is a long ways away, Max. You shouldn't let that stuff get you down."

"I wasn't talking about that headline. Look at the one below it."

"Economic slump leads to more layoffs?"

"The one beside that one."

Eddie puts down his mug and rag, turns the paper around and pushes his glasses up his nose.

"Incidents of cavities up 10% in preteens."

Max belts down the rest of his gin.

"You trudge in to work every day, trying to make a bit of a difference," he says, shaking his head, "You know what I did today?"

"Why don't you tell me about it, Max." Eddie picks up the mug and the rag again.

"I ran simulations all day long. We figure by adjusting the angle of the bristles on our toothbrushes, we can reduce tooth decay by five percent. Five percent. And kids these days are drinking twice as much pop as they used to. Lattes and energy drinks. Kids, Eddie. I'll take another gin, please."

"Your wife waiting for you at home, Max?"

"She's off on a business trip. Back on Thursday."

"You're a damn fine engineer, Max," says Eddie as he reaches for the bottle of Bombay Sapphire.

"Somedays, it just doesn't seem like enough," says Max.

He shakes his head slowly and flips to the sports section.

1 response to "Week #42 - The Engineer And The Gin Joint "

Astrid Terras wrote: Monday, 20 Apr 2009 18:24 I thought this wasn't just the opening scene of a story, but a fine short-short story just as it is... with a great ending.

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