A Reading Teaches Me Something
I did a reading at the Bureau of General Services - Queer Division
on Friday night. My friend and fellow author David Swatling, invited me to join
him, Daniel W. Kelly, and J.L. Weinberg, at the reading featuring horror and suspense
fiction in recognition of Halloween.
When I arrived, late, after a nerve-wracking and slow moving
drive down the Henry Hudson Parkway from the Bronx, I discovered my third book,
Unbroken, would be on display along
with my allegorical Vampire novella, Vampire Rising. I immediately recognized I faced a two-fold challenge: how to present
a horror novel that really wasn’t a horror novel at all, and, two, how to tie to
very different books together.
I read third. While awaiting my turn, I wrote an intro for
myself and pulled a reading from Unbroken.
What follows is an excerpt from my reading.
“For me, when I think of horror, I think the true horror is
how we sometimes treat each other—especially those who are different from us.
“I’ll be reading from Vampire
Rising and Unbroken, tonight. These
two readings focus on “first looks”—you know, that moment when we see someone
and looking at them reveals something about them—or about us.”
The first scene I read was from Vampire Rising. Barnabas, a 25-year-old
encaustic painter goes to a party at the home of his former teacher, Gatsby
Collins, a 400-year-old closeted Vampire. In this scene there comes a moment
when the closet door opens a crack:
It was in the music
room, then, that Barnabas saw Gatsby for the first time since graduation some
seven years before. Barnabas paused to let his eyes adjust to the room’s
dimness, for his night vision was poor. It was a room of pearl grays and faded
gold damask, dark wood and darker carpets, all shadowed in flickering
candlelight. Gatsby was seated at an ebony nine-and-a half foot Bosendorfer
Concert grand piano—the one with ninety-five keys, rather than the standard
eighty-eight—which dominated the room. Gatsby himself had a pewter finish:
silvery hair swept back, eyes like pieces of ice, pale cheekbones that gleamed.
He was cool and pale, champagne in an ice bucket. Playing selections from “A
Chorus Line” for a crowd of stalwart admirers, he was radiant in that darkened
room. He was gorgeous and charismatic, a charmer of snakes and men.
He looked up and,
seeing Barnabas in the doorway, gasped, for Barnabas was as beautiful as he’d
remembered: his caramel skin glowed with youth and vigor. His wide, innocent
eyes were clear and his dark hair was cropped short; gone was the defiant retro
Afro he’d worn in high school. Staring at him, the frisson of lust and love
that shot through him caused Gatsby to miss a note, and frown. He bent over the
keyboard; his face dipped into shadow, dissolving into triangles of violet and
purple.
To Barnabas, Gatsby looked
exactly as he had when he had been his teacher seven years before, and yet he
seemed more glamorous; he looked like a 1930s film star perfectly preserved on
silver nitrate.
Barnabas, unsure,
started to walk across the room to where Gatsby sat at the piano. Gatsby,
without taking his eyes off Barnabas, rose and, closing the piano’s lid,
murmured something to his audience, who turned to watch Barnabas. Keeping his
gaze on Barnabas, Gatsby drifted over, bringing with him sepia tones and a
martini.
“Hello, Barnabas,”
Gatsby whispered. A smile, fragile as tissue paper, wrapped around his words.
He offered his hand like an argentine gift of inestimable value.
Barnabas took
his hand shyly and murmured back, “Hi, Mr. Calloway.”
“Please! We’re no longer in
high school. I’m no longer your teacher. Call me Gatsby.”
Barnabas nodded.
“Gatsby.” He’d always addressed him as Mr. Calloway, but he thought of him, in
his head, as Gatsby. Still, saying his name aloud sounded strange to his ears
but he liked the way the syllables felt in his mouth: Gats-by.
“Ah. That’s
better.”
The room was cool and Barnabas shivered. “You’re cold,” Gatsby said,
taking his arm. There was something antique about him. Heightening the effect
was the way he treated Barnabas—with a certain genteel courtliness that in
itself seemed of a different age. Indeed Barnabas noticed most of the men in
the room exhibited a similar old world mannerliness. “Come, let us sit by the
fire.” Gatsby gestured for Barnabas to sit. As Barnabas sank into a worn
leather club chair, Gatsby placed his martini glass on a passing waiter’s tray
and took from it two fresh Martini glasses. “A Vesper martini, tonight’s
signature cocktail,” he explained handing one to Barnabas. “Two more,” he said
to the waiter before sitting in the chair opposite Barnabas.
Gatsby smiled and it
was then that Barnabas saw the canine teeth. He’d suspected it but still he
jumped a little. Gatsby noticed the tremor that passed through Barnabas. He
stopped smiling and stared into the middle distance as firelight played over
his features, painting them now pink, now pearl. After a moment the tension
passed and they continued as before.
The second scene is from Unbroken
and centers on the moment in a young
Lincoln’s life. An undeniable sissy, he announces at age 6 that he will marry
his best friend a boy. His parents go to great lengths to “fix” him and almost
convince him that he is mistaken, that he will change…
I was twelve, and in
seventh grade. He was the new kid. His name was Jose Calderon. He walked into
fourth period music, smiled, and changed everything. Until that moment, I had
believed their lies, had ignored my own truth. I would change they told me, just
wait and see. I would want to marry a girl, have children, and a dog, and a
split-level house in the suburbs just like on The Brady Bunch because that’s
what all boys wanted when they grew up and left childish things behind. Time,
they said, would fix me, and I’d feel as other boys felt. Time had passed and I
was still…broken.
As I was leaving, I was mentally going over all the things I
did wrong, could have done better. I should have done a better job of setting
up each scene but at the time I just wanted to plunge the audience into the middle
of the story which is reflective of my books in general—I just drop the reader
into the thick of things and help them piece the story together. Normally I
memorize what I will read but this week I hadn’t had time and then I switched
passages at the last minute. I should have been better prepared I chided
myself.
Two men stopped me, and momentarily silenced the critical
voices in my head. I recognized them because they had sat in the front row to
my right. As I read I found myself glancing at them because they kept smiling and
nodding and I felt reassured by their presence. They told me they just wanted
to thank me for reading and tell me how much they’d enjoyed what I’d read. One
of them said he really liked my shirt. I thanked him and confessed that I’d been
upset because the valet at the garage had driven off before I could retrieve from
the backseat the blazer I’d planned to wear. “Well I’m glad,” he said, “Because
I got to see more of that great shirt.”
And that’s when it hit me—sometimes things don’t go according
to plan, things change and the last minute and you have to adapt. It is in the adaptation
that we soar.
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Watch the book trailer for Vampire Rising.
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Watch the book trailer for Vampire Rising.
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