Flotilla - Half of A Synopsis

This is the first half of the synopsis I'm sending to literary agents. I don't want to give away how the entire book goes but wanted to share where I am with you.

What if you had to become a man at the edge of the world? Jim Westfield enjoyed being a slacker in suburban LA until his father moved them to the Colony, an experimental fishing community over a hundred miles off the Pacific Coast. Jim's flirtation with drugs and alcohol thrusts him into a dangerous world. Dodging the sharks, drug smugglers and pirates in a place where the nearest cop or sailor is a hundred miles away, Jim will grow up fast ... too fast. Does hardship turn you into a man or a monster? Is there a difference?

Before all of this, before Jim came to the Colony and before he completed a two-week stay in a rehab center for alcohol, Jim was just normal kid. He was simply a suburban teenage white kid in Los Angeles with his mother, his sister and his step-father. Other than his missing dad, the ex-con with multiple felonies, things were fine…sort of. It may have taken five years, but when Rick reappears again, Jim and his father both start a tenuous process to rebuild their relationship. While that happens, Jim starts down a bad path; He starts waking up in strange places because of his binge drinking. It becomes obvious to his parents and step-Dad that Jim needs more structure and direction in his life. Where else could Jim find it except by spending his summer out on the open ocean enduring back-breaking labor?

Jim is sent to the Colony on the same day he leaves his alcohol-treatment…Adjusting to life in such a strange place would be a story in and of itself. Jim has to endure the hazing and mild abuse that goes with the territory in such a far-off place. You wake up at 4:30 to tend to your crop of fish and spend the rest of the day working at the floating gun range or participating in your dad’s zany, semi-legal scams. Or maybe you run a scam or four of your own and hope the old man doesn’t find out. You observe the weirdness of the free-sprits who treat their life on the Colony as a massive performance-art piece. You’ll deal with the obvious nutters, the cut-throat drug operations that a few bad apples insist on running and the pioneer-types who just want to make an honest living. You’ll sit back at watch the show while you slowly come to the truth: That it runs at all is a testament to the human spirit and the desperation of the human flotsam that populates a place like this.

The Flotilla Cast - Rick Westfield

"He stood five-foot-eight but broad in the shoulder. He stood in a wide stance on the dock that I found somewhat predatory."

Rick Westfield is a recovering drug addict, an ex-con and a failed college professor; everything you look for in a father. After years of being a ‘deadbeat Dad’ and a guest of the state, Rick and Jim are thrown together in the strange experience of the Colony. His past is never far behind him, but that doesn’t prevent him from giving Jim some appropriate guidance and direction even if it’s usually by threat of violence.

Trying to stay away from the failures of his past and build a successful future on the bare, ragged edge of humanity, Rick still suffers from his own ability to get into trouble much more often than he gets out of it. His past is the millstone that he so desperately does not want to place around the neck of his own children.

"'So let this be a lesson to you, kiddies,' Rick would lecture the wood paneling in the lounge. Coming down or sobering up always left him in a semi-fugue state…’twilight time’ he called it. He’d deal with his depression by delivering the next installment in a lecture series entitled 'How Not to Screw Up Like Your Old Man'. He wasn’t talking to anyone; he knew he was talking to the wall. It felt better than sitting there with your head burning over and over every mistake you’ve made. It felt better than trying to write it all down. Rick would sit down with a cold drink, stare at the wall and just let rip. A confessional worthy of a cable-ready documentary if they ever cared to drag a camera crew out this far…"

The Flotilla Cast - Jim Westfield

"Catching a look at himself in the mirror, Jim saw a kid who was about average height but with a deepening chest. Blonde hair that was crew-cut-short and eyes that were either blue or grey depending on the light. Jim wasn’t built to be a surfer and he wasn’t hitting the weights enough to let his arms and legs fill out like they should. In short, Jim was like just about every other teenage kid who hasn’t quite grown into his body."

Jim Westfield is a teenager at the crossroads – he can either continue down the path of alcohol and drugs or he can shape up and take his first steps toward becoming a man. He wasn’t getting that kind of help on shore but out here on the ocean where everyone does a grown man’s day of work, the help is there and usually in the form of his estranged father or any number of adults who found the structure of shore life too restrictive for their taste.

Jim’s experiences don’t change the fact that he wants to do the right thing and senses that he’s capable of more than getting drunk or high without the slightest idea about how to go about it. He gets frustrated and bitter, he screws up and acts out but unlike the soft and easy consequences he’s enjoyed back on land the Colony and the sea will provide the most harsh and direct wake-up call of all.

The Flotilla Cast - Miguel Herrera

Miguel Herrera is a cool customer, a good friend and a dangerous enemy. Jim gets to see all three sides during his time on the Colony. He runs a floating gun range - the Barco de Arma - in among the other semi-legal business enterprises he is involved in. Jim's dad, Rick, is frequently Miguel's partner-in-crime.

The door slid open and a short, squat Mexican peered out at us. “’Sup?” he inquired.

Dad pointed at me. “El burro,” he said. The Mexican grinned.

“The mule?” I asked.

“Yeah,” the Mexican replied. “I just rented you.” He grabbed me by the shirt front and pulled me inside before I could say another word.

It's usually when Jim or Rick are in over their head that Miguel's ability to solve problems manifests itself. Even if you don't like Miguel - you don't want to mess with him. There are a lot of people who figured that out the hard way.

"Miguel was angry, Jim could see. The difference between Miguel and his Old Man was that Rick would shout and bluster. Miguel, on the other hand, was the cool bank-robber-type who would ask everyone to stay calm while holding a submachine gun. You didn’t want to mess with either of them but somehow Miguel seemed a little more dangerous."

'Zona Trash

Mix was drinking a dead man's beer. He sipped from a pony bottle of Miller Genuine Draft that his uncle-in-law kept in the refrigerator by the case. Cheap beer, the kind that a Monty Python fan would call "Making love in a canoe"; it's only saving grace was that it was cold and there were plenty of it left over. He was sitting in Bob's back yard, concrete under a fiberglass patio, the only thing left of the sunset was a stripe of green at the horizon.

The heat in Glendale reminded Mix of being in a sauna – the baking heat minus the tangy smell of heated wood. The cicadas were deafening. The pool lights cut through the green, half-drained swimming pool of his uncle and reminded him of everything that he hated about visiting this place. Uncle Bob wasn't his wife's favorite uncle…He wasn't anyone's favorite uncle. Or father, or son, or brother, or friend. Bob was Bob and a lifetime of poor lifestyle choices had finally caused him to cash it in on the cereal aisle of the local Fry's. His heart beat its last right between the Golden Grahams and the Lucky Charms

A dog roop-roop-roop'ed near by and Mix could hear Ranchero music echoing from a car window out on the street. The street was quiet again after a minute. The silence seemed to be pregnant and it got under your skin after a while. You were waiting for something to explode but somehow it never did.

"Duncan?" a voice called from inside and Mix turned.

"Yeah?"

"I'm putting the baby down, come say good night," his wife's voice floated out from somewhere inside. Walking into the house was like stepping into a steam room on top of a sauna – the swamp cooler had been broken and the house still held the heat of the day.

The kid was sweating as he slept on the couch – you could see tiny beads on his brow. It was after 9 o'clock and they were still divvying up old momentos, clothes and going through Bob's papers. They were checking to see if he had any money socked away that would help pay for the funeral. Briefly, Mix kissed his son's forehead and walked outside again – time for another cruise.

She heard his keys jingling at the door and caught him before he left. "Where are you going this time?" she asked him.

"Just out," Mix replied, he tried to keep it light but he knew his eyes would give too much away.

"Can't you see we need your help here?" she demanded.

"I've been sitting on the back porch for the last hour drinking Bob's beer," he said. "What to you want?'

"And while you're doing that, we're sweating our fannies off (she cleaned it up for the sake of Grandma when she visited) trying to figure out how to pay for Bob's casket!" She was getting shrill and he knew the whole house was listening, even if he couldn't see them. If he could hear her call from outside, well, the whole house was one big sound box, wasn't it? There wasn't any point in arguing – he might have done it if he was at home. But he wasn't home and the normal rules of their relationship had been temporarily suspended. Her sister came silently into the room and stood behind her with her arms crossed. Mix turned, opened the front door and left. This wasn't the time or place to argue about it…an hour of driving seemed to clear the air.

The air seemed freer out here in the front yard – maybe because out here you got away from the smell of stale cigarettes and fossilized grease. Bob's house reflected one of the realities of old male bachelors: they didn't age well. As Mix pulled away, his cell phone vibrated in the cargo pocket of his shorts. It was her, calling to continue the argument. He let it go to voicemail, knowing it would just make it worse when they spoke again. He needed the break more then the fight.

He'd take hour-long cruises throughout the city. With the tunes and the AC cranked in their rented Dodge crackerbox, he'd explore Tempe, Mesa or Scottsdale. Rock or pop, he was positively allergic to country music and this was another point of contention with his in-laws. For fun, he'd try to get lost – the squared-off grid made that almost impossible. The natural beauty of the red rock mixed obliquely with the grungy strip malls down on McDowell. The lights were timed in the downtown area and he could go for miles without having to stop.

At random, he'd turn down a side street looking to see if the view got any better…it never did. Miles of dusty tract houses with dirt yards, or low-maintenance yards or drought-resistant grass that look a lot like crab grass. Pickups in the driveway with paint-splattered beds and trees in the yard with trunks painted a solid white. Lawn gnomes that looked like they were picked up on sale back in 1976. It was a different place, to be sure, and a different culture, too. It could be either a curse or a blessing but family was family. You turned a blind eye to the alcoholism or the cousin doing some time in county.

"It's a different place, man," Carlton said.

His time running out on the cruise but still not able to bear going back, Mix called a friend who'd moved out to Gilbert about a year and a half ago. Some nice subdivision house that cost about half of what he would have spent in Sacto – he transferred out of Roseville to join a new team with HP. Mix had to admit, it was nice. Carlton had a massive house while Mix was feeling hemmed in by the thousand square feet he shared with his wife and the rug rat.

Carlton lit a smoke as soon as he stepped out into the yard. Mix was watching the heat lightning as it crackled in the eastern sky. Carlton's Zippo clinked and he sucked at the Camel hungrily. "Geographically, it's closer to the West Coast but culturally, it's closer to the Midwest," he said.

"Family is family is family," Mix said bitterly.

"Yup. It's what holds them together."

"The hand you hold is the hand that holds you down."

Carlton looked puzzled. "Now where have I heard that before?"

"It's a line from an Everclear song," Mix replied.

"Oh, right." He punctuated his statement with a burp and took another pull from his beer. "Anyway – the point is that they got a way of doing things that, just by living and breathing you put a wrench into."

"So how is it that you survive?" Mix asked.

"Oh, I don't go down there," Carlton replied. "Are you kidding? I wouldn't last an hour."

"My family's not racist…" Mix felt obligated to defend them. They might be poor and surly, but they weren't bigots.

"I didn't say they were. People do things for a lot of reasons besides being i'gnant Crackas." Carlton smiled as he said it…he wasn't a 'Street' kind of guy but Mix liked him for being able to drop into it in a heartbeat and then back out of it again like it had never been there. "If you aren't from here, you get treated differently. If you aren't from here and you're doing better than they are – you might as well be giving them the finger every time you walk into the room. They put up with you 'cuz you married into their family but they wouldn't be as patient with me."

"Like guys from South Boston," Mix said.

"Nah – Southie guys'd kill you," Carlton said. "You'd just disappear. Out here it's more like 'Death by Trailer Park Rec Room'. You'll be eating Jello salad and cold fried chicken at that 23^rd baby shower and then just snap and shoot yourself."

Mix considered all of this. He always suspected that this was how it went but never had anyone confirm it for him. "Weird," is all he said.

"'Zona Trash," Carlton said, mid-puff.

"Huh?"

"'Zona trash," Carlton said. "You've seen white trash in California. White trash in Arizona is a whole 'nother ball game."

"Yeah, but these guys aren't racist," Mix said.

"They are to people outside of their area," Carlton said. "White, Black or Chinese – if you grew up here, you're cool. Everyone else is suspect."

"So how do you do it?"

"I just hate people," Carlton replied, pointing the hot end of his cancer stick at Mix. "I make them work to get along with me. You work to get along with other people and that's what makes you stupid."

"Stupid?"

That's right, stupid," Carlton repeated.

"Screw you, man!" Mix was getting pissed.

"Exactly…if you said that to them at the start you wouldn't be here." Carlton stared calmly at Mix. "Am I moving too quickly?"

Mix calmed down – Carlton usually behaved like this when he knew something that Mix didn't. For a long minute, all you could hear in the backyard were the cicadas. The perfumed smell of orange trees mixed with the dry, dusty smell of the wind. It was time to listen.

"Yes," Mix replied.

"Look. You went out here, being a nice guy and saying 'Hey, let's be family!' They didn't know what to do about that. Truth is, neither did you. Things aren't working out the way you hoped and so your response is 'be nicer'. That's not working out so hot and now you're essentially out of ideas. You can't be Santa Claus and you don't want to be a jerk, either."

"So?"

"So my point is, stop trying. It's not going anywhere. Just take care of you and your family, man."

"But they're my family, Carlton!"

"No…no, they're not," Carlton peered at Mix. "Could you count on these people in a crisis, Mix?"

Silence fell over them…it wasn't something Mix had thought about. He knew the answer but was afraid to voice it before now. "No, I guess not."

"Would you go to them if you needed help because you lost your job? House burned down? Baby was sick?"

"No."

"You guys get together for visits and dinners and stuff?"

"I'm here now, aren't I?"

"On a regular basis?"

"…No."

"That's not family, man. That's more of what you'd call 'an acquaintance'. Family's there for you and not to just ask you to show up and pay for some greaseball's funeral."

"But they don't know how to do it-"

"People will only treat you as well as you expect them to." Carlton's beer was sweating and he paused to drain it. "If you don't care enough about yourself to insist on a certain behavior, why should they?" He stood and went back into the house, calling back over his shoulder, "Want another beer?"

"Sure." Mix sat there, gazing toward the hairy collection of radio towers on South Mountain. His cell phone buzzed again in his shorts – it was her again. "Yeah?"

"Where are you?" she was ticked.

"Out," he replied. "I'll be back in a few."

"Well, we're done for the day so as soon as you can make it – I'd like to go back to the hotel," she bit the end off of every word.

"Whatever," he said, and hung up. His phone buzzed again almost immediately and he shut it off. He needed time to digest and think…introspection was something he couldn't do in Bob's house.

"Reciprocal altruism," Carlton said as a greeting when Mix went into the house. "Your family understands it instinctively but it seems you need a few lessons."

"What is it?"

"Look it up," Carlton said. "I can't give you the whole story." Mix and Carlton made small talk long enough to finish the beers and Duncan was on his way back to Bob's house a few minutes later. The heat burned off the alcohol and he barely felt them. He kept digging himself deeper into the pit, no matter which way he turned…Might as well be comfortable.

He slid to a stop in front of Bob's house a few minutes later. She was standing at the door with her sister, he could see that them stop their conversation to watch him. When those two get together, it's like lions watching a gazelle, he thought.

"Where have you been?" Beatrice, his sister-in-law asked. Before, he would have answered immediately and the fight would have been on. He felt a little better-equipped and simply stared silently at her. It was the longest two minutes of his life, he decided. Not speaking and not running…he had never tried it before. She was becoming visibly upset at his lack of response and finally flared out a "Well?"

He stared another half of a minute. "Let's go," he said to his wife. Without another word, he turned back to the car. He didn't need to look behind him to see her caught between the two of them. It wasn't what he wanted, of course, but there wasn't another way.

The next several days were very tense and he spent as much time as possible out of the house. Bob had no assets and his funeral was going to be very spare. Mix suggested a simple cremation but this was shouted down, literally. When this happened, he skipped shouting back. Shrugging his shoulders, he turned and left…when he came back it was as if nothing had ever happened. No one raised their voice to him again, however. As the 'guy from California', he was dreading getting pinched to cover some of the costs. This trip had been expensive, in more ways than one.

"You make it sound like they're bad people," Mix said to Carlton before he left that evening.

"They're not bad people, Mix. They're just people. These are they rules they follow to get along in this world."

"And their world is based on keeping their heads in the sand?"

"If that's what it takes."

"That doesn't work for me," Mix said.

"Me neither." Carlton started humming the 'Diff'rent Strokes' theme song.

"What is that?"

"'Diff'rent Strokes', dude." An ominous silence followed. "Don't you know 'Diff'rent Strokes? Gary Coleman?"

"The paycheck cashing guy?"

"I need a beer," Carlton said, heading for the fridge.

Quick Preview and an Update

Greetings, folks. The novel is still in progress [63,000 words and climbing] and I wanted to give you a quick-hit to enjoy...

[[[ Chapter 14 - Journal Entry – Nancy Arrives ]]]

When my sister was 2 and I was 6, I asked my mom to shave my head so I could be like her. She got diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, Ewing’s Sarcoma, and she lost her hair to chemo so I shaved my head to be like Nancy.

The cancer was back when Mom was still seeing Dad and Nancy was the product of a conjugal visit. I’m not saying anything; I was a prison baby, too. We three were living with my grandparents while Mom went to school and paid for it by doing nights at a video store over in Sunland. She’s finishing her third year and then the doctor drops the atom bomb on us: bone cancer and she might lose her leg.

They all started acting weird, Mom and Grandma were crying and Grandpa was out in the back yard. Rather than let us see him cry, he was viciously attacking the lemon tree with an old pair of hedge clippers. I came to understand that something had gone wrong when Mom had to quit her job and we spent days in different offices filing paperwork so that she could get her daughter treatment for her cancer. When you’re poor and you’re on state assistance, getting any kind of medical is difficult and when it’s cancer it’s darn near impossible. Mom attacked the problem like anything else – she made it her full-time job. Paperwork, calling offices, sending letters and even threatening to call every TV station in LA – she made sure that they didn’t let Nancy down when it came to getting any kind of decent care.

Mom became rabid on the topic and it’s something I’ve never forgotten. Even when she’s cranky or rambling like a wino, I remember that look in her eye when she reached across a counter and grabbed an oncologist by his tie. I have no idea what she said to the man but it got him to switch out Nancy’s meds.

As Nancy’s treatment started and she was miserable, cranky and tired all the time – it really threw our house into a mess. Her little curls started falling out and she cried because it hurts to lose your hair. So one day, I asked Mom could I shave my head? She looked at me oddly – why did I want to do that? I just shrugged and said “I dunno…make Nancy feel less weird, I guess.” Her eyes filled with tears and she pulled me close. She kissed the top of my head and sent me to Grandpa.

I thought he might be upset himself – he’s been cutting my hair out on the back porch every month for several years – but for some reason he just smiled and said “Sure, sport.” He drew on the old bedsheet that was my barber apron for a long time and then took the guard off of his old Wahl clippers. In the warm evening air with the smell of lemon blossoms all around us, he shaved my little head back to a fuzzy cue ball. Mom and Grandma laughed and cried at the same time – I held Nancy up and we took a picture of both of us chrome-domes. Mom keeps the picture in a scrap book somewhere.

I’m just telling you this so that later on, when you ask why I’m freaking out because the Colony just turned into the Wild West, I can say “I love my little sister” and you’ll know what I’m talking about. I guess I love her. As much as anyone can…Nancy can be kind of a pain.