Merry Christmas at WalMart

"Merry Christmas," the guy says.

He's wearing camoflauge pants, a Ghostbusters t-shirt and a stringy beard. He's wearing mirrored sunglasses. Inside Wal-Mart.

"Merry Christmas to you." I go back to look at the beer. He's in the wine section. I'm thinking of getting--

"How you doing?" he asks.

"Good. How are you?"

"Doing just fine, buddy. How are you?"

Okay. I just answered that, but okay. "I fine."

"How's your mother?" he asks.

Okay, this is where it starts going off the tracks. I don't know this guy. If I did, he wouldn't know my mother. And she's doing fine, always has been, so there would never be any reason to ask. But I'm in Wal-Mart. Maybe he's looking for a friend. I'm looking for milk and beer.

"She's good," I say. "You have yourself a Merry Christmas, all right, my friend?"

He says, with a smile, "Hey, you, too. Buddy."

And then he comes in for it. He's an isle away, but he comes with his arms out. He's coming hard and I'm cornered between packages of Budweiser and Miller Lite. I'm about to get shanked in Wal-Mart. But he wraps his arms around me, he says, "You have a Merry Christmas, buddy."

I give him a pat on the back. There are no cameras. No one watching. Just one guy hugging another in the beer isle of Wal-Mart. Because it's Christmas.

It's Christmas, buddy. Relax.

He's Not Real. There, I Said It. (Sort of)

Blasphemy.

I couldn't even say it in the title, just in case some little kid accidentally saw it. I didn't want to scar him. But I'll say it now.

Santa's not real.

Me (circa. 1970). Opening a present from "Santa".

I grew up like most American kids, writing letters to the fat man, hoping he'd look past all my transgressions and bring me that GI Joe with the kung-fu grip. I watched all the Christmas movies that made adults look like buffoons because they didn't believe and I sang songs about magic reindeer and put out cookies and came down Christmas morning to see nothing but crumbs. And under the tree, the payoff was wrapped in ribbon.

GI Joe... kung-fu gripping.

But then a neighbor's dad spilled the beans. I was 9. (I think. God, I hope I wasn't 15.) I confronted my parents and they came clean.

Yep. Santa, he's not real. We've been lying aaaalllll this time.

I think this is the part where most well-adjusted kids just go with the flow. After all, we were getting presents from Santa, who cares if he's imaginary. Who cares if we were told 1 million times that we just have to believe he's real and he'll be real. Because if we don't believe, well then it sucks to be you.

Who cares if we got punished for lying about who broke the window and we got grounded for losing our grade cards when we really lit them on fire and we got disciplined for making up a story about why we were late for dinner (something about a flat tire and a hobo). Who cares that we'd end up on the naughty list for all that lying and we'd get coal in our stocking for all that lying and we could wave goodbye to GI JOE AND HIS GODDAMN KUNG-FU GRIP.

Who cares, right?

Falling in the Plot Hole

I was asked why I write fiction.

After all, I don't make much money. Few people read it. Seems like a waste of time. All valid points. Years ago, I didn't have a good answer. I enjoy it, sure. I secretly wish to make millions, okay.

Here's another: It's a challenge.

It's like solving an intricate puzzle, piecing together a mystery or discovering something new, something that's never been done. It's not as easy as it sounds.

Here's why. You start with a set of characters. They need to be consistent and they need to grow. There needs to be a plot, one that's compelling. And, most importantly, it needs to mean something. I mean, Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water... doesn't do it. Strive for something that impacts your reader with an ending they didn't see coming three pages into the story.



My latest endeavor, The Identity Thief, just collapsed only 40 pages from the end. When you're 70,000 words into the work, you'll do anything to avoid seeing the plot holes. But the characters were inconsistent and their actions unbelievable. It might be something as simple as why the character just didn't lock the door.

Here's an example of what I mean. The Maze Runner, a very popular YA science fiction novel, ended with one of the characters jumping in front of a knife to save another character. I realize that all fiction requires, to some extent, suspension of disbelief... but jumping in front of a knife?

Plot hole. It'll swallow the entire story.



So The Identity Thief will require a new foundation. It needs to be reexamined and built anew. So that when I'm finished, I've got the satisfaction of building something worthwhile.

Face to Face.

I had my eyes molested.

It happened during an eye exam. The office was small, located in a strip mall. The room was in the back. The doctor looked to be about 70. He was nice enough, explained things thoroughly, wrote everything down. I felt pretty good that he knew what he was doing, despite the elephant skin.

Then he gets to the end of the exam. He has to look inside my eyeballs. He holds up a bright light and begins to lean in. He smells like a leather couch. A clean couch, but an old one. He's breathing loud and he leans in some more. Then he leans in some more.

Then some more.

Until the back of his hand is pressed against my cheek. The only thing separating his face from mine are his leather couch fingers.

Let me recap. I'm in a dark room in the back of a strip mall with an old man pushing his face against mine.

"No glaucoma in there," he finally announces.

What a relief.

Rat. Die now.

Beauty wins.

There's a former student of mine that's been described as hunky by every single woman in the world. When we walk through conventions, females of every age, race and creed turn and look. It's the fox and lion. I'm the fox.

So this is what it feels like to be beautiful. 

Recently, there was scratching in our attic. In the Lowcountry, that means rat or squirrel. The easiest way to get rid of one is baiting. But then they stink up the house for a week. And if it's a possum you just gassed, you may as well move.

I trapped the bugger. It's a rat and he's hopping mad. I don't care if he dies because he's got the gross tail and the hair is black and coarse and just blech. Then I realize the main difference between him and my daughter's hamster is the tail.

Hamster: cute and cuddly.

Rat: ugly and disgusting. Die now.

I once heard Donald Trump congratulate a contestant on his Apprentice show for being beautiful. In fact, he said she was beautiful, smart, successful and beautiful. Seemed rather stupid.

Hey, way to go! You're hot! Good work!

My daughter made me promise not to kill the rat so I let the revolting thing go in the woods. Hey, the owls got to eat, too. May as well let them eat the ugly rats. Not the gorgeous hamsters.

Apes. Not Monkeys.

Summerville, South Carolina is home to a semi-clandestine sanctuary, The International Primate Protection League (http://www.ippl.org/)

To you and me, they're monkeys. But since gibbons don't have tails, technically they're apes. Regardless, they swing effortlessly from thick ropes never once missing.

It's not open to the public. Fortunately, we know someone that knows someone. On more than one occasion, we've walked the whoop-whoop grounds beneath the tunneled cages. Every gibbon on the property has been rescued for one reason or another and supported by donations from around the world.

They are paired in large cages, male and female. Some are charming, others not so much. These seemingly diminutive furballs are cute enough to cuddle with incisors long enough to eat your face. They'll reach through the bars and, on certain occasions, we can touch their soft pads.

Their gaze is intelligent. Reminds me we're not the only ones that think.

We're just more likely to get ourselves in a mess doing it.

Inside the Needle

I never planned on writing another novel. It's tedious, lonesome, and exhausting. Besides, I didn't have one to write. If you force it, add frustrating anger to the list.

A few years ago, I wrote a science fiction trilogy, The Socket Greeny Saga. It didn't make me famous or rich, but that wasn't the point. It was a character and a story that was inside my skull. Once they got out, I was tapped. There was nothing left to write.

Until the Needle appeared.



It started with a character, Danny Boy. Then another one, later to be named Reed. What was going to happen and what they were to discover unfolded rapidly. Two days later, I had outlined 25 chapters, beginning to end.

Most of my writing occurs in my head, unfolding on its own. I just need to make space. My wife and kids tell me I get the 1000-mile stare. And then I'm lost on the keyboard for hours at a time, but I remember something Stephen King once said: the writer's desk shouldn't be in the center of the room. That's for family. For life.



But now I've a story. It might take two months or a year to complete, but there's no hurry. It won't pay the bills, but it'll look something like this:

Inside the Needle

by Tony Bertauski