I, Zombie

That's a working title for my next project. I just moments ago finished the outline for a zombie novel unlike anything you have ever read or seen in a movie. I guarantee it. It is brutal, disturbing, tragic, disgusting -- as such stories should be -- and will also be hopeful, artistic, funny, and enlightening, if I can pull it off the way I hope to.

It's a story that started with a bad dream and was added to by some skin-chilling brainstorming sessions with my son. (for one thing, the dog was his idea. You'll know it when you see it.) I anticipate using him as a sounding board throughout the process; so far, if I know my ideas sound insane and terrifying to him (and not just to me) then I'm still going in the right direction.

I'm excited to get going on this.

Don't want to Hava Java Anyway

PANAMA CITY BEACH — The less said about this place, the better. You don’t even want to mention the name except to warn people away.

You park in a lot with a handful of cars and trucks in it and walk past empty shop fronts until you find the open door of the coffee shop. You enter the narrow cafe that includes a small table and a scowling man behind the counter.

You are wearing your press badge and carrying a camera on a strap. You mention that you’re seldom on this end of the beach and glad to see the shop has stayed open when so many others have closed down.

“Everything’s for sale. You know somebody who wants to buy it? Let me know,” the man says before disappearing into a back room.

It’s a hot day. Rather than buy a coffee, you buy a soda. You consider the ice cream in the glass case. The man takes your money and walks outside, where he sits at a café table and attacks the keys of a laptop.

You sip a Coke and look around at the photos on the wall: the man is pictured with the Rolling Stones, Tina Turner, the Spice Girls, David Bowie and many other musicians and performers. His name is on a gold CD.

You step outside and stand by his table. You remark that Bowie is one of your favorite performers and that the photos are pretty cool.

“Yes, I used to be a VP with Virgin. I have a lot of things going on,” he says, not looking up from the laptop. He continues typing.

You offer your hand and try to introduce yourself again. He glances at your hand and keeps typing.

“I’m very busy,” he says. “Like I said, a lot is going on.”

You wipe your hand on your pants leg. You walk away.

You will not go back to the coffee shop. Ever. And you will tell anyone who will listen about the incident. There are better places to go and nicer people to talk to.

Odd Man Out

John.

The man felt odd even as he parked his truck and walked in the cool evening rain toward the Spanish-style town hall. The place was beautiful, slickly designed and finished. Ambience built-in. He wondered if the opulence was making him queasy.

Older people, richer ones, better ones, walked ahead of him. They sipped wine from long stem glasses. They giggled, or at least the women did, and they chatted. Even as he thought it, he knew he was being unfair, and he realized how strange he was feeling and that it was affecting his mood.

Some 40 or 50 of them gathered in the hall to listen to the authors who had led a writers conference in Rosemary Beach this week. The man gathered with them, feeling odd, the odd one out, the outsider. Not for any reason obvious or because of anything said or done by the others. In fact, he had friends here, or at least acquaintances. People he knew were present.

Malayne, from the town’s promotions office, lit up with genuine happiness when he introduced himself. She was slim with short-cropped dark hair and positive energy radiating. They shook hands, and she held the grip loosely for a moment longer, welcoming him. And John, the featured author at the conference, the university professor and novelist and flash fiction writer with Einstein’s hair and a ready grin, welcomed him in a similar fashion, if a firmer grip.

“Where’s your daughter?” John asked, recalling the man’s youngest child, who had accompanied him to a similar evening reading in Seaside many years before.

“Actually, she had a date,” the man said, happily surprised that John had recalled his daughter. John put the fingers of one hand to his mouth as if shocked. “She’s 19,” the man added, and John laughed and said he would have done the same.

Michael.

The man stood with his friend Michael, a novelist specializing in regional suspense, who was a presenter at the conference and was reading this evening after John and a memoirist named Lynne. Michael was with his lady friend, Linda. They talked to the man and were gracious, and the man sat there wondering why he still felt so odd, old, and alone.

They asked if he wanted to grab a bite with them after the reading; he mentioned that John had asked the same thing — though, John actually had said “Maybe we can have a glass of wine and catch up?” during a telephone conversation earlier in the week. John apologized then and said he had agreed to meet someone else, and the man said it was no problem, he understood.

In fact, he wondered if he understood at all.

“I have a present for you,” the man said, and he handed John a copy of his short story collection. John asked him to sign it and handed the man a pen. He signed it, “To John — You’re an inspiration,” and he said it would be good bathroom reading because the portions were small.

Everyone took their places except the man, who took a chair but still wondered where his place was.

The woman who introduced the authors received a note from Malayne in the middle of her intro and thanked the man for attending. He tipped his hat and smiled at the audience, glad to be there for a moment and aware of the emotion. She asked if the man would write about the event, and he admitted “Most likely.” The man looked across the crowd, saw John sitting beside his wife on the front row; John was looking at him with a smile in his eyes.

During the readings, the man took a couple of photos and a few notes. He wrote down when John said “I write about love and death. That’s what all stories are about.” He wrote it down because he agreed with it. It was true. It’s even what this story is about.

The giggling women sat behind him, and the man wondered what their stories were. What they loved and what was killing them.

Lynne.

After the readings, the man introduced himself to Lynne and told her he had really enjoyed her reading, if that was the right word. Her story had related a time when she was young and a man had tried to force himself on her. “Enjoyed” was probably not the right word, though he had been caught up in her story and relieved by its resolution.

She was gracious and asked if he had been the one who wrote the advance story in the local newspaper about the conference, and he said he had. An awkward moment followed as neither knew what else there was to say, and perhaps there wasn’t anything, but then a woman from the audience came up to hug Lynne and talk to her, and the man stepped away.

John was helping Malayne to gather the folding chairs. He put down the one he held, leaned it against one leg, and shook the man’s hand again. The man told John how much he enjoyed hearing John read. John said there would be another conference here in September, and would the man want to participate, maybe present or read something?

The man almost groaned, seeing an opportunity present itself from a genuine and interested source. “Oh, John. Thank you, but no, I really couldn’t. I’m not up to this, I’m not — I’m not in this class.”

John grinned, shrugged, having none of that. He said how he hoped the man would come back.

The man slipped through the lingerers then, and stood on the stoop of the hall and felt the cool rain on his face. He remembered that Michael and Linda had asked if he wanted to join them for a bite after the event. He did, but he didn’t want to impose, and besides, he was feeling odd tonight. Out of place. Queasy. An older woman asked if he needed an umbrella; he looked at the broken and bent mint-green one she held over her head and smiled. “No, thank you. I have a hat.”

And he walked into the lightning and soft rain, across the gravel parking lot, between small oak trees surrounded by a carpet of pine straw. He climbed into his truck, circled through the signal and around the other side of the central square to the book store, which was now closed. He parked anyway, got out and walked along, looking in the windows of closed shops.

He called his daughter and left a message. He drove 30A to U.S. 98 and turned toward home. Almost immediately off to the right, he saw the looming shapes of forgotten houses, multistory beachside properties some company had begun to construct before the bubble burst, left now to the weather and time. He turned onto their lonely lanes.

Torn skins of Tyvek and tar paper flapped in the wind. Windows were dark against the roiling gray. Buildings became black obelisks backed by the lightning. Around the houses empty lots and brick driveways indicated where other houses were supposed to have grown up. Almost there, he thought. They almost made it. Not finished and slick like the nearby buildings of Rosemary, these were the almost-homes, the gaping holes shaped like houses where no lives would be lived. The missed potential.

He could live here. He fit. He wasn’t odd. This was a place for him.

Free Comics

The best things in life are free, and Saturday stores across the country will be giving away some of the best things in life.
That's right. FREE COMICS.
(Hit the link for details. You can see which comics will be offered and find a comic shop near you.)
If at all possible, I will be visiting Arena Comics and/or Comic Emporium in Panama City with my kids.
Dig this video John McDonald made at the News Herald a couple of years back:

Remember when it was ‘mall or nothing’? Not any more …

PANAMA CITY — Not that long ago, I would have been incensed by the idea of the Panama City Mall declaring itself off-limits to teenagers on the weekend nights. Not so much any more.
And not because my attitude toward mall rats has changed over time.

In 1996, I wrote an article titled “Mall or Nothing” that appeared in our teen section.

The kids I interviewed talked about how they had nowhere else to hang out that was safe. They ate at the food court, played games in the arcade, watched movies at the discount theater, and looked for friends and fished for significant others.

They told me they were there to walk around, get numbers, play games, buy food, buy clothes and spend money. But they would prefer to go somewhere else. Just about anywhere else — but not bowling, one specified.

“All we’ve got is parking lots or the clay pits. There’s nowhere to go,” one girl said.

Yes, lots of them merely loitered. Yes, some of them sat outside and smoked. And regularly, some of them got into trouble for acting up, driving recklessly in the parking lot, shoplifting or other things.

That was fifteen years ago, admittedly, and most of the kids I talked to at the time are about to turn 30. But there still aren’t that many places for teens to go in this county. In fact, one of the big teen hangouts of the day — Miracle Strip Amusement Park — is no longer around.

Now, you can scratch the mall too — at least so far as teenagers are concerned.

As reported by Chris Segal on April 15, and covered by Meridith Kaufman on Friday, Panama City Mall has now instituted a new “escort” policy for teens that requires a parent or guardian over 21 to accompany anyone younger than 18 at all times on Fridays and Saturdays after 6 p.m.

Young people should be ready to show their ID to security guards, mall officials said. They added that the policy was enacted after feedback from parents, shoppers, retailers and “community leaders” about large groups of unaccompanied minors not adhering to the rules.

I’ve been to the mall recently. I haven’t noticed large groups of any kind. And what older folk I’ve seen there had their walking shoes on. (They weren’t shopping either.)

So watch out, Pier Park. If they aren’t there already (and we know many of them they are), they’re coming your way soon.

Peace .

----
This is my Sunday Undercurrents column.

Mall or Nothing

(Story originally appeared in the 'Generation NeXt' section on May 19, 1996)


It's Friday night at Panama City Mall — the perfect time and place to observe the peculiar courtship rituals of the human teenager.

They circulate through mall corridors, falling in and out of gravitational alignment as heavenly bodies of varying attractions pass through their orbits.

At the archway entrance to the Pocket Change arcade, starry-eyed girls form a globular cluster. There's hair to note, belts to touch, fingers to point, whispers and squeals to share. It's a scene repeated in various forms throughout the mall tonight.

But when it comes down to basics, they're at the mall for only two reasons: phone numbers and guys.

OK, maybe that's only one reason.

"What are we doing tonight?" says Cindy Jacobson, 14. "Life!"

Cindy, a student at Merritt Brown Middle School, is going to Miracle Strip Amusement Park tomorrow. Fellow Brown Bear Kelly Heflin, 14, plans to lay out on the beach, as does Christina Jacobson, 15, a Mosley High School student. Stephanie Barfield, 17, "don't go to school," and she doesn't have any plans to speak of.

But tonight, they are of one mind.

"We come here every Friday," says Cindy. "To walk around, get phones numbers ..."

"Meet guys ..." says Stephanie.

"Play games, buy food, buy clothes, eat food ... " says Kelly.

"And spend money," says Christina.

Like test animals in a B.F. Skinner maze, these mall rats know their way around — and where to find their particular cheese.

They like the mall. Plenty to see, if you get their meaning.

But if they had their druthers, they'd be at a teen nightclub "like Club La Vela, except, like, for kids," Cindy says.

***

It's a common enough request.

Bay High School student Lisa Moses, 17, says she would like to find and frequent a teen dance club. Since the last one closed down some unknown time ago, she has had to hang out with her younger brothers — which is not altogether cool.

Ask some teenagers and they'll tell you: Bay County is a boring place to grow up.

(Just like everywhere else, but that's beside the point.)

"There's got to be some nighttime activities that are safe, fun and don't require a fake ID," groused a Mosley High School student recently. "And I mean fun — not bowling. All we've got is parking lots or the clay pits. There's nowhere to go."

Nowhere, that is, once you eliminate any number of team sports, Goofy Golf, go-cart tracks, Skeeball, bungee-jumping, the beach and related water activities. And we won't even go into the myriad of church-organized time-killers.

But that's not what she meant, of course. She wants a place to hang, to schmooze, to socialize. To network, gossip, dis. To be or not to be.

And all of it out of the glaring electric lights and watchful eyes of disapproving adults. That's what they do in the parking lots. And, perhaps with more freedom to abuse alcohol, that's what goes on at the clay pits.

But that's not for everybody.

Some older teens frequent the downtown streets of Panama City on Tuesday and Thursday nights — skateboarding on the sidewalks of McKenzie Park, kicking hackey-sack in the street across from Panama Java, and smoking on the steps of the gazebo.

"You gotta be a freak to hang out there. Alternative," says Janna, 16, flashing green eyes and even greener fingernails.

But even they would rather be someplace else — just about any place else.

"If you build it, they will come," says Raymond Moses, 16, a Bay High student and Lisa Moses' brother.

Originally from Newark, N.J., Raymond found Panama City "hard to adapt to." But don't get him wrong: He now says P.C. is a "nice small town." He feels safer here, less worried about the hardships of city life.

But bored.

Raymond would like somebody to build a go-cart track in town (the one in Springfield was torn down, and Lisa says it's hard to get a ride to the beach sometimes). Raymond says he'd be happy to cruise the halls of a mall closer to his home in Callaway, too.

"I go out to the mall sometimes to chill out, play games, stay out of trouble, get away from the whole school-and-homework thing," Raymond says. "Plus, I have an after-school job, so it's nice to relax."

***

As the evening wears on at the mall, trolling for boys continues — and the bait is still fresh.

Lisa Bellamy, 14, and her friend Jordan Dunleavy, 13, both attend Merritt Brown Middle School. Lisa's mom and dad dropped them off at the mall to spend "the whole day" — or at least a few hours. So what will they do all that time?

"Try to pick up guys, and see how many phone numbers we can get," Lisa says.

"She got one already," says Jordan. "Well — she gave one out.

As they talk, a trio of boys walk past, dangerously close behind them. Lisa's eyes grow suddenly large and she arches forward when one of the guys pokes her spine with a finger. Jordan playfully shoves her off balance.

Jordan says the two often play arcade games — but "just to flirt."

Flirt — while blasting aliens and radioactive zombies in Area 51?

Charm eligible guys — while kick-boxing Street Fighters?

"Yes," says Lisa — all eyes and innocence. "It's a way to meet guys."

Courtship is, after all, purportedly the be-all and end-all of teenagerdom. It certainly dominates these girls' plans for the rest of the evening — at least, until Mom and Dad return.

Their mission, spoken in unison:

"Go follow those guys that just went by."

----
(Posting this to put my upcoming Sunday column in perspective.)

Ava Gardner / Amanda Palmer

Have you ever noticed that you never see them in the same place at the same time?

I'm just sayin'.