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The Sunday Paper: The Campfire Parable, by Michael Scott. Part 4 of 4. Illustrations by Neil Mackay.

__________

“Your grandfather was becoming colder and more distant,” said Craig to Baldrich.  “Varlyn and he spoke little.  They both knew what must be done.  Because the dragons could not be slain with tools, they went to the crest of a distant mountain, and sat among the eggs of an eagle’s nest.

“They ate pears, and a few scraps of bread.  It was the last of their food.

“Wind blew softy, and it began to snow.

“Your Grandfather stood and looked out from the mountain top.  He saw that they were above the clouds.  He saw across the whole of the continent.  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’  Your Grandfather asked Varlyn.

“‘Tonight we will see a dragon,’ said Varlyn.  ‘Or we will not.’

“‘I have tasted the breath of many women,’ said your grandfather.  ‘I have loved them all, but only one truly loved me.  She is pregnant with my final son, and will miscarry him tonight.  My sorrow for her is great, but here upon the bosom of this land, kissed by the sweetness of mountain breath, I find that life itself was my greatest love.  I fear to lose that more than anything.’

“‘I don’t get it,’ said Varlyn after a time.

“‘It wasn’t a joke,’ said your Grandfather.

“‘Yes it was,’ said Varlyn.  ‘I just don’t get it.’

“They sat up watching the sky.  At midnight the stars disappeared.  A host of black shapes swarmed together in the darkness.  The squeals of bats filled the air, and leathery wings crashed against the mountain side.

“‘Dragons!’ called Varlyn.  He fell to his knees and prayed to every god, but he did not pray for life.  He prayed that they would see.

“Grandfather, whose eyes were keen in the dark, saw that the creatures were long necked and furry.  They scuttled adeptly across the rocks, but they were wild, and random, not thoughtful.  The beasts were eating eagle’s eggs, and rocks, and bits of greenery.  They were not carefully, and selectively hunting virgins.

“‘No,’ said Grandfather.  ‘Wyverns. Run!’

“‘But,’ said Varlyn.

“‘We will slay no dragons with wishes, or prayers,’ said Grandfather.

“Varlyn, who could see nothing in the dark, could not run down the mountain side.

“Grandfather left him alone, for he could slay no dragons with love.

“That night, our mother fell on a patch of ice, shocking herself into labour.  I held her hand, kissed her head, and called for the Wizard.  She was an experienced mother and we did everything right, but the ground was cold and the boy was two months premature.  He did not survive.

“When we finished weeping, we found the blood was spattered across the new fallen snow, in patterns that told the story of Varlyn’s death.  We knew then, that Grandfather was alone.”

__________

“Because the dragons could not be seen,” said Craig to Baldrich.  “Grandfather went into the desert.  If you are looking for nothing, Baldrich, the desert is the place to find it.

“He stripped off his flesh.  He dropped his weapons.  He forgot his love, and his hope, and his sorrow.  He no longer remembered me, or your Uncles, or his daughters.  He forgot our mother, and even the idea of women.  He had no jokes to tell.

“He took off his coat of feathers.

“He had nothing left but his breath and, finally, that too stopped.

“The dragon was smaller than he thought it would be – two meters long, maybe a half ton in weight.  It was quadrupedal, with opposable digits on all four of its feet.  Its scales gleamed in the desert sun, reflecting the colour of sand.  That’s why no one had ever seen one.

“Dragons were mirrors, perfect, polished imitations of everything around them.

“The dragon sniffed at your Grandfather’s neck.  It ran a claw across his chest.  Finding that your Grandfather was a man, it did not eat him.  It lifted its face into the sky, and howled, unexpectedly, like a wolf.  Your grandfather did not try to fight.  It was not his work to fight.  It was enough that he had seen.

“The dragon’s breath was fire and sulphur.

“That night our mother and I had the same dream – of Grandfather’s death, and the dragon.

“It was our first victory against the plague.”

__________

Baldrich, who had delighted in the story, now straightened his face.  “But Daddy,” he said at last.  “You said that. . . is that how Grandfather really died?”

Craig held his son close to his chest. They were warm together, by the fire, for a long time. At last Craig began to laugh a little, gently, sadly.  “I’m sorry boy,” said Craig to Baldrich.  “I really don’t know.”

By Michael Scott

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Read the rest of  The Campfire Parable, and other stories in the Sunday Paper archive.
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Mike Soccio: A Hero’s Biography

While rumors of the script drama surrounding Men In Black III start to saturate the internet, more and more praying hands are pointed towards Mike Soccio, the personal writer of Will Smith. Soccio and Smith have worked together since the Fresh Prince era and have brought a consistent, yet script-appropriate character to each of Smith’s starring roles. It is the hopes of Hollywood that Soccio will be able to bring humor to a film that is rapidly losing the faith of Hollywood.

But who is this unsung hero of the silver screen?

In Cranston, Rhode Island, born and raised, watching movies for most of his days, Michael “Mike” Soccio was always the quiet kid in class, usually playing supporting roles in school plays and finishing the homework of other children. He graduated with mild honours and attended a technical school of marginal repute until he finally found himself interning at NBC. It is there, on the set of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, that he would form a partnership that would last a lifetime.

“Michael just understood Will better than anyone,” Smith’s co-star Alphonso Ribeiro commented. “When Will had lines that didn’t sound funny being said in western Philadelphia street slang, Mike would step in and say, you know, how about you say it this way?” The producers were quick to notice an improvement in Smith’s on-screen performance and the show’s ratings, and Mike Soccio, quiet moray eel on the great white shark of success, was in line for a promotion that would last a lifetime.

Mike still mostly kept to himself, but his weight in Hollywood was growing. After re-writing a Fresh Prince script line that referenced the plight of single mothers and drug addicts to end with the word “Dum-dum diddaayy,” the world was hanging on Soccio’s every word. He was able to mumble demands that no other writer could, quietly requisitioning cars, women, drugs, whatever his meek and unintimidating voice could demand. The other writers grew jealous, but Smith kept Soccio close beneath his wing. ”We be all like, ba-zaooowww, and they was like, pshh, nahh,” Smith recounts. But Soccio’s habits started to get the better of him. Soon enough he was seen in the background at parties at Charlie Sheen’s house, and was once caught, sort of blurry and off to the left in a video of former Alf star Max Wright smoking crack in his L.A. home. When asked if he was worried about his partner, Smith said “phsyaah,” and choked back tears. Soccio was at a point where if he did not get help, he would develop a deteriorating habit, that would last a lifetime.

It was then that a blessing came in the form of Independence Day. Script problems had beleaguered the set from day one, and the project was doomed for failure with stars Bill Pullman and Randy Quaid both threatening to walk if arrangements were not made to produce a more promising film. Smith recalls the day he sought out Soccio for help: “I was like, I’ma hop in ma ride and see ma boy, and I headed out to the strip, see, ‘cuz, and then, we, what happened, we was, see, and I found him, and I’m like, baby, baby, baby baby, baby please, please,” Smith wiped tears from his face as he continued to describe the experience of finding Soccio, next to someone who was high on cocaine, in a Vegas hotel. Smith explained to him the trouble and Soccio, pressed by his long-time friend’s concern, got up from the floor and walked to the set, 100 miles with Smith by his side. The production delay cost the film 4 million dollars, but the outcome produced a script memorable enough to last a lifetime.

Soccio took one look at the set and immediately saw the problem. He quietly demanded a writing desk and a copy of the script, with his trademark red pen. “He was like some sort of a, a, a, a scientist,” co-star Jeff Goldblum mused. The scene featuring Smith climbing out of the downed alien cruiser, the scene who’s unfunny and tortured monologue had destroyed the morale of cast and crew alike, all came into perspective in front of Soccio’s brilliant eyes. He wrote a line for Smith that director Roland Emmerich still calls “the epiphanic moment of his entire career.” Smith climbed out of the cruiser and delivered the line, “I have got to get me one of these!” and the crews hearts brightened. Recounts Goldblum: “It was like they, suddenly, were, transported, you see, to this, other world. It was the magic of movies. That’s what Mike Soccio does. He makes the, a, magic of movies.” And he has, for a career that will likely last a lifetime.

Soccio and Smith have worked together on every project, bringing Soccio’s unique understanding of the pathos of Will Smith’s tortured typecast to the masses. The two of them are currently rewriting a script for Independence Day 2 and share producing credits on Willow Smith’s upcoming but, yet album. Rumour has it Smith allowed Soccio to name the album which is tentatively titled “B’zaooww.” When he’s not producing mega hits or saving the script of Hollywood stars, Mike Soccio lives a life that anyone would call ordinary, washing the cars in his Bel-Air mansion and fixing the wooden deck at the back, because the bottom step keeps coming loose every winter.

Book Review: The Adventures Of Captain Nothing, vol. One.

Nothing To Lose
Steve Vernon
35 pages.
Burning Effigy
e-book available from Amazon

Steve Vernon bills himself as a writer of “dark fiction.”

One can be a horror writer, or a crime writer, or a suspense writer.  These are clear labels. If one does not wish to limit oneself to the trappings of a specific genre, then it is simple enough to call oneself a fiction writer. While the words “dark” and “light” may be useful, comparative tools for reviewers and audiences (e.g.. the new Harry Potter movie is darker than the previous ones), they are primarily descriptors of tone. I have no idea why an artist would use a tonal descriptor as the primary adjective for their own work. It may be unfair of me to attack an artist for something that appears in his bio, but I open with this observation, because the whole experience of Nothing To Lose is frustrated by this same hollow feeling of generality.

My copy of Nothing to Lose a stand alone edition published by Burning Effigy in 2008, but this review is prompted by the recent digital rerelease, which was accompanied by a  re-branding of the title as “Volume 1 of The Adventures of Captain Nothing,” implying that sequels are in the works. I will read more of these, if they are produced. I like reading a super-hero story that is set in a horror universe.

Captain Nothing pitches himself as an ordinary man, no superpowers, “None of those things. I just had a temper was all.” In the first seen of the book, he interrupts a rape by killing two men with half a brick. The description of the crime is appropriately revulsive, and Nothing’s violent intervention is satisfying. At first I was worried that I was getting into another of those gritty super-hero stories that wonders: what if super heroes were real? Mercifully, the story quickly takes a turn to the fantastic. With grateful exhale, I realized I was in a world of severed glass demons, preternatural lampreys, and astral projection.

There are many things this story could be about. It could be about how a normal man navigates a world of supernatural evil, but if this is the case, how is our character able to breath under water, remove large chunks of his own flesh, and rise to “a higher state of consciousness. . . that only a few mystics, saints and lunatics ever achieved;” and what is the “secret hidden under” his mask, which is mentioned briefly and never resolved? It could be about the hopelessness of a lunatic, but if this is the case, why does Nothing bother to fight at all? It could be about the despair of ordinary people. This is closet to being the truth, I think, but as a pathos, and like the rest of Nothing To Lose, it is woefully unspecific. I found myself enjoying the book most when, mislead by a few religious metaphors, I briefly found myself wondering if Captain Nothing wasn’t actually supposed to be the Biblical Cain, cursed with immortality, and marked for all time as a murderer.

I like that Vernon doesn’t pull any punches in crafting his prose. If Captain Nothing is stranded at the bottom of a lake, with an immovable weight shackled to his foot, then:

 

Skinning yourself with a mangled leg iron is a little like uprooting crab grass. The suckerlets of flesh peeled away, one by one. I could feel each nerve-ending stretch and snap as I worked the skin down over my ankle.  It was like dragging off a long, slow, wet sock.

 

Not content, though, to land firmly those punches that must be thrown, Vernon bombards the reader with incident, after incident of usually unnecessary, gruesome and descriptive verse.

 Every detail, from the broadest narrative angle, to the smallest adjective choice is designed to unsettle the reader. The only pleasant character in the entire book is described as a ”polished mannequin.” A happy childhood memory contains a description of willow trees that “were always crying and they made me feel glad.” During an erotic seduction, a woman’s tongue is “part tapeworm.”  At least it’s consistent. A consistent voice is important, but what is Vernon’s purpose in layering his prose so thickly, and blatantly with vulgarisms? In some places it helps to enrich our understanding of character, or plot, but it is not specific or careful enough to fill these functions effectively.

In the end, Nothing To Lose wasn’t a bad read, but lacking in sense of direction. Vernon’s key drive does seem to be toward creating that general, and unhelpful sense of darkness that he speaks of in his bio. Some moments of untainted levity, or pleasant descriptions of one or two of the characters, would not only offer an emotional break for the reader, but also give Captain Nothing some kind of drive, something to fight for, a reason to be a hero.

 

By Michael Scott
http://woodenrocketpress.com
all quotations from Volume One of the Adventures Of Captain Nothing.