Flatrock, Texas: Writing Samples

[Rich M.]

Three samples are posted below:

• Chapter 1 introduces Tom Preston, the protagonist, and foreshadows the primary conflict.
• Chapter 17 shares inner dialogue of Ray Whelan, the antagonist.
• An excerpt from Chapter 26 includes dialogue between Ray and David, a young man Ray hired to replace Quentin (the dealer he murdered).

Chapter 1
Digging a grave was a hell of a lot harder than Tom expected. After nearly an hour of spading through hard earth and snarls of thick, knotted roots, the hole looked barely two feet deep. He climbed out to assess his work, his hands blistered and bleeding, then tossed the shovel back into the grave and hurried to his car to retrieve the body.

Opening the trunk, Tom wrapped his hands around Quentin’s ankles and began tugging, the head glancing off the car’s rusted bumper as the body dropped to the ground. Some of Quentin’s intestines began bulging through his abdomen, and Tom turned his head to try and avoid the terrible stench. After a few minutes of dragging and stumbling and tripping and falling, he arrived back at the grave and jumped down, his boot landing on the shovel’s head and flipping the handle into his face.

Tom grimaced at the pain and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, his clothes soaked in sweat. Could things get any worse? He felt his lower lip ballooning with blood and already knew the answer. Tom needed to quickly bury Quentin’s body and then get back home in time to clean up, drive to school, and hopefully ace his trigonometry test. The better his grades, the better his chances of at least some kind of college scholarship, and the better his odds of finally…finally putting Flatrock in his rearview mirror.

With a grunt, Tom pulled Quentin’s remains down into the grave and thought about his sister Tabitha – a horrible judge of character and a total screwup – and still his little sister. And Quentin – he didn’t know yet what Quentin did to deserve this, but always pegged him as an irredeemable loser with a nose for trouble, and someone his sister should avoid at all costs. Trying to convince Tabitha of this was a constant, exhausting, and fruitless endeavor for Tom, and so Tabitha and Quentin were an item, at least until last night, when Tabitha came to Tom in a complete panic begging for help. And so here he was, burying his very first body, and not doing such a great job of it.

Tom tried to arrange Quentin’s remains like they did in the movies, positioning him on his back and crossing his arms over his chest, but the short grave forced Quentin’s head and feet to stick out on opposite sides. Too tired to keep digging, Tom turned Quentin’s body sideways and scrunched it in the fetal position, brownish-grayish intestines protruding onto the dirt.

A light breeze set upon the woods, rustling through its canopy and fluttering hundreds of almond-shaped live oak leaves to the ground. A sharp snapping noise startled Tom, and he slowly took a deep breath and held it, feeling a thousand menacing eyes peering at him from somewhere deep in the woods. Right before his lungs exploded the breeze abated, the quietness returned, and Tom exhaled, his muscles tighter and tenser than the cables on a suspension bridge.

He finished arranging Quentin’s body and quickly began shoveling heaps of dirt back into the hole. As the body disappeared from view, Tom began to relax just the tiniest bit. Yet another family disaster averted – at least for now. Twenty minutes later he finished filling the grave and tamped the dirt down with the shovel’s head, then randomly scattered a few sticks and leaves and rocks on top.

There.

Camouflaged well enough, and unlikely to attract notice if someone happened to casually pass by. A dark purplish hue appeared above the hills as dawn began to arrive, and Tom knew he needed to hurry to get to school on time. He walked back to the road, tossed the shovel into the trunk, and then got behind the wheel, knocked three times on the faux wood dashboard, and crossed his fingers. It worked, the engine sputtering to life after several fast pumps on the accelerator and a long turn of the key.

The car’s headlights penetrated through the woods, making Tom feel unbelievably conspicuous. Hey everybody. Yes, it’s me, Tom Preston. And yes, I just finished burying Quentin Jones back there.

But there was actually no one for miles around, and only a few folks were even beginning to stir back in town. A couple of early risers who liked to sit on their porches with a cup of coffee and watch the night disappear. And one or two elderly insomniacs who never really slept anyway. And Deputy Cliff Bottoms, who worked the graveyard shift and was just waking up from his nap in the backseat of his cruiser out by the old county dump.

Something was watching Tom, though.

A bone thin coyote, its skin scaly from mange, large patches of her emaciated body denuded of fur. She was standing behind a tree, head slung low, yellow eyes focused on Tom as he went about his work. Saliva dripped from a swollen tongue, and her nose flared as she smelled the fear in Tom’s sweat, the wet earth and grubs and fungi disinterred by the digging, and the flakes of steel shedded by the shovel when it sparked against tiny pieces of limestone. None of those smells, however, interested the coyote much. Once the gasoline-soaked fumes from Tom’s departing car dissipated, once the woods were quiet and still again, the coyote slinked cautiously towards the grave.

Chapter 18
Ray stared up at the bedroom ceiling, his hands interlocked behind his head, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Saturday mornings were meaningless to him. Ever since he engineered his slip and fall, every day was a Saturday. Or a Sunday. Or a Wednesday. Or a whatever. Just another day to lay around and let things unfold however they might.

He thought about his wife, who was probably at the motel and getting ready for her job, a mind-numbing affair of making beds, scrubbing toilets, vacuuming carpets, and doing massive, industrial-sized loads of laundry. Over and over and over again. And if she cleans the motel rooms like she keeps house, Ray thought to himself, there’s a good chance she’ll be out of a job soon. Ray took a drag from his cigarette and made a mental note to upbraid her about her housework. He’d had to do his own laundry a couple of times recently, pretty much take over taking out the garbage, and more than once had to remove his wife’s hair from the shower drain. Not exactly his idea of marital bliss.

It wasn’t too long ago that Ray had thought about helping her architect her own slip and fall. Make it so they could both collect disability checks, live a life of leisure, smoke cigarettes in bed on a Saturday morning. Maybe buy a television for the bedroom. But their marriage had cooled recently. Actually, it had more than just cooled, and Ray kind of liked that she wasn’t around much. She had been increasingly eager to match Ray’s leisurely lifestyle, but Ray had started to talk about how it might look kind of suspicious, how it might create questions about his own accident. After a while she finally figured out Ray wasn’t going to help and stopped pestering him. Plus, Ray had struck up a little bit of a relationship with the woman who managed his physical therapy. Nothing serious yet, but Ray could tell it might lead somewhere. The last thing he needed was his wife to become a patient of hers and ruin the whole thing.

A glowing ash plopped off the end of Ray’s cigarette and onto his chest, and he quickly punted it away with his forefinger, sending a shower of tiny embers to burn parts of the bedspread. He thought about last night, about how Tom had seemed so nervous. So…pathetic. Ray remembered the first time he killed someone. He had figured the whole world would find out. That it already knew. That it was just a matter of time before his life was ripped apart.

But that never happened. No one ever found the body, no one ever questioned Ray, and Ray’s life marched along without even the tiniest of consequences. And this had given Ray perspective. Opened the door to the ultimate method of dealing with people problems. Easy, inexpensive, and 100% effective.

Ray looked over at a pair of pants he had tossed on a chair in the corner of the bedroom, socks sticking out from each pant leg from when he had peeled everything off at once. Not having a job meant Ray wasn’t particularly fixated on time, but he was pretty sure the pants and socks combo had been crumpled there for several days at least. Ray added it to his mental notes as an example of his wife’s poor housekeeping.

The bedroom’s single window was very narrow, the relatively small aperture an effort to keep the Texas sun from roasting the house’s inhabitants. It also had the effect of reminding Ray of one of his old prison cells. Ray thought about his first stint, and the monotony. How the sunlight would come in through the window, and how he didn’t even care what was out there, didn’t once try to look outside. And the dangerous people in prison, of which it turned out he was one of. He had been good at prison, it there was such a thing. Kind of like the soldiers who got the Medal of Honor, or whatever that award was called. They got shot at, but they were a whole hell of a lot better at shooting back.

A kid like Tom would never make it. Ray thought about the younger prisoners, how they had to quickly make a name for themselves, or else end up paying an extremely high price for protection. How they became pets. He remembered one young man – a boy, really – who had killed some newlyweds in a drunk driving accident, and how he came under the protection of an older group of hardened homosexuals, and how he eventually tried to kill himself. Ray had chosen to make a name for himself, and quickly did a damn good job of it. There was simply no way the alternative would have been acceptable. He took another deep drag from his cigarette and puffed out tiny balls of smoke through his nostrils.

It was quiet in the house, and Ray lit another cigarette from the one he just finished. He contemplated the situation. If it came to it, Tom would take the fall. He would do anything to protect his kid sister. And Tabitha? Tabitha would do exactly what Ray told her to do. She was smitten with Ray, and Ray would continue to nurture those feelings as long as he needed to. Whatever the case, there was no way Ray was going back to prison. No way Quentin’s death was coming back on him.

Chapter 27 Excerpt
Suddenly, Ray reached into his jacket and retrieved an enormous semi-automatic pistol, placing it emphatically on the desk. David emitted an audible gasp as Ray gauged his reaction.

“Is that real?” David asked, realizing he didn’t know much about firearms.

“This?” Ray asked facetiously, pointing his finger at the pistol. Ray picked it up, cocked the hammer, and pressed the end of the barrel right between David’s eyes.

“It’s very real, David,” Ray continued, again pronouncing David’s name in a way David perceived as belittling, a slight that didn’t seem so important to David anymore. “And so are the bullets in it, and so is what will happen if you screw me, David.” David began to feel himself urinating, the liquid soaking through his pants and then pooling on the floor.

“Believe it or not, David, pissing yourself is very common in these types of situations,” Ray said calmly, as though he were diagnosing a clinical condition. With a clicking noise Ray returned the hammer to its resting position and removed the gun from David’s face. David continued to involuntarily urinate until his bladder completely emptied, and he felt neutered and ashamed.

“Do you know what the good news is, David?” Ray asked. David shook his head no, and could feel tears welling up in his eyes as Ray continued. “The good news is that this can be a very, very fruitful relationship, David. We can both make a lot of money.” David nodded his head vigorously. Making money was good, and he wanted Ray to know just how appreciative he felt.

“And do you know the other piece of good news, David?” Ray asked. David again shook his head no, and could feel his hips and upper legs soaked in urine and starting to cool. “The other good news is that if you don’t screw me, David. If you don’t steal from me. If you don’t lie to me. I won’t kill you.”

David nodded his appreciation, and bleated out a series of unmanly noises. After hearing from Deputy Alberto about what happened to Quentin, he briefly wondered exactly what he might be getting himself into, but he kept picturing Quentin tapping the big roll of bills on the counter, and he kept thinking about getting rid of his bike and rolling into work in a car, and he was so jealous of Farzad’s amazing life, and he knew he would never, ever climb the ladder a single rung if all he did was slave behind the sandwich counter the rest of his life.

Ray slid a box of tissues across the desk to David, stood up, and placed the enormous pistol back in its holster. He then shared additional details David needed to know, like how much to charge customers, how to deal with people who wanted pills but didn’t have the money, and helpful tips on how to avoid suspicion. Finally, Ray pulled a plain manila envelope bulging with drugs from inside his jacket and placed it on the desk.

“Again, it’s very simple David. When it’s empty, you page me,” Ray said, tapping on the manila envelope. “We meet, you give me the money, and if everything’s in order, I pay you. And then I give you another envelope of pills. Rinse and repeat, David. Rinse and repeat.”