[Netscape Network]
[Google Search]
[Mail]
[Gifts for All]
[Mail]
  
 Inbox: Message 
 Sent 
 Trash 
 Draft 
 Folders... 
Preferences  |  Help  |  Sign Out
<http://ncmail.netscape.com/include/nc/images/tools_top-left.gif> <http://ncmail.netscape.com/include/nc/images/tools_top-right.gif>
    [Get Mail]
Get Mail [Write Mail]
Write Mail [Address Book]
Address Book [Reply]
Reply [Reply All]
Reply All [Forward]
Forward [Keep As New]
Keep As New [Delete]
Delete
   
<http://ncmail.netscape.com/include/nc/images/w.gif>
  Subject:
  
Fwd: [Final Revision E393/Dr. Dobson]
  Date:
  
Thu, 26 Oct 2000 20:17 EST
  From:
  
[Click here to send a message.] Jeffery Massey <jmasseysr3@netscape.net>
  To:
  
[Click here to send a message.] jmasseysr4@netscape.net
  Attachment:
  
[Attached File]
« Previous  |  Next »  
[View all headers]  

____________________________________________________________________
Get your own FREE, personal Netscape WebMail account today at http://home.netscape.com/webmail

  Subject:
  
Final Revision E393/Dr. Dobson
  Date:
  
6 Jun 00 10:23:11 PDT
  From:
  
Jeffery Massey <jmasseysr3@netscape.net>
  To:
  
frank.dobson@wright.edu
  Cc:
  
jmasseysr3@netscape.net

Subject: Story Critique Template

Jeffery Massey, Sr.
English 393-Dr. Dobson
Spring 00/April 2000
RE: Writer's Response

A) Size of Story
B) Point Of View
C) Story Ownership-Whose story is it
D) Main Character Desire
  1.  Goal
  2.  Metamorphosis & lack of it
  3.  Journey & its lack
  4.  Obstacle use/involvemnt with...
  5.  Antagonist
  6.  Motive & Modus Operandi
E) When, Where--Setting & Scene
F) Craftsmanship & Structre Useage
  1.  Description
      a) Character
      b) Scene
      c) Mood/Atmosphere
      d) Motivation
      e) Method used
  2.  Plot Elements/Devices
      a) Pace & Movement
      b) Twists
      c) Climax/Anti-Climax
      d) Denouement
  3)  Style elements/devices: (...Motive-M.O.)
      a) Intro/Hook
      b) Font/Type manipulation
      c) Use or absence: Dialogue
      d) Space & slow-down of action/events
      e) Paragraph/sentence format
  4)  Language
  5)  Voice/vision
  6)  Theme/Motif & Genre convention

CRITICAL PREFACE TO "STAGG PARTY: HOLLOW TRUTH"

My story presents a hardboiled detective fiction genre tale that
looks at the eternal triangle situation between two old boyhood friends
and one woman. The setting is the forgotten, dilapidated Chicago high
school football stadium where the men once played as teammates, fought as
suitors to the beautiful but dark siren named Alicia and are now involved
in a deadly game of hunter versus hunted. As with most Femme Fatale’s, Alicia
was written as a very flat characterization. However, there was left some room
for the reader to see her in alternative ways and explore her motives and
circumstance. Was she ever a nice girl who got turned out? This could be
expanded in a larger piece.
This was the main character Guy's story. It was told in first
person point of view. But, it could easily also be the setting's story or
BB's, the chief antagonist. Regardless of outcome, Guy wants to succeed at
being an independent businessman who serves as a bounty hunter tracking
down bail jumpers like BB. He is strongly motivated by pride and his desire
to escape the traps of ghetto existence epitomized by Stagg field's
surrounding neighborhood.
It was a murderous area that cost his mother her life in a
criminal act that was rumored to involve BB. Hence, Guy also wants the
truth and vengeance. But, his need for revenge was over-layered by the
romantic triangle that all who were present at the stadium shared. He
wanted payback for his broken marriage too. Alas, Alicia, his ex-wife who
was held at knife/gunpoint by BB, now depends on Guy to save her life; even
if
it costs his own.
Being a tale of two friends in mortal combat over a woman and the
law, I used the common detective genre convention of italics to display
Guy's internal conflict through the monologue (of his mind's eye); a plot
device. That device allowed me to reveal important background information
regarding the two men's military and sports history's, while
foreshadowing the betrayal suspicions and eventual climactic plot twist.
The imagery of the piece was given to convey mood, atmosphere and
tonality of the dark, driven and noir-like private detective pieces of the
'Black Mask Writers' like Mickey Spillane and Dashiell Hammett. But there
was strong slice of black-life quality not unlike my contemporary icons or
Chester Himes Walter Moseley. Still, the mood of prey versus hunter in a death
match analogous of ancient Roman Coliseum days was precipitated by the
imbedded metaphor of the thunderstorm, pounding rain and lightening. they
represented the men's struggle with each the, their stormy relationship
as old friends and current enemies, their marital history with Alicia and
their bitter feelings with the city's streets where they grew up.
I used language that sounded bitter, hostile, resentful and hard.
Yet, I also wanted to convey a sense of the men becoming forlorn and
foreshadowed by an ominous anticipation of rising action and behavior that
would lead to bloodshed. There was a sense of lamentation for their
squandered past as well.
But, the internal conflict of Guy hampered his efforts to win over
the obstacles in his way. Obstacles like BB, his feelings of being indebted
to him for saving his life during the war, fear of dying and having Alicia
harmed, fear of the actual nature of the truth he sought and his age old
fear that his lack of skill and naiveté in all battles against BB ( and
life itself) would doom him to deadly failure.
The climax and resolution results in Guy getting more than he
bargained for as he has succeeded in getting his man. But the final
victory may have come at too high a price; the death of innocence and loss
of illusion.

**************************************************************************
STAGG PARTY: HOLLOW TRUTH
By Jeffery Massey, Sr.

“Bustin’ a cap in ya ass is gonna make me real happy,” said the hulking 6’3”
black-hooded figure who stood before me with eyes burning. Seething eyes that
pierced my soul as though they fueled the pits of hell.
I drew dead aim with my .9mm Glock on that imaginary bullseye I painted in
between those glowing orbs which reflected his hatred of me. “Look B.B.,” I
screamed, “it’s between me and you. Let the lady go and we’ll settle the score
once and for all.”
“Baby, don’t let ‘em kill me.  Please Guy, help me,” cried Alicia with soft,
broken pleas. She was held firmly seated in an old stadium chair by a shining
blade that flickered as B.B. held it to her neck. I could almost feel her
pulse thumping through her carotid artery. A pulse that made the blade throb.
A cold razor-sharp steel stiletto which B.B. wielded like a mad butcher
preparing to slice a side of Chicago beef.
Her moans for mercy were cut short by a viscious pistol whipping upside her
head. The force tossed her thick, raven-black hair onto her face.  She slumped
down in her seat, unconscious as trickles of crimson splattered onto her satin
blue cocktail dress. The kind of dress that revealed the best bust-line in
Chi-Town with its plunging neckline  and that kind of fabric which hugged her
coffee-complexioned, heavily jeweled fine-ass body.
She’s over 30 and still looks like a sex-starved debutante.  Damn, she looks
even better than the day I married her. I can’t believe I’m getting a boner in
the middle of a gunfight.
“You jumped bail, man. I’ve been hounding you for weeks all over town. You
can’t run away from murder bro’. Dead or alive, dude. You make the call.”
“Eat shit and die, punk. The Cook County D.A. struck a deal with me so the
murder beef won’t hold up. But, I’m not ‘rattin out’ on nobody. And you’re not
blowin a hole through your ex-wife. You know, I’ll do her right now if you
don’t drop the piece. Even if she was once my woman too.”
I cocked the trigger as my hands shook.  The rain pounded down on my head
like Zulu war drums in a dark Congo jungle. Lightning flashes lit up the
all-but-forgotten Alonzo S. Stagg football stadium. It was the dead of night.

&#61607;
The time for bloodletting crept near like a slithering viper. We were locked
in a game of death and there was only one way out. One or all of us had to
die. “This is a hell of a way to start my first contract,” I hollered. Here I
stood, a lousy bounty hunter risking the life of my kids’ mother. I had to
take the chance of killing the man who stole her from me.
Damn, he saved my life during the Iraqi War. Of course, I could always just
let him kill me instead.  “B.B., you ass-wipe, I hate your guts.” The foul
taste of last night’s tequilla lingered on my tongue, smothered with the
stench of one cigarette too many.
“So what,” he answered “you hated me when we used to play high school ball
here back in the ole’ Lindblom Tech days. Ya’ couldn’t stand it when I’d
flatten your ass on kick-off returns.”
“Kiss my black ass you stinkin’ crook.”
“When I broke your leg like a twig, you had to quit the team. That’s when you
had the time to steal Alicia from me.”
“Listen up you psycho, You started seein’ her knowing that we were thinking
about getting’ married after graduation.”
&#61607;
For an instant, we both paused and looked at the rain-soaked, neglected field.
It sat there like a battered monument to some loser’s attempt at exhuming the
glorious past. B.B. grinned, flashing a bright gold tooth that replaced the
original one I’d knocked out of his mouth during our fight years ago. We tried
to kill each other when I had found out Alicia was leaving me for him.
“So did she make you happy B.B.? You knew she was way too ambitious for me.
She was too greedy to stay with a goin’ nowhere, security guard like me.”
He laughed and sneered. “Yeah, she used to giggle at all those pipe dreams
you had about owning your own business. No wonder she started hanging out with
the slick boys livin’ the fast life like me. What a square-assed idiot you
were; always trying to play life on the straight and narrow.”
Flames of resentment arose and consumed me with an angry fever. My eyes began
to burn as I glanced down at her slumped body. “I just wasn’t fast enough to
keep her. Not ever quick enough to beat ole’ B.B., huh?”
That bastard pulled my ass from that burnt-out tank. I can still see him
sitting there on the hot desert sands, cackling at me and yellin’ “Boy, I’ll
always be quicker than you. One day punk, that tale of two kinds of soldiers
is gonna’ tell. I’ll be quick and you’ll be dead. But, not now cause I’m
havin’ too much fun gloatin’.”
‘C-l-i-i-c-k, C-l-I-I-c-k-‘ went my gun’s hammer as the staccato of ‘Pop,
Pop, Pop’ declared all around us another typical Saturday night of sporadic
gunfire. It was strange the way it blended in with the orchestra of home-boy’s
shouting “Five-O” and the screams of sirens and women.
Does it ever stop---these damn echoes of nightly terror---my town-a town
without pity---I’m suffocating from the smell of death in this city. She makes
me wear her smell of violence like a pair of too-tight long johns that I can’t
get off in the middle of a hot-ass, sauna. I can’t let that chokin’ feelin’
take over, like the way it’s tryin’ to now while I’m standin’ here at
gunpoint. Is he the one? I took this case to find the truth. Am I strong
enough to face it? Who really killed Ma? Son-of-a-bitch probably did have
somethin’ to do with mama’s murder.
“Well here’s more fuel for the fire,” I hollered over the crackle of thunder.
“You and those drug-dealin’ thugs killed my ma’ for trickin’ on ya’, didn’t
ya’?   Ya’ turned my ole’ lady out with that drug shit and stole her. Now,
it’s payback time.”
“Still stuck on stupid aren’t you,” B.B. hissed.
“I was gonna’ take you in, but now I’ll just burn your ass up right here you
faggot-ass mother-fu….”
Alicia had awakened and screamed as B.B.’s blade drew blood from her neck. I
jerked, for an instant, my gun away from its target and looked into her
twisted face.
‘P-i-y-o-o-w’ went the blast of his gun. The shot hit me in the shoulder. I
could feel my collarbone shattering as the cold concrete floor in between the
wet grandstand seats collided with my collapsed body. The clang of my gun
tumbling down and away sickened me.
“Only two kinds of soldiers, the quick and the dead,” he scowled.
Hell, I can hear them. They’re all around us; ghosts with their
cheers…spectres and spooks from ballgames long since dead…I can hear
‘em…echoes of blood-thirsty fans screamin’ for victory…Only two kinds of
soldiers….
My hands slid in the slick red muck oozing from the hole in me. The whole
world turned upside down. I felt like a newborn baby, held high by its feet in
mid-air as some gigantic hand slapped the hell out of my ass. It was as though
life’s reality was slapping me around and ordering me to ‘Wake Up’.
I looked up as B.B. removed the stainless-steel stiletto from my ex-wife’s
neck and walked over towards me. The smoke from his gun barrel rose and
drifted off as if demanding a new truth be written. A truth I could not
avoid.
&#61607;
“Shit B.B., you didn’t have to cut me for real,” purred my ex-kitten. “He was
falling for the set-up.”
“Look, I don’t give a rats ass right now. I don’t like this…it stinks…its
foul tastin’. Can’t we just leave here and take off for Mexico like you
promised?”
“What? And let his stupid ass figure out that we were the ones behind his
mother’s killing? I may have pulled the trigger on the old bag, but you stood
by and didn’t stop me.”
“Yeah but…”
“I know him. He’d never stop tracking me down.”
“Tracking you down? Hell, he’s been on my butt for weeks now.”
“But, I’ve got more to lose than you. I’ve got a real fine-ass man now. He’s
rich and clean as the driven snow. If he knew anything about all this past
shit, I’d lose everything and be back in the hood…trapped like a rat. No way
baby; I need you to finish him off.”
BB’s eyes stared at me with a look of confusion I’d never seen before. It was
my only chance as he put the gun barrel to my head. My eyes blinked violently
as the trigger cocked and sang ‘C-l-i-i-c-k.’
“Hell BB,” I begged “you fell for her shit the same as I did years ago.”
“What do ya’ mean?”
She needs for you to kill me. You’re the only witness to her drug-dealing and
my ma’s murder. Once you’ve, bumped me off, how long do you think she’ll let
you live?”
He didn’t stop pushing the barrel into my temple. Then, his eyes, which had
glowed with vengeful fire now turned sullen and grey. He turned like a beaten
down junkyard dog. He walked towards Alicia, his outstretched hands begging as
if for a morsel of mercy for a broken heart.
“No baby,” she crooned “he’s playing you like a piano. Go on and blast his
ass.”
But BB didn’t stop advancing towards her. I watched with morbid fascination
as Alicia grabbed under her satin gown and snatched out a pearl-handled .32
automatic. For an instant, BB turned his head and looked  me straight in the
eyes like a fear-frozen running back . Then he tossed his gun to me.
I caught BB’s .38 special just as Alicia fired a bullet into his throat.
Blood shot out and splattered into her eyes. I rolled behind an empty ash can
and emptied the pistol into the mother of my two kids.
I lay there for a long time as the rain kept pouring down onto Stagg Field.
Streams of crimson water ran past my shaking hands. Hands that still clutched
the deadly instrument which destroyed my dreams.
You loved me once…I wish you had never left me for BB…Damn BB, now you’ve
saved my life twice.
My assignment was complete and I’d succeeded in a business of my own. I found
truth in my hollow victory.
Somehow, as I glanced at the rain-soaked field that symbolized BB's and my own
boyhood dreams of valor and honor, the lie was better than the truth.

____________________________________________________________________
Get your own FREE, personal Netscape WebMail account today at http://webmail.netscape.com.

« Previous  |  Next »  
    Get Mail Write Mail Address Book Reply Reply All Forward Keep As New Delete
   
<http://ncmail.netscape.com/include/nc/images/tools_bottom-left.gif> <http://ncmail.netscape.com/include/nc/images/tools_bottom-right.gif>
© 2002 Netscape Communications Corporation, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Preferences  |  Help  |  Sign Out