It's raining and the sky is that shade of blue you see matched most frequently with chocolate in the bed & bath places. It's a pretty blue, a bit dark perhaps, but all in all the sunrise thunderstorm is a nice way to wake up. This time. Because, say, if the powered gone off? Not nice.
Half way through the Round of Eight and George leads Jimmy 113-84. In the other match Meltzer leads Robinson 109-98. Sounds like basketball scores. Lots of bridge behind most of these guys (Cayne and Meltzer came through the round robin, so they've already played six full days), and for some, lots to come.
Sox win over the Tigers, still alive....
Character
The work has been going so well. I've taken a quick detour into Beckett's childhood and learned so much about him. Several pivotal scenes came up and I am pretty confident I know how to use them. One of the best and most useful things I've learned to do is to constantly ask (myself, my characters, whatever) WHY? Why's he there? Why him? Why not somebody else? Not all the questions or answers make it in, but I feel like my writing is much stronger when I know why things are happening. Lately I find myself moved most by letting the characters tell me why. In their own words.
When Anna Met Eleanor, Part II
Gawd, so I walk up to them, this scraggly bunch of Flight A players, you know, the
stars of this particular tournament, the people you whisper about when you're a beginner. "That's Lew Grissom," somebody will say, and since you're
new, you know, you can't help but ask.
"His team wins the Sunday Swiss here every year," they'll tell you,
reverently.
What they don't
know is that Grissom
hires that partner. Not that they haven't got tons of great results, Grissom is a pretty good player in his own right, but winning a twenty-team Swiss on a Sunday in
Rockford, Illinois isn't exactly beating the world. Besides, Grissom is a
jackass. Convicted child molester. Don't have to have children to
loathe child molesters.
Anyway I walk up to this scruffy bunch. There's Anna, looking irritated. Who could blame her? The client was Martha Singer, a lovely old bird, maybe eighty. They had special rules for playing with Martha -- wait a second, wait. It
wasn't Martha. It was somebody else.
Damn. I am always forgetting stuff like this. Bill. It was Big Bill S., that's right! Bill was Miguel's client for years -- a great, hulking teddy bear of a guy, former college basketball star, mellowed into a big-hearted recovery junkie who couldn't play any of his local tournaments since they all took place on a riverboat with a casino and Bill was 23 years in Gambler's Anonymous. He wasn't much for the anonymous bit -- Bill loved getting his picture in the paper & speaking out on
gambling issues. He led the charge for problem gamblers to self-exclude on the boats and at casinos -- they put their names on the permanent
prohibited list of crooks, cheater and card counters.
Of course I didn't know
a bit of his until
much later. At the time, I think I was just terribly excited to have found a way in. So we go sit a few tables over and I'll be damned if Miguel doesn't spend all his time staring at me. Anna's lover. Staring at me. At first, of course, I thought he must just be the jealous Latin husband, wary and protective. Which, of course, appealed to me. But that wasn't it at
all. He was just
staring at me. With a funny look, almost a smile. Anna's asking me to describe my game, my abilities and all I can think of it how much it turns me o to see Miguel looking at me like that. Anna looked over at Miguel once, I couldn't read her face at all.
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ps - Ok, Mary. No more disclaimer.
