Storytellersunplugged

Wayne Allen Sallee
jonalgiers@aol.com

Here I am again. Before I go into my intended topic this go round, I’d like to take a moment to talk about the vagaries of irony. Now, its old news that my tombstone will read “The Computer Remained His Nemesis.” But I continue to find new ways to become an irony magnet when it comes to this thing in front of me, the Monster That Made Ted Kaczynski Insane. (The Unabomber grew up in Evergreen Park, just a few blocks from my old home in Chicago. Different generations, varied levels of insanity at these god-awful monstrosities). A few months back, I discovered a few reprints of YEAR’S BEST HORROR in Dutch, and I had correspondence with Kees Buis, a bookseller in The Netherlands. I now have the Dutch edition of my first paperback appearance. Around this time, I was given a copy of Naturally Speaking, as I had discussed in a previous 28th of the month entry. Well, the only way I could download the program was in Dutch. I do not lie. Cop slang for a suicide is “doing a Dutchie.” I wonder why. I wrote a column on cyanide for Salem Press’ FORENSIC SCIENCE reference book. I start the article, hit Save As, go to the plant for fourteen hours, come home, click on the WordPerfect document, and the screen is blue. White text. INVISIBLE text, if emailed, but for my highlighted in, ah, blue email address. Cyanide. Cyan. Prussian Blue. I’m sure if I “did a Dutchie,” I’d be blue in the face when found. (I’ve told many people that I intend to be stuffed and auctioned off each year at a World Horror Convention to the highest bidder, maybe the bloated face will add to the effect). One would think.

Now, skidding around to a serious topic, as fast as my bipolarity allows, the meaning behind my column’s name. I fell into what could work out as a long term writing assignment, granted the first book sells well. A comic company in New Delhi was accepting 64 page adaptations of fantasy and science-fiction books, and I came very close to not even emailing the publisher. My idea involved handicapped children in a rehabilitation clinic that achieve temporary superpowers. Its been an idea that I’d have always wanted to see as a comic, more so than a novella. Well, I was amazed to find that my proposal was not only the first original work they accepted, but if the book sold well, I’d be under contract to write 24 64 page quarterly books, much like manga in appearance. I had to make the children multi-national, and researched hordes of material mon genetic and neurological diseases. It was easy to come up with “brittle bone syndrome,” such as Sam Jackson had in the film UNBREAKABLE as a way for a child to attain rock hard skin. The same for others to get super speed, electric powers, etc. The burn victims were able to fly, their skin healing faster. But the book(s?) Is/are geared for 5th-7th Graders and needed to be “cheerful.” In fact, I was asked to have a puppy dog as a guardian angel in the book; if I wasn’t in my downbeat mode, I’d give a clear and funny example of exactly what I’d put in the book for what I’m getting paid. But there’s nothing funny about this researching thing. My cerebral palsy is hardly noticeable on the surface, ask Brian Hodge or Beth Massie, two of my heroes. Sure, my head flops around from neck spasms, but it makes for a good show at the cons, a parlor trick. (Brian also will claim that I snore, that’s a lie. He simply dreamt about a person snoring). I’m being glib, avoiding the point. Sure, my whole body is FUBAR, a lot of it is that I’m closing in on being Half-Century Man, but the only other person in my family with C.P. died in June, and she was barely fourteen, blind, retarded, and weighed about forty pounds. Died of liver failure from her meds. Her name was Cortney King, and I made her the hospital administrator in the comic. I continued with my research in my spare time at work, in the late hours here in my laboratory, listening to a Glenn Gray and the Cosa Loma Orchestra play music from nearly a century ago. I read up on ALS, on the Jerry Lewis diseases like Duchennes and I found myself not wanting to read my Act of Contrition but rather drop to my knees, and there is no melodrama here, folks. As messed up as my mind and my body are, at least I can say that I am moving forward in everything I do, in every day in paradise. I hit the C.P. variations. Lesch-Nyhan. I hadn’t read up on that since I put a similar character in THE HOLY TERROR. A self-destructive disease that has the afflicted–a word I despise, by the way, if used in casual conversation–needing to have most of their teeth extracted at an early age because they would otherwise chew their lips off and tear at their chin, cheeks, and tongue. Their wrists are restrained and a pillow placed on their laps in the even they can slam their face forward and downward. Forwards and downward. What I said before, at least I can move forward, without slamming myself downward. (Well, now that I’m on the bipolar meds, at least). I was granted a very strange and intriguing interview by David Bain for DOORWAYS magazine, it appears next month as almost a short piece of fiction in narrative form. Bain asked me about the neighborhood I grew up in, Humboldt Park. I told him the entire area was a regentrified pile of shit, and at least I can bring back the old neighborhood by writing stories set during my childhood. In my novella “Lover Doll,” from Ellen Datlow’s anthology LITTLE DEATHS, I also wrote about crippled kids, pulling at memories from my thirteen years at Illinois Research as a lab rat. I read articles on conjoined and vestigial twins and vomited into my fist. The story takes place between 1962 through 1994, and I had no problem describing fictional, yet horrific, scenes. One, in particular, involving an elite strip parlor in Las Vegas with all the dancer having some sort of disfigurement. Fiction vs. reality. Altered fates. And here I am, moving forward, as I email this to Dave to post on Storytellers Unplugged. I thank you all for putting up with my ravings…Wayne