Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Apologies to Mr. Chandler


The gal kicked off her flip-flops and hoisted her bare, sweaty gams onto the coffee table. She was the kind of leggy brunette that still turned the occasional head, despite the fact that she was clinging to her forties like a roof rat clings to the last orange on the tree. And despite all her years in what could more accurately be called the City of Demons, the utter misery of Los Angeles in late summer never failed to take her by surprise. How could this city be a virtual paradise for 11 months of the year, and then, in late August, become a plastic raft in the Lake of Eternal Hellfire; a hot, sweltering, endless expanse of stripmall-lined blacktop, devoid of life, hope, or even the smallest nugget of human compassion.

Yeah, it was hot. And it had been hot for days. It was so hot she couldn’t remember a time when it wasn’t hot, when she didn’t feel a murderous impulse every time the oscillating fan turned its limp ripple of air away from her and toward the boyfriend who sat sweating beside her on the sofa. “If I killed him,” she thought, “there’d be more cool air for me. Besides, I wonder how much heat his body is generating, even at rest.”

But she soon abandoned her calculations and ambled slowly into the kitchen. It was too hot—even for physics. “All I want to do,” she thought as she opened the icebox door “is crawl inside and curl up next to the pickles and beer.” She sighed heavily. “Maybe tomorrow will be cooler,” she said to herself as she pushed a damp curl back from where it clung to her forehead like a cheap starlet clings to Bruce Willis at a movie premiere.


Hey, want to be the star of your own pulp novel? Check out PulpStar, this awesome site run by two friends of mine. You can order a detective story customized to include yourself (and someone you love) as the main characters. It's pretty freaking cool. You can enter your stats and get a free sample if you want a taste of what the final product will look like.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

"despite the fact that she was clinging to her forties like a roof rat clings to the last orange on the tree"

Awesome, maybe you should write for Jess & Jeff's pulp fiction books.

SkylersDad said...

The dame worked through her murder options like a buck-toothed kid eatin corn on the cob through a picket fence. Everything was too messy, too obvious, or just too much damn trouble.

If the heat kept up she would have to try something though, and fast. Not like feeding him Viagra till he stroked out. That could take fucking weeks, and time wasn't on her side...

Anonymous said...

"roof rat clinging to the last orange"?

The heat has indeed effected your mind.

vikkitikkitavi said...

Rick, damn it, I so should have plugged their awesome web site. I'm a dope:

http://www.pulpstar.com/

I will revise.

GETkristiLOVE said...

I tried it out, very cool site. They don't have an entry for "bald" to describe my man on the free example though. Can you talk to your friends about that?!

Simon Glickman said...

It's worse in the Valley, sugarpuss. That's why we high-tailed it up into the hills, where there's at least a little breeze off Hellfire Lake.

Anonymous said...

Wow, thanks for plugging us!

Maybe you SHOULD write for us! That was a pretty freakin' awesome blurb.

The problem with "bald", getkristilove, is that all the stats go into a template. So, like, "He ran his fingers through his --haircolor-- hair."

So we'd have to create a completely different template for bald guys, which we still might do at some point, but we're currently too busy writing new books (50s scifi is next). Right now we figure: hey, live (um, read) the fantasy of having hair again!

We used to have "thinning" hair as a choice but I took it out. What do you think? Should I put it back in?

vikkitikkitavi said...

Jess: I say put it back in!

Anonymous said...

"I say put it back in!"

Huh, huh....that's what she said.