Bad reviews: They don’t matter. Really they don’t. I’m sure they don’t.

Posted on November 25, 2012 by Richard Bowker

One of my rules for writing, now cast in stone, is that you should get people to read your stuff. But of course this applies before you have unleashed your creation upon the entire world. After that, you don’t have much choice. People will read your creation, or not. They’ll like it, or they won’t. And nowadays, they are happy to tell you what they think.

This is a new phenomenon. I have received a couple of fan letters in my life, and there have been a number of reviews (almost all favorable), but mostly I haven’t heard anything from anyone about what I’ve written. But now I’m up to 17 customer reviews of Senator on Amazon, there are several on iTunes, and there are probably some others lurking out there. My other books have also had a few reviews. And, strangely, not every review is entirely positive. I quoted from a really positive review of Senator a while back. Now, in the interest of equal time, let’s take a look at a couple of two-star Kindle reviews (no one-star reviews yet!). This one is titled “boring,” and the semicolon is there in the original:

I stopped after 50 pages, the book was too predictable. Nothing much new here. It was not esp;ecially well written or exciting.

And this person disliked the book so much he needed to tell the world in ALL CAPS:

THE BOOK IS VERY SLOW AND DOESN’T ACHIEVE THE STATUS OF THRILLER; IN OCCASIONS CHARACTERS DON’T HAVE A SPEC OF NOTION ABOUT THEIR INTERRELATION WITH THE OTHER CHARACTERS.

Of course, my initial reaction is to argue with these fine folks: my characters do too have a spec of notion about their interrrelation with the other characters. That’s what the friggin’ book is all about, darn it to heck.

But that way madness lies. It helps that far better novels than mine have gotten worse reviews than these. But ultimately, great writers or not, we should all follow the advice of the immortal Rick Nelson: You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.

Portal, an online novel: Chapter 8

Posted on November 24, 2012 by Richard Bowker

Kevin and Larry have put in a hard day’s work as they wait to see if anyone wants to talk to them about Kevin’s watch. And, finally, someone does . . .

Catch up with the previous chapters by clicking on “Portal” up there on the menu, underneath the funny-looking header image.

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Chapter 8

The lieutenant gestured for us to sit. Colonel Clarett outranked him, I guess, but the lieutenant sure looked more like an officer. He was young and handsome, and his red jacket and black pants were spotless and unwrinkled, despite the heat. The colonel’s office was a mess, with papers stacked everywhere and five or six long pipes lying in a jumble on his desk next to an oil lamp. Like the rest of the barracks, the room stank of tobacco smoke. The lieutenant stared at us for a few seconds, and he seemed to take in everything about us–what we were wearing, how we sat–everything. Then he sat down, too.

“My name is Carmody,” he said. “Lieutenant William Carmody. And to whom have I the honor of speaking?”

We managed to tell him our names.

“Pleased to meet you.” His accent was more cultured-sounding than the colonel’s or any of the other soldiers we had met. It wasn’t quite British, but it was, well, different–sort of like those actors in old-time movies. He pronounced “lieutenant” in the British way: “leftenant.”

He cleared a space on the desk–he didn’t look pleased to have to touch the colonel’s pipes–and then he took a blue cloth out of one of his pockets. He unwrapped the cloth and took Kevin’s watch out of it. He laid the watch carefully on the desk. “And this remarkable device belongs to–?”

“It’s mine,” Kevin said.

“And you obtained it where?”

Kevin glanced at me. “Well, that’s a long story,” he said.

Lieutenant Carmody shrugged. “I’m in no hurry.”

Kevin and I hadn’t really talked about this. Should we tell the truth about where we’d come from? That was the whole point of Kevin’s plan. But now that the time had come, it didn’t seem like that great an idea. No one was going to believe us–least of all this guy, with his icy stare.

But what else could we do?

“We’re not from here,” I said. “Not from . . . this world.”

“This world,” Lieutenant Carmody repeated, as if to make sure he had heard correctly.

I wasn’t going to be able to do it. I looked back at Kevin. This was his idea. He didn’t look any more eager to tell the story than me, but he did. “See, it’s like this,” he said. “I know it’s going to sound crazy, but: There are lots of universes. This is just one of them. We come from a different universe–it’s kind of the same, but not exactly. There’s a Boston in it, there’s a Canada, and so on, but there’s no United States of New England. And our science is way more advanced than yours. By accident we stepped into this, uh, this thing that brought us to your universe. Like a portal, a gateway between universes. This happened yesterday, in Glanbury–our version of Glanbury. Anyway, now we’re stuck here because we can’t get back to Glanbury, because of the war and all. So the watch–it was just something I was wearing when this happened. In our world it’s no big deal, something even a kid would wear. But here it seems pretty important, so we thought we’d, you know, show it to people.”

Kevin fell silent. I thought he did a pretty good job, but Lieutenant Carmody hadn’t changed expression. I couldn’t tell if he thought we were insane, or what. He picked up what looked like a long pencil and made a few notes on an unlined, yellowish sheet of paper. I could hear a clock ticking in the silence. A bead of sweat fell down my face, but I didn’t wipe it away.

“What’s a ‘kid’?” he asked finally.

“It’s, you know, a child,” Kevin said. “Someone who isn’t an adult. That’s a word—you know, back home.”

“Your accent is rather strange. That’s how you speak, wherever it is you come from?”

Kevin nodded. “It’s the same language, just a little different. Like everything else.”

He gestured at our clothes. “And those strange garments–that’s what you wear . . . ?”

“We just happened to have these clothes on when we went through the portal,” Kevin said. “It’s all an accident, see. We don’t want to be here. We just want to go home.”

There were tears in Kevin’s eyes now, but the lieutenant didn’t seem to be moved. “Let’s try again,” he said. “You found this thing or stole it. The question is where, or from whom.”

“No, we didn’t,” I protested. “What Kevin said is true.”

“You’re stowaways or cabin-boys on a ship that managed to run the blockade,” he said. “Where is that ship now? Where did it sail from? China?”

“No, sir,” I repeated. “I’ve never been on a ship in my life.”

“This so-called portal–it’s in Glanbury, you say? Did anyone see you come out of it?”

“No–well, there were some Portuguese soldiers who started shooting at us. A family picked us up on the road afterwards.”

“Their name?”

I tried to remember–they had given it to the guard at the city gate. “Harper, I think. Samuel and Martha Harper.”

He made another note. “And are they in the Fens camp?”

I shook my head. “They’re staying with his brother somewhere in the city.”

“And have you told this story to the Harpers or any of the soldiers here?”

“No. We figured no one would believe us.”

“A reasonable assumption. And a prudent course of action. There are those willing to see the hand of the devil in everything, especially in these dark days.” He fell silent again and stared at us some more. Then he said, “Tell me more about this world you claim to live in.”

That perked Kevin up. He started talking about cars and computers and airplanes and telephones, all the stuff we took for granted back home. And he mentioned bombs and missiles and grenades, too.

The lieutenant didn’t interrupt, and his expression never changed. He jotted down a few notes, especially when Kevin talked about weapons. When Kevin ran out of steam, he spoke again. “Do you know how to manufacture one of these?” he asked, pointing to the watch.

“Well, no, of course not,” Kevin said. “We just buy them. Big companies make them.”

“You’re only a kid,” the lieutenant said.

“Right.”

“What about the theory behind it? Do you understand how it works?”

“Not exactly. Maybe a little bit.”

“What about ‘telephones’ or those flying machines–what did you call them?”

“Airplanes.”

“Airplanes. Can you explain how they work?”

“Not really,” Kevin admitted.

The lieutenant looked at me, and I shook my head.

“If we managed to return you to this ‘portal,'” he went on, “could you obtain more of these ciphering machines? Or could you bring us back ‘rocket-propelled grenades’ or ‘submachine guns’ or the like?”

Kevin shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I mean, we’re not even sure we can get back home through the portal. If we do get back, I don’t know if we can return here. The portal isn’t really part of our world–it’s not like airplanes and stuff. We don’t know have any idea what it is or how it works–maybe it’s from some other universe.”

Lieutenant Carmody sat back in his chair suddenly and put his pencil down, as if we had tired him out. He pressed his palms together and held them in front of his chin. “What is it that you want me to do with you?” he asked quietly.

“Well, we figured we might be able to help,” Kevin said. “You know, with the war.”

“How, exactly?”

“Maybe we know stuff you can use.”

“Enlighten me. What ‘stuff’ do you know that can help us win the war?”

Kevin looked at me for help. I didn’t know what to say. “Stuff about science,” he said, kind of desperately. “Stuff about the way the world works that you don’t understand yet. I don’t know exactly what, but if we think about it, maybe we can come up with something, okay? I mean, what have you got to lose?”

Lieutenant Carmody stared at him. “What do you mean, ‘okay’?” he asked finally.

For some reason that was too much for Kevin. He started to cry.

“‘All right,'” I whispered. “It means, ‘all right.'” I put my hand on Kevin’s shoulder.

The lieutenant lowered his hands to the desk and waited for Kevin to calm down. Then he said, “Let’s go for a ride, shall we?”

We left Colonel Clarett’s office. Outside the barracks was a fancy-looking carriage, the closed-in kind, with actual windows. A soldier standing next to it saluted Lieutenant Carmody and opened the door for him. “Back to headquarters, Peter,” the lieutenant said.

The three of us climbed inside, and Peter got up front to drive. I wanted to ask what was going to happen next, but the lieutenant didn’t look like he wanted to talk. Kevin still seemed pretty depressed. He just stared out the window as we made our way through Cheapside, then back downtown, where we saw more traffic and beggars and men wearing round hats and capes. We went along the waterfront, where I could make out the masts of ships in the harbor and along the docks. Finally we stopped at a large gate, and the soldiers guarding it quickly opened it for us. We went through it into a broad courtyard with big brick buildings on all sides. We came to a stop in front of the building at the far end of the courtyard.

Peter opened the door for us again, while a kid our age came up and took the reins of the horses. Lieutenant Carmody got out, and we followed him inside the building. Soldiers standing guard at the entrance saluted as he walked past them.

Inside the building was a large hall with paintings of soldiers hung on the walls and a big flag in the center–blue, white, and red vertical stripes. The flag of New England, I guessed. We went quickly through the hall and along a corridor. Finally the lieutenant stopped and knocked on a door. “Carmody,” he called out in a loud voice.

“Come,” replied a voice from inside.

He opened the door, and we saw a large, dark room, with a high ceiling and big draperies covering the windows. Like every room in this world, it stank of smoke. A gray-haired soldier sat behind a big desk, chewing on an unlit cigar and looking at a map. The lieutenant saluted, and the man gave a half-wave in return. His uniform was unbuttoned, rumpled, and stained, but when he raised his eyes and stared at us I knew this guy wasn’t another Colonel Clarett; he was a general, and an important one. I figured he was the head of the whole army, and it turned out I was right.

I thought Lieutenant Carmody had a cold stare, but the general’s gaze was even harder and colder; it seemed to suck the breath right out of me. It made me want to run and hide. Kevin and I stood on the other side of the desk from him and waited.

“These are the ones?” he asked Lieutenant Carmody.

“Yes, sir.”

“Strange clothing too, eh? Let me see the thing again.” The lieutenant went over, took out the watch, unwrapped it, and handed it to him. The general squinted at it and punched in a few numbers. “Fascinating. But not much use to us, is it?”

“Might speed up artillery calculations.”

“That won’t win the war,” the general muttered. “And what’s their story? Where did they get the thing?”

The lieutenant took a long look at us. “Sir, they claim to have, er, arrived here accidentally from another world, similar to ours but much more advanced. On their world, this is simply an inexpensive timepiece that one of them happened to be wearing.”

He paused, and everyone was silent. “Of course. Yes,” the general said finally. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Lieutenant Carmody gave a few more details from Kevin’s story. At the end the general rolled his eyes. “And do you believe this tale, lieutenant?” he asked.

“Sir, I don’t know. But as we discussed, this object is far beyond our ability to manufacture. Or the ability of anyone else, for that matter, including the Chinese.”

“We knew that already, Lieutenant. I sent you to form an opinion. Are they telling the truth?”

For the first time Lieutenant Carmody looked uncomfortable. “It seems absurd, but . . . I can come up with no other satisfactory explanation. The accents, the clothes, the device . . . And the story itself. It’s a tale beyond the ability of mere boys to concoct. In my opinion.”

“Hmmph,” the general muttered. He returned his gaze to us. “What does the ‘B’ on that strange hat of yours stand for?” he asked Kevin suddenly.

“For–for Boston,” Kevin replied. He sounded as scared of the general as I felt. “It’s a baseball cap.”

“And what is ‘baseball’? Some sort of game?”

“Yes, sir. It’s a sport. Teams from different cities play it–Boston, New York . . . It’s like cricket, I think. Maybe you play cricket here?”

The general ignored Kevin’s question. “Sit, both of you,” he ordered. “Now, explain the rules of baseball. Tell me everything you know about it.”

I was grateful to be able to sit down. And Kevin looked really happy to be able to talk about baseball. “Well,” he said. “there are nine men on a side, and the field is set up with three bases and what you call home plate . . .” He went over the rules, then he started in on how the major leagues were set up and the history of the game. He explained how you figured out an earned run average and slugging percentage and stuff like that. It was really boring if you ask me, but the general paid close attention.

“Enough,” he ordered finally. “A strange game, indeed. I think it’s time for a drink, Lieutenant,” he said.

The lieutenant went to a cabinet and got a bottle out of it. He poured some dark brown liquid into a glass and handed it to the general, who gulped. “Feel free, Lieutenant,” he said, gesturing at the bottle, but Carmody shook his head.

The general poured more liquor into the glass. “Earned run average,” he muttered.

The rest of us waited.

“We are not mystics, Lieutenant,” he said. “We are not philosophers. We are soldiers. We do not always need to understand; but we do need to act.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If we don’t win this war,” he went on, “President Gardner may survive as a puppet of the Canadians and the New Portuguese, at least until they can figure out how to carve the nation up. You and I, Lieutenant, will most assuredly not survive. Can these boys help us win this war?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

The general eyed him. “Not the right answer,” he said.

“Sir, if we believe them, they’re too young to understand what they know about–airplanes, telephones, that sort of thing. But such things wouldn’t help us in any case. We don’t have the time or anything like the capability to reproduce them. But I have a suggestion.”

“Yes?”

“Send them to Alexander Palmer. Have him find out what they do understand, and whether we can take advantage of it.”

“Palmer? He thinks we’re all idiots.”

“Just the president, sir.”

“Well, he thinks the war is a disaster.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean he wants to lose it. Imagine if Harvard College were to be turned into the University of Southern Canada.”

The general poured himself another drink. “Airplanes,” he muttered. “Telephones. Wouldn’t it be nice? What do you imagine His Excellency would think of all this?”

“President Gardner would think it’s insane. It would give him an excuse to fire you if he found out you were wasting time on it.”

The general nodded. “Precisely. Palmer’s still over in Cambridge?”

“I believe so. Holding out till the last minute, I suppose. Rather stubborn.”

“Bring them to him. See if he’ll help. But for God’s sake keep it secret.”

“Yes, sir.”

The general pointed his cigar at us. “On-base percentage,” he said, as if he were accusing us of something. Then he picked up the watch and handed it back to Lieutenant Carmody.

The lieutenant led us out of the room–which was a good thing, because I was about to hurl from the stench and the tension. We walked quickly back out into the courtyard. The night had gotten cooler, thank goodness. “I’ll wager you lads are hungry,” he said. “Let’s see what we can find to eat.”

He was sure right about us being hungry. We followed him into another building across the courtyard, then through a door labeled “Officers’ Mess.” He roused a private who was dozing in a chair in the corner of the room, and in a few minutes we were served roast beef, bread, and milk by candlelight. The milk was pretty warm, but other than that the meal was fabulous.

“I believe General Aldridge likes you boys,” Lieutenant Carmody said as we ate. You could’ve fooled me. “I wasn’t at all sure how he’d react to your story.”

“Who’s Alexander Palmer?” Kevin asked.

“An old professor of mine from college. Often rather ill-tempered, but the smartest man I know. I think he’ll enjoy this challenge.”

“Are you going to take us to him now?” I asked.

“Rather late for that, I’m afraid. Let’s find you some accommodations here for the night and pay him a visit tomorrow.”

The building we were in also turned out to be the officers’ quarters. When we were finished eating, the lieutenant brought us to a tiny, hot room in the attic. There was nothing in it but a couple of thin mattresses on the floor, an oil lamp on a rickety table, and a chamber pot in the corner. “This is where our servants usually sleep,” he explained. “Except now they’re now on active service in the army, and we have to fend for ourselves. I’ll fetch you in the morning.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said.

He gave us a wave and left.

Kevin and I sat down on the mattresses. “A good meal and a better place to sleep,” he said. “Progress, huh?”

“Kevin, how are we going to help them win the war?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know, Larry. But we should be able to think of something.”

“What if we can’t?”

“I don’t know,” he repeated. And then he said, “I’m sorry, Larry. This is all my fault.”

That’s what I thought yesterday when we first ended up in this mess, but I remembered the way Kevin broke down earlier as Lieutenant Carmody gave him a hard time, and I changed my mind. “No, it’s not,” I said. “We both screwed up. Anyway, we’ll be okay.”

“Okay,” he said. “Funny how they don’t know that word. Anyway, I sure hope you’re right.” He stretched out on his mattress. “Good night, Larry.”

“Good night, Kevin.” I lay down on my mattress and closed my eyes. My muscles ached from all the lifting I’d done. It had been a long day. At home, they were probably still searching for us. Maybe they’d found the portal by now and were trying to figure it out. How many worlds would they have to visit before they discovered this one? How long would they keep looking?

Meanwhile, what was tomorrow going to bring for Kevin and me?

I fell asleep with my mind full of questions.

Writing is not fun!

Posted on November 20, 2012 by Richard Bowker

A friend points out that I idiotically stated in a recent post that writing is fun. Poking yourself in the eye with a pointed stick is fun, compared to writing.

Having written is what is fun. You just need to go through the terrifying excruciating writing part to get to the deeply satisfying having written part.

This blog regrets the error.

Philip Roth talks about writing and retiring

Quote

Posted on November 18, 2012 by Richard Bowker

In today‘s New York Times.

“I know I’m not going to write as well as I used to. I no longer have the stamina to endure the frustration. Writing is frustration — it’s daily frustration, not to mention humiliation. It’s just like baseball: you fail two-thirds of the time.” He went on: “I can’t face any more days when I write five pages and throw them away. I can’t do that anymore.”

Rules for writing: Rule 4 — Get people to read what you write

Posted on November 18, 2012 by Richard Bowker

Haven’t added one of these rules for writing lately. So here goes. As always, they are intended for people (like me) who aren’t good enough to break all the rules. And the numbers are pretty random.

So I’ve started a new novel, and I have sent the first two chapters off to my writing group, and a few days later I’m sitting in someone’s living room sipping a beer as they take out their copies of the manuscript to critique it. And I can feel the same old tension rising in me — heart beating a little faster — prepared to convince myself that, even if they don’t like it, I know it’s pretty good. Or, at least, not too bad. Or something. This ritual with my writing group has gone on for a long time now — since the Carter administration, actually. Or maybe it was the Harding administration — the administrations all kind of blur together after a while. And I still get nervous.

It’s even worse when someone starts reading over my shoulder as I work on something. That terrifies me. If the person offers any criticism, I’m full prepared to say: Well, it isn’t done yet. Just some random ideas. I’m probably not going to finish it. And I know that paragraph sucks. I was totally going to rewrite it. Really, I was.

Writing is fun. Being read is hard — even by people who know you. Especially by people who know you. But the best way to improve your work is by getting opinions about it and figuring out what to do about them.

Here are some characteristics of good readers:

They should know something about writing. It’s helpful to have someone say: “I dunno, it seems kinda long.” But it’s way more helpful to to hear this: “You should cut that conversations at the end of the chapter. The reader doesn’t need any of that information, and it doesn’t add to the characterization of the speakers.”
They should have some understanding of what you’re trying to do. There’s not much point in showing your epic fantasy novel to someone who has never read Tolkien and has no idea of the conventions you’re working with. They may not realize that cutting the elves is just not an option.
Most of all, they shouldn’t take your writing personally. Here’s the kind of conversation you want to avoid:

Girlfriend: “How come you break up with me in that story?”

You: “It’s a story. The characters are made up.”

Girlfriend: “Yeah? They broke up in a restaurant. We had a fight in a restaurant.”

You: “But the character is a redhead and you’re–“

Girlfriend: “You thought you could just change my hair color so I wouldn’t notice that she’s me, and you want to break up? How stupid do you think I am?”

Now, your girlfriend is probably right about everything, but she’s not helping you improve the story. And that, after all, is what matters.

Good readers are hard to find. I’ve been really lucky with my readers, ever since the Carter administration. Or maybe it was Truman. If you find some good readers, hold onto them. Hold onto your girlfriend, too, but keep her away from your fiction.

Portal, an online novel: Chapter 7

Posted on November 17, 2012 by Richard Bowker

Stuck in some kind of alternate universe with Boston under siege by the Portuguese and Canadians, Kevin and Larry found their way to the refugee camp in the Fenway. Then Kevin had the bright idea of showing his calculator/watch to the soldiers. That got them out of the crowded, dangerous camp, but instead they ended up in the brig — not much better! What will the new day bring them?

Earlier chapters are up there on the menu, under “Portal.”

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Chapter 7

When I woke up it was light out, and at first I had no clue where I was. Why wasn’t I looking at the Final Fantasy poster in my bedroom? How come I was so uncomfortable? What was that weird dream I’d had? Who was that huge man glaring at me from across the room?

Chester. All the memories of yesterday came flooding back. This wasn’t a dream.

I looked over at Kevin. He was still asleep.

“Boys,” Chester rumbled. “I don’t like boys.”

“Uh, hi,” I said.

Chester just shook his head and glared at me some more.

Benjamin must have heard us, because he unlocked the door and stuck his head in. “‘Morning, gents,” he said. “Chester, you may be excused. Go thou and sin no more.”

“I’m hungry,” Chester said.

Benjamin shook his head. “Not my problem, Chester. Now be off to the mess, before we become angry.”

Amazingly, Chester got to his feet, dusted off his dirty red jacket, glared at me one final time, and then obediently walked out of the brig.

Benjamin then turned his attention to Kevin and me. “Sleep well, lads?”

I nodded. Kevin had awakened and was rubbing his eyes sleepily.

“Did Sergeant Hornbeam say anything about what’s going to happen to us?” I asked.

“Sergeant Hornbeam is not with us at the moment. You’ll need to stay here until he sends instruction.”

“Any chance we could go to the mess?” I asked. “I’m pretty hungry.”

“Let me see what I can do,” Benjamin said, and he left, locking the door behind him.

Kevin sat up. “I dreamed that this was all a dream,” he said.

“Maybe we’ll wake up again, and you’ll be right.”

“Wouldn’t that be good.” He sighed. “I’ve gotta use that thing over there,” he said, pointing to the pot in the corner of the cell. I closed my eyes while Kevin did his business.

Were there any flush toilets in this world, I wondered. Did they have toothpaste? Hot showers?

Eventually Benjamin came back with a tray of food: cups of tea and bowls of, well, mush. It could have been oatmeal, but it didn’t have any milk or sugar, and it was all I could do to get a few spoonfuls down. I’d never drunk tea before, and that didn’t taste much better. When I had finished trying to eat, I was as hungry as when I started. Kevin had barely touched his food either. He was looking pretty glum.

After a while Benjamin came for the trays. “Porridge not to your liking?” he asked.

“Can we go outside?” Kevin asked back. “We won’t leave, I promise.”

Benjamin considered. “All right. It’s going to be hot–not a good day to spend in the brig. But stay right by the barracks.”

We followed him out of the cell. There were only a few soldiers in the barracks, plus an old man mopping the floor. We went outside. It did feel like it was going to be a hot day. No air conditioning, I thought. No fans. I looked around. None of the buildings had been painted, and there was lumber lying around on the ground. They had been put up in a hurry, I realized.

We sat down on some boards by the entrance to the barracks and watched the wagons go by, heading for the camp.

“Maybe now’s the time to leave,” Kevin said.

“You mean: go back to Glanbury?”

“Yeah. We could stay off the main road and hide from the Portuguese army. If we started now, we could probably make it by dark.”

“You think the New England soldiers’d let us out that gate we went through?”

Kevin thought for a second. “I don’t know. Anyway, there’s got to be a way around,” he decided. “They can’t fence in the whole city.”

“And you think the Portuguese army wouldn’t shoot us if they caught us?” I said. “Or at least treat us worse than this? You think we’re smart enough to find the portal without getting caught? It was your idea to do this thing with the watch, Kevin. Why don’t we just see what happens?”

He didn’t answer. “I wish I was in school,” he said.

“I wish I had a bowl of Frosted Flakes and a big glass of orange juice.”

We fell silent, and just sat there in the hot sun.

Eventually Caleb came by. “Morning, mates,” he said. “Anything happen yet with your ciphering machine?”

We shook our heads. “I hope Sergeant Hornbeam hasn’t forgotten about us,” Kevin said.

“No, no, he wouldn’t do that. He’s a busy man, though. We’re all busy, more’s the pity. Looks like the camp’ll fill up today. Have to open up another one somewhere. Never knew there was this many people in all of New England.”

“Is there some way we could talk to him?” Kevin asked.

“Oh, he’ll be around. Never worry, mates. Just enjoy the day.”

Then he went off, and we were left to ourselves again. Soldiers came and went. Most of them knew seemed to know about us and asked about the “ciphering machine.” A couple of them looked at us like we were going to put a curse on them. The sun got hotter. There was no sign of Sergeant Hornbeam.

Then a carriage pulled up in front of the barracks, and a fat officer got out. The soldiers guarding the entrance stood at attention and saluted. The officer was bald, with red cheeks and bushy gray eyebrows, and his uniform was soaked with sweat. When he saw us, he stopped. “Who the devil are you?” he demanded.

“We’re waiting for Sergeant Hornbeam, sir,” Kevin said. “He has a watch of mine that–”

“Oh, that nonsense. Just a gewgaw, if you ask me. Well, you can’t just sit around idly all day. There’s a war on, in case you haven’t noticed.” He turned to one of the soldiers. “Corporal–er?”

“Hennessy, sir.”

“Corporal Hennessy,” he repeated. “Find ’em something to do.” Then he went inside the barracks and started yelling at the soldiers there about shaping up and looking sharp, there was a war on.

Corporal Hennessy looked at us. “Colonel Clarett worries that we’ll forget we’re at war,” he said. “I think his concern is misplaced, don’t you? Anyway, let’s find you a chore.”

We got up and went with him. “Is Colonel Clarett in charge of the camp?” Kevin asked.

The corporal nodded. “And a nasty job it is, too. No matter what you do, someone’ll criticize you. Treat folks too well, you’re wasting food. Treat ’em too poorly, you’re starving good New England citizens. Let’s just hope this doesn’t last long.”

“He said our watch was nonsense,” Kevin went on. “Does that mean–”

“Means nothing, mate. I heard about that watch. Lucky for you Sergeant Hornbeam was on duty last night. He’ll know what to do with it.”

The corporal led us into another long, unpainted building behind the barracks. It had an awful stench coming out of it. “What’s that smell?” Kevin asked.

The corporal gave him an odd look. “Luncheon,” he said. “Have you never smelled salt pork before?”

We went inside. There was one long room, with tables and benches along the wall. There were no screens on the open windows, and flies were buzzing everywhere. A few soldiers were sitting at one of the tables and eating off tin plates. They were stabbing their meat with their knives and sticking it straight into their mouths, I noticed. Didn’t they have forks here? My mother went nuts if she caught any of us putting a knife in our mouths.

We went through the room. Beyond it was a kitchen, where a shirtless, sweating man was standing over steaming pots set on woodstoves. Corporal Hennessy greeted him cheerily. “Coolest place in Boston, eh, Jonathan?”

Jonathan responded with a string of words my mother would have shot me for saying. This didn’t seem to bother the corporal. “Need any help here?” he asked. “I have a couple of lads willing to pitch in.”

Jonathan glanced at us and shook his head. “Try the warehouse,” he said.

“Very well, then. Your loss.” We went out through the kitchen and saw a much larger building surrounded by guards. Soldiers were lugging sacks out of it and loading them onto a bunch of wagons. The corporal went up to a big, bearded soldier who was supervising the loading and said, “Need a couple of extra hands, Tom?”

Tom gave us the look we were used to by now. “What are those outfits?” he asked. “Costumes for harvest festival?”

“We’re, uh, not from around here,” Kevin said.

“No, and you haven’t done much laboring, from the look of you. Well, we can remedy that. Head on inside and grab some sacks. The camp awaits its midday meal.”

“Keep ’em alive, Tom,” Corporal Hennessy said. “They’re guests of Colonel Clarett.”

Tom just grunted.

“Fare you well, lads,” the corporal said to us, and headed back to the barracks. Tom waved us inside the building.

It was filled with shelves, and on the shelves were the sacks the soldiers were loading onto the wagons. “What’s in them?” Kevin asked one of the soldiers.

“Corn,” he replied as he slung a sack over his shoulder. “Folks’ll be mighty tired of corn before long.”

I tried lifting a sack; I couldn’t. Kevin was a shrimp, and he obviously wasn’t going to be able to pick one up. “We’ll have to do it together,” I said.

“This is embarrassing,” Kevin muttered.

“Just shut up and help.”

So the two of us picked up a sack and staggered outside with it. Tom laughed when he saw us. “Nicely done, lads,” he said as we managed to push it onto a wagon. “Heft twenty or thirty more, and you’ll have it mastered.”

We managed to load about half a dozen sacks before our arms turned to rubber and we had to take a break. There was a barrel of warm water in a corner, and we splashed some over us and drank what we could, but it tasted awful. “This is going to kill us,” Kevin said.

“Let’s just slow down. They don’t seem to care what we do, as long as we don’t look like we’re goofing off.”

We tried that, but it was still too hard. I always thought of myself as being in pretty good shape. I play soccer, and I have some ten-pound dumbbells that I work out with sometimes at home. But this was just way beyond me.

Luckily, after we’d loaded a few more sacks Tom decided there was enough food for the camp, and it was time for us all to take a break and have our own lunch. The wagons went off to the camp, and we went into the mess hall for some salt pork, boiled corn, and tea. I was hungry enough now that the food actually didn’t taste too bad. I think I needed the salt after all the sweating I’d done.

While we ate we listened to the men complain. “We’re soldiers, not laborers,” a thin, wiry man said. “They should get the farmfolk to do this.”

“They’d just stuff their pockets full of grain,” the soldier sitting next to him pointed out.

“Shoot ’em if they steal. That’s what’d happen to us.”

“We should make ’em all soldiers,” a third soldier said. “You think we can defeat the Portuguese and the Canadians with the army we’ve got now?”

“I hear they’re signing up all the able-bodied men,” the thin soldier said. “We’d be worse off if we had to take the rest of them.”

“Doesn’t matter who we get,” yet another soldier muttered. “We’ve no hope of winning in any case.”

That caused everyone to fall silent until Tom ordered us back to work in the warehouse. Now we had to clean up the spilled grain. This was a whole lot easier than lugging the sacks, but the heat inside the building was almost unbearable. “Wish I had a Pepsi,” Kevin said.

“A Sprite.”

“Dr. Pepper.”

“Diet Fresca.”

We came up with all the soft drink names we could think of. But we weren’t going to get any. All we had was a barrel of warm water that was probably crawling with germs.

“What happens when the food runs out?” Kevin asked the thin soldier.

He shook his head. “That’s when we surrender, mate. Let’s hope we don’t have too many die before that happens.”

“How long till it’s gone?”

“Don’t know. Depends on how many people show up and how much they bring with ’em. Couple of months, I reckon.”

That didn’t sound good. Kevin was about to ask another question when we noticed Sergeant Hornbeam standing in the doorway. His red hair looked like it was on fire. “What are you boys doing?” he demanded.

“Colonel Clarett told us we had to work,” I explained. “So Corporal Hennessy brought us over here.”

Sergeant Hornbeam rolled his eyes. “Naturally,” he muttered. “Have to put you two back in the brig,” he said to us. “Come along.”

I dropped my broom without a complaint. Hard to believe I’d be happy to go to jail, but I was.

“What happened with the watch, sir?” Kevin asked the sergeant as we headed back to the barracks. “Did you show it to anyone?”

Sergeant Hornbeam didn’t bother to answer. He was walking so fast, it was hard to keep up.

“Please don’t just hold onto it,” Kevin persisted. “It’s more than a toy.”

“Still don’t understand how you boys got hold of that thing,” the sergeant said.

“Well, it’s complicated, sir,” Kevin began. But Sergeant Hornbeam waved him silent. We had reached the barracks, and he started shouting for Benjamin, who came waddling in, stuffing his shirt into his pants.

“Sorry, Sergeant,” he said. “Making a visit to the outhouse.”

“Kindly lock these two up once again,” Sergeant Hornbeam ordered him. “And this time don’t let ’em out on anyone’s word except mine.”

“What about the colonel, Sergeant?”

The sergeant muttered something under his breath, then turned and strode out of the barracks without answering.

Benjamin turned to us. “Sorry, lads. What was it you did, anyway?”

“Nothing, really,” I said.

He shrugged and ushered us back into the cell, locking the door behind us. It was still empty. I slumped back down on the floor, and Kevin slumped next to me.

“This is good,” he said.

“Good not to be hauling sacks of grain,” I agreed.

“Yeah, but good because Hornbeam thinks we’re so important he has to keep us locked up.”

“If you say so. I just wish something would happen.”

“Yeah, I know. I was thinking,” he went on. “Remember how Stinky Glover and Nora Lally showed up in that other world you visited? I wonder if people from our world are here, too.”

“This place is a whole lot different than our world,” I pointed out.

“I know, but it’s not totally different. There’s still a Glanbury, still a Boston. So it’s a possibility, right? What if our families were living in Glanbury? What if they’re in that camp over there right now?”

I closed my eyes and felt a lump rising in my throat. “You know what, Kevin? I don’t really want to think about that.”

“Yeah,” he said softly, “I guess you’re right.”

We must have fallen asleep then, because the next thing I knew, a loud voice was shouting, “Wake up, dammit, don’t you know there’s a war on?”

I opened my eyes and saw Colonel Clarett standing over us. Behind him was Benjamin, holding a lantern and yawning.

“Come on, come on,” the colonel said. “We don’t have all night.”

I struggled to my feet, then helped Kevin up.

“That’s it, then,” the colonel said. “Let’s go.”

We followed him out of the cell.

“It’s all nonsense,” he told us, “but there you have it. The enemy’s at our gates, and they’re interested in gewgaws.” He led us to a room in a corner of the barracks. “My own office,” he muttered. “And where do I go meanwhile?”

He opened the door, and we went inside. A tall, black-haired man in a uniform was standing behind a desk.

“Here they are, Lieutenant,” Colonel Clarett said. “And much luck may you have of ’em. If you want my opinion, they’re a pair of thieves, and that’s that. Look at the hat on the little one,” he said, gesturing at Kevin’s Red Sox cap as if its existence proved he was a criminal.

“Thank you, Colonel,” the lieutenant said.

Colonel Clarett looked like he wanted to stay, but the lieutenant was obviously waiting for him to leave, so he turned and walked out, slamming the door behind him.

The lieutenant smiled at us. “Now,” he said, “I think it’s time for a little chat.”

Rule #1: Don’t sleep with your biographer

Posted on November 13, 2012 by Richard Bowker

A correspondent notes that if General Petraeus had read Senator, he wouldn’t be in this mess.

I have now added a “Life is stupider than fiction” category, but I don’t see how anything could top the Petraeus / West Point grad – Ph.D. student – jealous mistress / Tampa socialite – honorary Korean consul with a crazy twin sister and a bogus cancer charity / jealous FBI agent sending shirtless photos of himself / general with enough time on his hands to send thousands of emails story.

I know I wouldn’t be able to top it.

In which I read a New Yorker blog post about genre fiction so you don’t have to

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Richard Bowker

Well, if you really want to read it, here you go. But let me just give you my quick summary: Anything the author thinks is really good isn’t genre fiction; so, obviously, if it’s genre fiction, it can’t be all that good. Like so:

“All the Pretty Horses” is no more a western than “1984” is science fiction. Nor can we in good conscience call John Le Carré’s “The Honorable Schoolboy” or Richard Price’s “Lush Life” genre novels.

I love the imperial “we” in that second sentence. And the “in good conscience”: I could call The Honorable Schoolboy a spy novel, because it involves, like, spies and all, but no, I just can’t bring myself to do it. My mother brought me up to be better than that.

I thought this debate had been resolved back in the 1960s, with Vonnegut and Burgess and Tolkien and, yes, Le Carré. But apparently some people still want to fuss about it. Sheesh. What a waste of time.

Portal, an online novel: Chapter 6

Posted on November 11, 2012 by Richard Bowker

Yikes! Larry and Kevin are stuck in a parallel universe and have been abandoned in Boston by the family who saved them from the Portuguese soldiers. (Portuguese?!) They have little food, no place to stay–and they’re wearing funny-looking clothes. This can’t be good.

The first five chapters are up there on the right side of the menu.

***************

Chapter 6

We walked away from the house, eating the food in silence. I was so hungry, I forgot for a while how scared I was. But it didn’t take long for the fear to come back. Where would we get our next meal? Where would we sleep? Would we ever get back to the portal? Would I ever see my family again?

We didn’t know where we were going. The streets were dark, and I kept tripping on the cobblestones. A dog barked at us out of an alley. There was a lump in my throat, and it kept getting bigger. From one house we passed I heard someone playing a piano, and at least that sounded familiar. But then I remembered my piano lesson, and I felt even worse.

Pretty soon Kevin and I started arguing. “This is so stupid, Kevin,” I said. “Why did I let you talk me into it?”

“It’s not like I twisted your arm or anything,” he shot back. “I said you could stay behind, if you wanted to be prudent.”

“I don’t know why I even told you about it. I should’ve figured you get me into trouble, with all your theories. And why did you tell that soldier our family had been murdered by the Portuguese? He almost arrested us.”

“Maybe we’d be better off if we were arrested,” he pointed out. “Jail would be better than this.”

We kept walking.

“You know what worries me?” Kevin asked softly after a while.

I shook my head.

“Even if we found the portal, what if we can’t get back? What if it takes us to some totally different universe?”

“It took me home yesterday,” I reminded him.

“Maybe you were just lucky. Maybe you go somewhere different every time you step into it.”

“We’ll get back,” I insisted.

He didn’t argue. I think he wanted to believe me. I wanted to believe myself.

It was getting cold. Neither of us had a jacket. At least neither of was wearing shorts. I was grateful when we finally made it back to the main street. With all the people around, it just seemed to feel warmer.

Now that we were out of the wagon, people were staring at us, but we were too tired and scared to care. We looked in the store windows as we walked. There was a dressmaker’s shop, and a place that sold something called sundries, and a chandler, which had candles and oil lamps for sale. “No electricity, I guess,” Kevin muttered. “Those streetlights are gas or something. This place is, like, two hundred years behind us.” We stopped in front of a tavern called the Twin Ponies and listened to the laughter and smelled the cigar smoke and the stale beer. Someone was playing an instrument that sounded like an accordion.

“Look at this,” Kevin said. He picked up a sheet of newspaper from the sidewalk in front of the tavern. It was called the Boston Intelligencer. It had smaller type and wider pages than in regular newspapers, and no photographs–only a couple of drawings. We read the headlines:

PORTUGUESE, CANADIANS ADVANCE ON BOSTON

Thousands of Refugees Arrive ahead of Siege

Pres. Gardner Calls for Calm as Naval Blockade Tightens

Talks with British Continue

“It has today’s date,” Kevin pointed out.

“Look at the British spellings,” I said. President Gardner was at pains to dispel the rumour that he was negotiating terms of surrender with the Canadians and Portuguese.

We couldn’t make sense of a lot of what we read, but two things were clear: This place was in a whole lot of trouble, and there was plenty of disagreement about what to do about it. The paper quoted one guy as saying they should cut off all the refugees from entering the city, because there wasn’t going to be enough food for everyone to survive the siege. Someone else said there was no way the city could survive the siege anyway, and the president (who apparently was in Boston) should “surrender forthwith.” And the president insisted everything was going to be fine and not to worry.

“What a mess,” Kevin said.

“No kidding.”

A tall man wearing some a round black hat and a green cape came staggering out of the tavern. He stared at us for a second and shook his head. “Strange days,” he muttered, and he headed off down the street.

“So, what do you think we should do?” I asked finally. One of us had to ask the question.

“I don’t know,” Kevin said. “Maybe we should, you know, turn ourselves in.”

“For what? We haven’t done anything.”

“Well, we could, like, tell the truth.”

“You think they’d believe us?”

Kevin shrugged. “I guess not.”

“But even if they did believe us, why would they care? They’ve got way more important things to think about.”

“Wouldn’t hurt to ask. What have we got to lose?”

We were lost on a strange world with no one to help us. There really was nothing to lose.

“I think that’s a cop over there,” Kevin said. “Go ask him.”

The blue-jacketed policeman was across the street, standing in front of a building with his arms folded.

“Why me?” I said. “It’s your idea.”

“Because you’re taller,” Kevin answered. “He’ll pay more attention to you.”

Seemed like a stupid reason to me, but I was tired of arguing. We crossed the street, picking our way through the disgusting horse manure. We walked up to the cop, who stared at us suspiciously.

“Excuse me, officer,” I began. My voice sounded thin and trembly in my ears. “We’re not from around here, and–”

He scowled at me. “I can see that, mate.”

“No, really. We’re not just, you know, from another town or something. We come from a different world altogether. We’d like to, uh, speak to someone in authority.”

“Of course you would,” the policeman said, nodding. “And, you’d like a meal. And a nice bed to sleep on, as well. Is that it?”

I glanced at Kevin, but he didn’t have anything to say.

“We’re in the middle of a war, in case you didn’t notice,” the cop went on. “We don’t feed strays. If we don’t get help soon, we won’t be able to feed ourselves. Now run along.”

“But where?” I asked. “We don’t have anyplace to stay.”

He gestured off to his left. “The Fens camp is where you strays belong. Don’t let us catch you stealing on the way, or you’ll wish the Portuguese had caught you first. And don’t be wandering the streets after curfew, either. You farmfolk–or whatever you are–aren’t going to overrun this city. Understand?”

I nodded. “How far away is the camp?” I managed to ask.

He laughed. “Not far. Just follow your nose. And you might watch your step going through Cheapside–they don’t take kindly to strays.” Then he turned and walked away.

“Nice job,” Kevin said to me. “You didn’t explain anything.”

“You try, if you think you can do it better.”

We were silent then. We headed off in the direction the cop had pointed.

“I wonder if the Fens has anything to do with Fenway Park,” Kevin said after a while.

“Who gives,” I muttered.

“They probably don’t even have baseball in this world,” he went on.

I just looked at him. We kept walking. I was getting really tired. And I was hungry again. Would there be food in the camp? Everyone seemed worried about food.

After a while we entered what I figured was Cheapside–a nasty-looking section of town where the rickety houses were stuck close together, the street had turned into a rutted dirt path, and piles of garbage were heaped up everywhere. Follow your nose, the cop had said. There were lots of taverns, and people lounging in the doorways shouted insults at us as we passed. We just kept going.

Cheapside seemed to peter out after a while, and we came to a bunch of buildings with soldiers guarding them. Beyond the buildings was what I guessed was the Fens camp.

It was much bigger than the one we’d seen from the wagon on the way into the city. It seemed to go on forever; we could see wagons and tents, smoky campfires and snorting horses. There was a rough fence around it, and at the end of the path was a gate with lamps hung on either side. A few wagons were lined up in front of the gate, waiting to enter.

“What do you think?” I asked Kevin. “Should we go inside?”

“Do we have a choice?” he replied.

Not that I could see. We got in line behind the wagons. It took a few minutes for them to enter. When we reached the gate the soldier guarding it laughed. He was short and stout and missing a couple of teeth. “Farmfolk get stranger-looking every day,” he said, shaking his head. “Twenty minutes to curfew, lads.”

“Can we just, like, go in?” I asked.

“You can go in, but you can’t come back out–at least not till morning, and then you’ll need a pass. But you’ll find plenty to do inside, I daresay.”

“Is there any food?”

“Not till morning, unless you want to steal some inside the camp–which I wouldn’t recommend, since it’ll likely get you killed. Now run along with you.”

We walked through the gate into the camp. There were muddy paths of a sort, along which people had parked their wagons and set up makeshift shelters. People sat in their wagons or on chairs outside their tents, the men smoking long pipes and the women chatting with each other by the light of the campfires. One man we passed was playing a guitar while his family sang what sounded like a hymn. There were a lot of babies crying. Older kids ran around, playing tag. It didn’t seem all that bad, actually, if you could get used to the smell and the mud.

We kept walking, without any idea of where to go or what to do. Kevin pointed to the guards patrolling outside the fence, rifles on their shoulders. “They’re serious,” he said. “Nobody’s getting out of here.”

Great. We were stuck inside a refugee camp. My stomach started growling and my legs started hurting. “I don’t think I can walk much further,” I said. “I’m so tired I could sleep in the mud.”

“We need to get blankets or something,” Kevin said.

“How are we going to do that–steal them? We’d get killed.”

He didn’t answer.

“Hey there!” A thin man with long stringy hair and a beard was standing in front of us. “Did I hear you say you needed a blanket?” He smiled at us. His face was pock-marked, and he was missing a lot of teeth. His left eye wandered when he spoke.

Stranger danger, I thought. My mother was always talking about stranger danger. But what do you do when everyone’s a stranger?

Neither of us answered, so the man kept on talking. “You boys here on your own?” We still didn’t answer, so the guy just kept talking. “These are parlous times to be on your own. But I have a beautiful blanket I can let you have for a mere five shillings. Made from the finest Vermont wool. Just step over to my wagon here.”

I looked at his wagon. A sad-looking donkey stood next to it, staring at us. How much was a shilling, I wondered. Didn’t matter. “We don’t have any money,” I said.

The man’s smile faded a little. “Parlous times, indeed,” he said. “What about barter, then? Have you anything to trade?” He looked us over, then pointed at Kevin. “Odd-looking hat,” he said. Then, “This object on your wrist–what might that be?”

“It’s a watch,” Kevin said.

“A watch? Strange place to have a watch. Why not keep it in your pocket? Let me take a look.” He grabbed Kevin’s arm. “Odd-looking watch, as well. No case, no hands on the dial. But I tell you what–I have a charitable heart, seeing you here by yourselves. I’ll give you a blanket for it, and I’ll throw in a pound of salted pork.”

Seemed like a good deal to me, although salted pork sounded awful. But all of a sudden Kevin got a funny look on his face and pulled his arm back. “No thanks,” he said.

The man’s smile faded a bit more. “You lads won’t get a better deal in this wretched camp,” he pointed out. “Nights are growing colder, and who knows how long we’ll be imprisoned here? The price of necessities will only go up.”

“Sorry,” Kevin said. He turned to me. “Let’s go, Larry.”

I was really annoyed at him. What did he want the stupid watch for? Who cared what time it was, when we were going to have to sleep in the mud?

Kevin started walking quickly back the way we’d come. “Are you nuts?” I said to him.

He shook his head. “It’s not just a watch,” he said. “It’s a calculator. It’s a timer. It’s really cool.”

“So what?”

“So–maybe it’s worth more than a blanket in this world. Maybe we’re worth something in this world.”

“Kevin, they know how to add. They know how to tell time.”

“Yeah,” he said, “but they’ve never seen a calculator before.”

“Big deal. Anyway, where are we going?”

Kevin pointed. “Back to the gate.”

The gate was closing. We ran up to it and slithered through.

The soldier we had talked to before didn’t look happy to see us again. “Curfew, lads,” he said. “Back inside with you.”

“Sir, I have a strange and wonderful invention that I’d like to share with the military leadership,” Kevin said.

The soldier looked at him like he was crazy. Farmfolk. “Let’s go,” he demanded. “There’s a war on, and no time for foolishness.”

“How much is 375 times 13?” Kevin asked.

The soldier was starting to get angry.

“Come here and see what I do,” Kevin went on before he could yell at us. “This’ll be interesting, I guarantee.” The soldier hesitated, then leaned forward. Kevin put his watch in calculator mode, held it up so the soldier could see, then did the multiplication. “3875,” he said. “See how easy that was?”

The soldier thought about it for a moment, then said, “Can I try?”

Kevin held his arm out and showed him what to do. “I never was very good at ciphering,” the soldier muttered as he hit the numbers. He grinned with delight when the answer was displayed. “Hey Caleb,” he called out to a tall soldier with a scruffy beard who was guarding the gate. “Come look at this!”

Caleb took a look and had the same reaction–surprise and excitement. The next soldier who came by, though, was terrified by the watch. “This is some devilry,” he muttered, glaring at Kevin like he was the devil.

“Now, Oliver,” Caleb said to him, “it’s just a toy.”

Oliver shook his head. “The Devil makes toys, too,” he muttered, and he walked away.

“The thing is,” Kevin said to Caleb, “I’d like to show this to your commanding officer. I think it might be helpful in the war. We know other stuff that might help, too.”

Caleb considered, then said, “Go find Sergeant Hornbeam, Fred. He’ll be interested.”

Fred–that was the first soldier’s name–went off, and returned in a few minutes, accompanied by a large soldier with bright red hair. He gave us the strange look we were used to by now, and then said: “Let me see the thing.”

Kevin held out his arm.

Sergeant Hornbeam shook his head. “Take it off,” he said.

Reluctantly Kevin took the watch off and handed it to the sergeant, who took it and studied it. Finally he let Fred show him how to use it. Then he looked at us again. “Are you Chinese?” he demanded.

“No, we’re–we’re farmfolk,” Kevin said.

“The inscription on this object says it was made in China.” He made it sound like an accusation.

“Well, uh, this is complicated,” Kevin said. “It was made in China, but we didn’t get it there.”

“Do we look Chinese?” I asked.

Sergeant Hornbeam glared at me. “How would I know what the Chinese look like?” Then he put the watch into his pocket. “An interesting toy,” he said.

“Hey,” Kevin cried. “That’s mine.”

“I thought you wanted to contribute it to the army,” the sergeant said.

“But we have to talk to somebody in charge. They’ll need to know more about it.”

He shrugged. “I don’t see why. If Fred can use it, anyone can use it.” Caleb laughed; even Fred smiled. Then the sergeant seemed to think about the situation some more. “Where are your families?” he asked.

“We’re here on our own,” Kevin said. “We just arrived.”

The sergeant thought a bit longer, then gestured to Fred and Caleb. “Put them in the brig for the night,” he said. “We’ll see what the morrow brings.” Then he turned to us. “Fare you well, lads,” he said. And he walked away.

I looked at Kevin. The brig?

“Come on, lads,” Fred said. “The brig isn’t much, but it’s better than the camp, I daresay.”

He and Caleb led us to a long low wooden building near the camp. “Where’d you get that thing?” Fred asked. “Off a trading ship?”

“Something like that,” Kevin said.

“I hear they’ve got all sorts of amazing inventions over in China,” he went on.

“Maybe if we had the Chinese for an ally we could win this damfool war,” Caleb added.

“Maybe if we had any ally at all we’d have a chance.”

“What do you think Sergeant Hornbeam will do with my watch?” Kevin asked. “We really need to get it to a general or somebody like that.”

“Oh, Sarge’ll do the right thing,” Fred said. “Don’t know if the generals will pay attention, though. They’re too busy arguing with the president.”

The first part of the building was the soldiers’ barracks. Beds were lined up against one of the walls. A few soldiers were playing cards at a table, others were sitting on their beds cleaning their equipment. The air was so thick with tobacco smoke that I wanted to gag. Fred and Caleb led us through the barracks to a room at the back. A fat, sleepy soldier sat slumped in a chair by the door. He peered at us as we approached. “What’d they do?” he asked. “Sneak out of the camp and pinch some eggs in Cheapside?”

“If they did that, the folks in Cheapside would be happy to take care of them,” Caleb said. “No, Sergeant Hornbeam wants to hold onto them. See that they have every comfort, Benjamin. They’re our guests.”

“No comforts to be had, I’m afraid. Odd-looking little fellows, ain’t they? I like that one’s hat, though.” Benjamin struggled to his feet and took a key out of his pocket, which he used to unlock the door to an inner room. “Chamber pot’s in the far corner,” he said to us. “Try not to rouse Chester. He’s only peaceable when he’s sleeping.”

Caleb and Fred said farewell, Benjamin locked the door behind us, and there we were in jail on our first night in the new world.

It was dark–the only light was from the small opening in the door. We heard a loud noise that we finally recognized was snoring. As our eyes adjusted to the darkness, we saw a big red-jacketed man lying with his head against the wall. Like everything in this world, it seemed, he stank.

“This is just great,” I said to Kevin as we sat on the floor against the opposite wall, as far away from Chester as we could get.

“Come on, Larry, it could be worse,” he replied. “This is what we were trying to do, right? Turn ourselves in. Get them to pay attention to us.”

“But what happens next? What’s your watch going to do for us?”

“Anyone with any brains will know there’s nothing like that watch in this world,” he explained. “So they’ll want to talk to us, find out where we got it.”

“And then what? You think they’ll believe our story? You sure they won’t think we’re the Devil, like that other soldier?”

“I dunno. But in the meantime they’ll probably feed us. I’ve already gotten us out of the mud for tonight. It’s worth a shot, Larry.”

I supposed he was right. And it wasn’t like I had any better ideas. Suddenly I could barely keep my eyes open. We seemed to be moderately safe for the night, except for Chester, who continued to snore loudly across the room. And there wasn’t anything else we could accomplish right now except hope that Sergeant Hornbeam would do more than pocket Kevin’s watch as a silly little toy. The floor wasn’t going to be comfortable, but it was better than sleeping outdoors in the mud.

I thought of the couple of weeks I had spent at sleepaway camp during the summer, how homesick I’d gotten, how brave I thought I was being when I stuck it out–with a counselor sleeping in the same cabin, with my parents just a two-hour drive away and sending me letters every day. “We’ll get out of this, right, Kevin?” I asked.

“Yeah. Of course we will. It’s just a matter of time.”

“Right.” He didn’t sound too sure of himself, but that was okay. I slid down to lie on the floor. “Good night, Kevin.”

“Good night, Larry.”

When I closed my eyes I thought of Matthew–was it really just last night?–telling me how life was really okay. Yeah, yeah, I’d thought. Would you please shut up so I can get some sleep? Now what wouldn’t I give to be back in my own bed, listening to Matthew babble?

I was too tired to cry. I miss you, I whispered into the darkness. But there was no one there to hear me.

Philip Roth is retiring

Posted on November 10, 2012 by Richard Bowker

At 79, Roth apparently has had enough of writing novels. The Slate writer thinks this may explain his recent attempt to fix his Wikipedia page–it’s time to work on his legacy.

The recent news that he had finally agreed to work closely with a biographer also suggested that perhaps he saw the end of his career approaching. And his recent contretemps with Wikipedia further implied a focus on his legacy.

If this is true, I’m glad his last novel was Nemesis, which was great, rather than the one that preceded it, The Humbling, which was embarrassing. It’s always good when people have the sense to bow out at, or at least near, the top of their game. I’ve always liked John Updike, but I was unable to finish the last couple of novels he wrote; the times seemed to have passed him by. Even Shakespeare seems to have gone on a bit too long; I wouldn’t regret it if Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen had never seen the light of day.

Maybe the best way to leave the stage belongs to Charles Dickens; drop dead with a murder mystery (The Mystery of Edwin Drood) half-finished and the killer unrevealed. Which led to ongoing attempts to finish the novel, including this one:

The third attempt was perhaps the most unusual. In 1873, a young Vermont printer, Thomas James, published a version which he claimed had been literally ‘ghost-written’ by him channelling Dickens’ spirit. A sensation was created, with several critics, including Arthur Conan Doyle, a spiritualist himself, praising this version, calling it similar in style to Dickens’ work and for several decades the ‘James version’ of Edwin Drood was common in America. Other Drood scholars disagree. John C. Walters “dismiss[ed it] with contempt”, stating that the work “is self-condemned by its futility, illiteracy, and hideous American mannerisms; the mystery itself becomes a nightmare, and the solution only deepens the obscurity.”