http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=216x5655Oh my.
It is just s-o-o-o s-l-o-w on Skins's island this evening, that I finally got bored enough to explore the writers' forum there.
EFerrari (1000+ posts) Sun May-10-09 05:04 PM
Original message
I have absolutely no idea what to do with this idea.
I don't write fiction. The part of my brain that writes poetry or essays seems to also be the part that makes fictionalizing difficult.
Yesterday, I noticed that there are all kinds of characters going in and out of our local Mom -n- Pop store. It's the only store remaining on this block out here in the outer Sunset district, about two blocks from the beach. It's dingy and would need refurbishing before it was as nice as Fred Sanford's place.
There's a middle aged recent divorcee, trying to stay out of foreclosure and always trying to find or stretch a dollar but talking politics with the store owner at inconvenient times, always putting up a poster about the latest outrage although it's very unlikely that anyone who comes to the store ever reads them.
A beautiful 6'5" somewhat psychotic black tranny who is gregarious and who sings as s/he pageant-walks around the neighborhood. There's a schizophrenic man with a Norweign accent who can't afford his meds the last week of the month. He wears a surgical mask and tells people to :"disregard, disregard, disregard" when he gets stressed out.
Another lady, maybe in her early 30s, pretty girl but her face shows how much she's drinking lately. And sometimes, how much she's getting hit by her boyfriend. She usually has a pitbull on a leash and sometimes, she forgets that.
There's the blue collar flattop guy, a sweetheart who married into a Filipino family. They all live in a big apartment together. He's always looking to make extra money and always baffled by his in laws. He told me that Obama was only going to take care of black people and was flummoxed when I pointed out that Obama's mom was a white lady.
There's the Syrian who lives above the store with his extended family. He's a little angry and every now and then, he comes into the store to do a short rant about how Muslims are treated in this country.
There's a Latino stoner who comes to stock the shelves. He's also very sweet and will listen to anyone and say yes to any neighbor's request, mostly because he's too stoned to say no.
There's an Indian kid who works a couple of shifts a week. He's always on his computer doing homework and nothing ever seems to touch him except when there's a neighborhood cookout.
There's also Keith, a homeless guy in a wheelchair who hasn't had a bath or a haircut since 1974. He came here for the good weather, he says. Everyone knows him. He could be any age from 40 to 60. The wheelchair turns out to be more for convenience than anything else as I found out one day, watching him push it down the block.
Tourists and surfers are also in and out of the store all the time. Tourists asking directions and surfers dripping on everything.
The owner of the store is an immigrant from El Salvador. People call him "Pop" or "Poppy or "Orlando" although his name is "Rolando". He is also a stoner and mostly blind but about my age, 50. He's a survivor of the dirty war in El Salvador and he has the scars on his face where they cut him to prove it. He's the heart of the hood and he gives credit in some form to all of us characters. He's a little man who seems very gentle until he starts swearing at which point you realize, he's got a gun somewhere handy. But, he laughs even more easily and for some reason, he puts up with all of us.
And the name of his store really is "Your Market". Rolando must be the only Latino with a store out here where retail is dominated by Asians. He never takes a day off until he does\ and usually, without warning so the whole neighborhood reacts like a kicked over anthill.
His wife seems to still be involved with cocaine which he gave up years ago. He's very tender with her when she calls on the phone. You can always tell when he's talking to Betty. She's even smaller than he is, thin as a toothpick and has a little dog that lives in her purse. She doesn't speak English unless she has to. The days when she comes to the store must be days when it's not safe to leave her alone at home.
They've recently lost their son to gang violence and Betty's mom to extreme old age. They're sort of at loose ends and in a funny way, we are are their extended family right now. And all of us are struggling through this recession, depression or whatever it's being called today.
I have no idea what to do with this except that it seems that during my retreat from most things in that last two years, I've been piling up these details. Too bad there isn't a Detail Flea Market because I could use the ten bucks.
Thoughts?
One thing Doug's ex-wife should do is.....paragraphize, rather than leaving it up to franksolich to do for her.
Surprisingly, for a brain with veins and vessels all clogged up and fossilized because of overuse of pharmaceutical mood-alterers, Doug's ex-wife writes these descriptions reasonably well.
She's no Bostonian Drunkard or that NanceGreggs idiot.
HamdenRice (1000+ posts) Mon May-11-09 09:28 AM
Response to Original message
1. Sounds like a great story for the store as "framing device"
after which the Hampton Roads primitive gives a whole lot of useless advice
franksolich has his own ideas about what all Doug's ex-wife can do with these, but I'm afraid to describe them, lest decent and civilized people suspect I lost my head, doing Doug's ex-wife a favor like that.
