Authors Notes

Summer 2006

Justin Lindsey Allman

            I wrote a novel and it did well on the shelf.  It was good enough to get a second written and begin my career.  The second one didn’t do so well, but was still good enough to get a third.  This is where my trouble began.  I had nearly four years to write the first one—to get every ounce of my mind clear, concise, and the book, well-written.  They gave me nine months to write the second book and, with all my heart, I built on the foundations of the first.  It was in the last part of my trilogy that I had come across a very potent obstacle:  I never, in all my years of writing, thought I would sell a manuscript.  I hadn’t written, imagined, or envisioned anything past the first two plots.  I was back at square one.

            My publisher, represented by Annie Reynolds, told me that I could take up to a year to write the last one.  After six months I woefully called to tell her that it was going to take longer than I thought.  Annie, reading between the lines, asked me how far I had gotten.  I hadn’t even committed a single letter to type.  Annie understood.

            “Justin, I’ve worked with a few writers in my day, and I know that ‘block’ is the worst thing that can happen.  I don’t want you to worry about the trilogy, but I want you to write—start another book.  You’re a great writer.  In fact, you’re the best Sci-Fi author we have, but that isn’t all you can do.  Find yourself a muse.  Go out and get passionate about someone or something.  Write about it—it will help.”

            The life of a Sci-Fi author isn’t all glitz and glamour.  At the time I didn’t own a house and my car wasn’t new.  I had bills, most of which I paid late, and my cat, Jedi, would have kicked me out if she could’ve figured a way to get the canned food opened.  I was a shut-in nerd that would’ve rather spent time linked to the Internet playing games than actually fulfilling my dreams.  All I knew was Sci-Fi and I needed to write about something else.

            After my conversation with Annie I realized that my life had about six weekly stops in it.  One was the grocery store, two the Laundromat, three my buddy Erich’s (we played video games), four my mom’s, five the bank, and six the computer store.  This was not an acceptable life for a thirty-three year-old man.  I decided I would break the mold.        

            After driving around town for several hours, I finally ended up at a place called “Cuppajo.”  It was one of those yuppie-style coffee houses that featured five-dollar coffees and six-dollar donuts.  The cookie-cutter styling ensured that you could walk into a “Cuppajo” in Seattle and have the same experience as if you walked into another in Galveston.  This franchised-out, soulless, corporate entity was everything a man of my disposition fought against.

            The allure of caffeine called to my Ritalin-deprived brain and got me into “Cuppajo” just to try it out.  Because I had never been in one before I failed to notice the subtle differences of this particular coffee house to the rest of the franchise, specifically the serving of alcohol.  I assumed since the “Cuppajo” on the corner from my house served liquor that they all did.  I didn’t drink much, so I didn’t really care.  Nor, did I notice the pictures on the walls that showed the bartender in front of vistas from across the world.  A samurai sword hung over the bar and several martial arts trophies resided on a back shelf.  There was a small library of books, and had I taken the time to look, I would have noted that they had all been written by the same author. 

            Upon entering this subtly-altered franchise I was greeted by the barkeep.  He wasn’t tall, standing five ten, and weighing in at nearly two-hundred pounds—not the kind of guy that would you would worry about getting in a fight with.  Not quite obese, but not really thin either.  I imagined Santa in his younger years, before the beard and elves.  It was hard to gauge his age (he looked around thirty), but there was something worn and tired about his eyes. 

            His name was Joe and he seemed to be the kind of man that would marry your sister and work for a construction company for thirty years.  The impression was that he was reliable, regular, and pretty damn boring.  If you sat at his bar he would tell you about his adventures in the Congo, or on the sides of the Himalayas tracking evidence of the Yeti.  He had waded through the Amazon and been lost in the Gobi desert looking for dinosaur bones.  He smuggled medicine to Africa and built aqueducts in Ethiopia.  While staying at the Vatican he developed a friendship with one of the Cardinals, and even, if only for a moment saw the Pope.  All this and more could be seen upon the walls and in the books of this small place. 

            Over a rather well-made mocha and Irish cream I told him about my writer’s block and what he said was amazing:

            “I want to write this book, but—” I began.

            “You don’t want to write,” he interrupted flatly.

            “What?”  

            “You don’t want to write a book.”

            “I know what I want,” I said, rather incensed that this man I hardly knew would tell me how I felt.

            “No you don’t.”

            “I think I do.”

            “If you wanted to write a book you’d write it.  You’re still just thinking about it.  When you want to take a shit you take a shit.  When you want to eat you eat.  When you want to write this book you’ll write it.”

            I was back at “Cuppajo” the next day and every day after that.  Joe and his strange offensive wisdom wasn’t all that this place had to offer.  The clientele extended from immigrant workers to the mayor of our small city.  While there I met more people in a few months sitting at that coffee bar than I had met in my whole life.  Let me clarify:  I was meeting people that weren’t locked into the Science Fiction addiction.

            I met a girl named Lisa, fell in love, and found the plot to my third novel.  It would be a romance.  The third time was the charm and over the next six months I shot into the top twenty and eventually into the best seller list.  I had known old Joe for nearly a year now and without him I would have never made it.  He never asked anything from me and even picked up the tab whenever I came in with a good story.  When I did anything of interest I ran to the shop to tell him and there was a sense of satisfaction that only Joe seemed to provide. It was his interest more than his input that allowed me to get past my writer’s block and become the author that everyone expected.  I owed Joe something, but I didn’t know what.

            In the summer of 2005 the shop was closed for three days in a row.  On the fourth day I went in to find Derek, the assistant manager, behind the bar.  He said Joe was sick and wouldn’t be in for a few days.  When Joe finally did come in he asked to speak with me alone.  He told me that he had been diagnosed with a tumor that no doctor could reach.  They told him he had only months to live.  He asked if I would do him a favor and write a biography about him.  I looked to his library and saw at least ten books about his adventures. 

            “No, not about him— about me.”

            I didn’t understand, but Joe had helped me when I needed it, and I wouldn’t let him down.

            Over the next two weeks I conducted five interviews that compiled nearly fifteen hours of recorded sound.  It was the most amazing story I had ever heard, and the most unbelievable.  Joe died before I could conclude the interviews.  He passed while sitting in his favorite chair with a sword in one hand and a Polaroid of a friend in the other.  It was as he had wished.  This book is my retelling of the story, not of Joe, but of Joey.  I have them as separate people for as you will see they aren’t alike in any way.  Every Chapter starts off with a quote from Joe, but the rest is told from a third-person perspective.  I’ve had to plug in some creative charm here and there to fill the gaps that only Joe could have filled, but I have done so with the intention that this is his story, not mine.  

            I am myself not a homosexual, but many of the thoughts and ideas herein are.  There are many sexual situations intoned in this text, but they aren’t designed or intended to be pornographic.  This is not a book for pedophiles.  This is the true story of Joey, a boy that was molested and raped for most of his young life.  It is a tragedy, but Joey had ultimately risen up to be something truly amazing.  From the fire and hammer a great sword was forged.

            As a small side note:  love is love.  Where there were before walls, there is now glass.  The separations between our worlds, that of the breeder, and that of the artist (as Joey would say) aren’t opaque.  We can see into each others’ lives and learn.