On the Futility of Understanding Little Johnny

Posted on June 4th, 2018 by Adam-Troy Castro

Little Johnny has a birthday party.

Everybody makes a big fuss about him. Everybody gives him presents. His parents book a clown. It is his best day ever.

Little Suzy has a birthday party.

All the same things happen to her, and this perturbs little Johnny quite a bit. It’s not fair! Where is the fuss that should be paid to him? Where are the presents that should be given to him? He throws a tantrum, upends the cake, throws Suzy’s presents in the pool.

Little Suzy is taking over the concept of birthday parties!

Little Johnny loved when the privilege was his. He thinks he loses when the privilege is hers. The premise that if he didn’t start banging his fist on the floor when Suzy gets the same thing, he would enjoy *two* days and not be so angry all the time, is lost on him. He wants the presents on both days.

To Johnny’s reasoning, if Suzie gets a toy, that is one less toy for him.

Ipso facto: Suzy is taking his toy.

Most of us outgrow this kind of reasoning, as far as birthday parties are concerned, by the time we hit age 7.

Many of us never do outgrow it.

Some of us get angrier.

“Fine,” Suzy says, eventually, when she’s more than sick of Johnny throwing her gifts in the pool every year. “If you get so mad when I get a birthday party, then to hell with you; I won’t invite you.”

Johnny pounds his fist on the floor again. No, no, no, NO! She’s being unfair! She’s the hater, not him! She needs to apologize!

And then learned adults pontificate that Johnny misbehaves because Johnny needs to be understood; we need to see where Johnny is coming from. We need to spend more time being sympathetic to kids like

Johnny, kids who feel threatened whenever gifts are accrued to anybody else.

That, we’re told, will stop Johnny from throwing rocks at her, drawing insulting pictures of her, recruiting kids of like mind to join the gang that hates Suzy and presents a physical threat to her.

That, we’re told, will keep Johnny from acting up.

You are considered insensitive if you say you understand Johnny just fine.

You understand that Johnny’s a goddamned miserable brat.

Tags: Assholes, Life Wisdom, Politics, Race | Category Commentary, Life Wisdom, Politics, Sneaky Metaphors

On Nailing A Character With A Reference to Pancakes

Posted on May 27th, 2018 by Adam-Troy Castro

Mark Twain, who knew whereof he spoke, wrote that the difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning-bug.

This is true, and it’s even more so with dialogue.

You can get across what a character would say, and tell your story.

Or you can, every once in a while, nail what a character would say.

Lying awake in the wee hours last night, I happened to find myself thinking of a minor line of dialogue from a great film, that absolutely nailed it. The nuance might have been introduced by the actor. I don’t know. But I prefer to think that the writer/directors, past and future masters of nailed dialogue, had this down in the screenplay.

The movie is FARGO.

And the scene takes place while the two hired kidnappers played by Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare are driving to their job. The two are recent acquaintances. We will discover that both are cruel men, and stone killers. Buscemi’s character is, however, a lowlife of one kind, and Stormare’s is a lowlife of an entirely different dimension. Honestly. Buscemi’s a killer. Stormare is a reptile, a snake, a guy who barely expends any energy even to interact with others, and only seems to come to life when homicide becomes expedient. Buscemi’s character doesn’t quite know what species of animal he’s dealing with, which will ultimately be, ah, unfortunate for him.

But in those early scenes, it’s just two thugs in a car that’s been stolen for them: Buscemi the motormouth, Stormare the dead-eyed object of his monologues, whose only expression is an occasional offended glare that Buscemi’s character really should pay more attention to. (This is a guy whose only emotion is offense, and you don’t want to give him offense.)

So we get the moment I’m talking about, the one familiar to anyone who’s ever been on a long drive across multiple states, when the driver asks the guy riding shotgun if he has any dining preferences.

Stormare says, “Pancakes. House.”

He could have said, “The Pancake House.” He could have said “A Pancake House.” He could have said “IHOP.” He could have said, “Whatever.”

He could have said, “Waaal, you know what, boss, I got me a hankering for pancakes.”

All, except possibly the last example, would have served the purposes of the story. You would have gotten to the next line and been perfectly satisfied with the narrative.

Instead, he says,

“Pancakes. House.”

Which you learn in a second is the same place they’ve already eaten, earlier that very day.

This is the lightning bolt, folks. Honestly is. It’s the phrasing of a toddler, for one thing, and it’s delivered haltingly, as if this guy is honestly not used to holding up his half of a conversation, even in answer to direct questions. He’s a moron. The sudden offended, dangerous glare he gives the oblivious Buscemi character’s objection to this choice establishes that he is quick to anger for even insignificant causes, and we know, boom, more than we would if he’d erupted with a flurry of profanity, that this guy is a coiled spring. A dangerous moron. (We subsequently learn that his only intelligence is reserved for killing.) You might know that Buscemi’s character is doomed, from that moment.

But it’s “Pancakes. House.” that tells us everything.

Honestly, the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug.

You get a line that on the nose, you have gold.

Tags: Coen Brothers, Fargo, Mark Twain, Movies, Peter Stormare, Steve Buscemi, writing | Category Movies, Mystery, Writing

Read This: “Better You Believe”

Posted on May 26th, 2018 by Adam-Troy Castro

Today’s short story you absolutely ABSOLUTELY ABSOLUTELY have to read:

“Better You Believe,” by Carole Johnstone, first published in HORROR LIBRARY VOLUME 6, author and publication both previously unknown to me. It is the opening story of Ellen Datlow’s THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR VOL 10, first tale I’ve read in that collection.

The narrator is a mountain climber on an expedition descending Annapurna, one of the 8K peaks and a mountain with a much higher casualty rate than Everest. (“The summit to death ratio on Everest is one in twenty-six. On Annapurna, it’s one in three.”)

As happens in every mountain climbing story, things go poorly. You know that. You know that, if for no other reason, because this is a horror collection. But rarely have I read a take that so perfectly captured the worsening conditions, the growing despair, the constant calculation of diminishing odds, the cold, and so on, in language this persuasive, this compelling and sensual.

It reads like a horrific mainstream story. It becomes easier to classify as a genre work in its last few pages. But you know what? It makes that crossing in a manner so gorgeous, so gasp-inducing, so belatedly correct, that I urge even the horror-averse — and many of my friends are nothing if not horror-averse — to take the leap.

Honestly. Sometimes I praise horror with the subtext that this recommendation is only for horror fans. Sometimes I am addressing the rest of the resistant crowd, the ones who say NO NO NO I WON’T LOOK, to whom I must stress, “This isn’t what you picture. This is transcendent.” As I recently had cause to say out loud, among friends exercising the same reticence toward another horror iteration, I want to reach the point where you can feel safe in trusting me. This…is jaw-droppingly beautiful. This is a jewel. This is something you need to see. If you need to just pluck it off the shelf at your bookseller and read it in a brightly-lit and warm room, over coffee, then do that. TRUST ME.

Tags: Carol Johnstone, Ellen Datlow, horror | Category Horror, Writing