A first draft of a first chapter

Set in post-war Los Angeles, my would-be next novel at the starting line

For the holiday weekend, I’m sharing a draft of the first chapter of what would be my second novel: code name, 1959. After outlining the book, I began writing it with a burst of energy months ago, then hit quicksand, then decided to step away for a while. And now, Slayed has taken over almost all my writing time and then some. (This isn’t an accident — I was looking for a way back into my writing groove.) But with a week off from work, I might just mess around with 1959 a little bit.

Anyway, the following is only a draft. I’ve revised it a bunch of times, and I’ll revise it a bunch more before I’m through with it. In the meantime, please feel welcome to share your thoughts, critiques or suggestions.

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Tuesday, January 28, 1958

First, Jackie left Brooklyn. Then the Dodgers. Then me.

It’s my birthday. And my rebirthday. Seventeen years on this planet. One month since Mom and I arrived in Los Angeles. 

When I come out for breakfast, she is sitting with a cup of Maxwell House, her black hair in a ponytail, reading the Los Angeles Times with the news on the radio. She’s trying not to glance at the phone on the wall every minute. Substitute teaching is like being the last man on the bench during a pennant race.

“Joyeux anniversaire, Charlie,” she says without irony when I come into the kitchen.

“Thanks, Mom,” I sigh, without any joyeuxness. I feel far away from the land of birthdays.

“You want bacon and eggs?” she asks, knowing I’d settle for Corn Flakes.

“Sure, Mom – thanks.”

I can’t take two steps without coming up against the table or counter in this kitchen. It’s crooked and old, like Rocky Marciano’s nose. The window faces west, and during sunrise the single light above the table can only do so much to fight off the gloom. The entire house feels like an outpost.

I suppose we’ve held up well under the circumstances, a beat-up kite that flies. The night before Thanksgiving, Mom asked Dad for some money to make a quick run to the store. Dad called out from the bedroom to look in his coat pocket. Then a few seconds later, he came running out with a desperate look in his eyes like I had never seen before. Mom reached into the pocket and pulled out the note. 

As Mom read it, I watched her own eyes widen in slow motion. Her head bowing forward. Her left hand snapping to her chest, fingertips out and palm back, the way you try to give yourself pain somewhere else when you can’t bear the wound itself.

She looked up at my father and their eyes met, really for the last time. 

Dad apologized like he was facing God, but he also said he couldn’t let Janet go.

Janet. I can only picture Janet Leigh. Before this all went down, I saw her in a preview for Touch of Evil. That title feels too on the nose. 

Before I knew it, Mom picked the city the farthest away from Dad she could think of and told me to get packing. She was sympathetic about ripping me out by the roots from Brooklyn, from my school and my friends and my part in the spring play opposite Trudy (and maybe my chance to win her back after she dumped me).