Brendan,

The writing here is very strong, but I'm just not finding myself
electrified by the story. I'll have to stand aside, with many thanks for
the look.

Best,
The First Agent to Respond

Labels: Chicago

In Kentucky they have an extra layer of stars just behind the regular ones. The same ole dots stick out up front, but behind them are the leftovers from making all the stars. You have to stare at them for a long time and wait for them to appear like bits of Styrofoam in your coffee. But then they pop up. And the regular stars, jealous of their younger brothers, shine even brighter. If you stay out long enough they start to fake a sunrise. Or at least enough light so they can see you undress by the watering hole. We sit at the end of a long wooden dock. Empty plastic gas tanks keep it afloat. For some reason I turn around to take my jeans off and wriggle out of my sweaty t-shirt. I keep my shorts on for now. When I turn around she gives me a slit-eyed smile that makes me feel like an underwear model and not like a guy with no pants on.

How are you man! Haven't seen you since graduation I just found out you're in NY. I'v e been in Africa since last year so i'm all out of it. But anyway I'm flying to Atlanta tomorrow and a bunch of us are going out for drinks tonight. Wanna go?

The sun rises ten minutes later in the valley and five minutes earlier from on top of the mountain, which means I pack the car at six-thirty by the porch light. A low mist coming up the hill brightens up a few purple clouds above me as the trees finish sweating out the night. Some of the raccoons haven’t even clocked out yet. I can hear them making their annoying birdcalls. Tree sweat clings to the air and sticks to the aluminum screen door, creaking the numb metal hinges as my older brother steps out to light a cigarette. He rolls up the striped sleeves of his workshirt as high as he can and unbuttons the front, separating the dealership’s patch from the one on his left that just says “Conor.” The more buttons he undoes, the more tattoos peek out. Birds, praying hands, a celtic cross, two wrenches and the outline of our homestate on his forearm. It’s too humid for long sleeves. The heat napalms to your skin until your clothes turn against you and traps the wet-hot air to your back and jams it in every crease in your skin. Maybe we can outrun it and head north, then west, away from the ocean. Conor has cars to fix in fifteen minutes, but he just sits there, staring at the smoke he blows out. The early shift at the factory starts in half an hour and already the trucks from way behind us bounce by, rattling the coolers filled for the day and the fishing poles put off until tomorrow.

I got Hampshire’s stuff last night, but I still need him to get here so we can leave. It’s better that I don’t have him around while I spread everything out in the driveway. The dried grass coming outta the cracked asphalt grows orange in the cloud light. I look into the empty rear and check the basics: jack, spare, screwdriver. One hamper each with three pairs of boxers, three pairs of socks, one pair of shorts, one swimsuit to be worn in public (not just extra boxers for the beach), three shirts, one pair of pants, and that’s it. One load of laundry—if absolutely necessary—between the two of us. In the next crate: two pairs of boots, two warm jackets, two waterproof jackets. That fit nice in between the hampers. Next crate: two gallons of white-gas tied in one corner, two bowls, two spoons, two stoves, one big pot for rice and spaghetti, one little pot for beans and whatever else we learn along the way, four small made-for-camping-by-Hampshire containers of olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Two sleeping bags, two accordion-folding foam sleeping mats, one tent, one ground-tarp. And then next to the kitchen crate I crammed the things I knew would disappear each day until we had more room back there: one five-pound burlap bag of rice, one dozen cans of Goya beans, three boxes of oatmeal packets, one box of crackers, one jar of peanut butter, one container of squeeze jelly. The brass sunlight peeks out from behind the trees painting long horror-flick shadows down the street as I stock the backseat. If we’re going to follow any kind of hitchhiker policy, we need to keep it basic back there. So only essentials that will slow us down on the road if we pull over for ‘em. This will be our four-wheeled dream house. I install a library in the floor, alphabetizing the books spine-up on the back passenger side. On each side of that I cram in our essentialized music collections: we only brought the records we’ve listened to in the past year or that we think we’ll want to listen to sometime before the fall. No safeties, no love songs, no motivationals, no spirituals. No pillows, no spice rack, no vitamins, no medicines, no fucken band-aids and alcohol swabs, no phone, one map, no headphones, no skin-mags, no assignment pads, no watches, two pairs of sunglasses, and one extra set of keys.

The shadows settle down as the sun comes all the way up the mountain. Conor tosses his cigarette toward the empty flowerpot next to the wooden stoop, misses. He should be out the door now, on his way to punch in thirteen minutes early. The lanky pines behind our neighbor’s house block the sun as it comes up past the half sized maples across the street. The leaves still glow from the attention, especially the ones in back. They get this electric orange flavor where the water clings to the trunk and branches, but only for the first ten minutes as the sun notches up the ladder and over the low clouds that blanket the mountain. And only until their night sweat dries.
Pops walks out the door patting down his pockets and sifting through his lunch. He just looks like a tired version of us with his sleeves coming up to his flabby biceps and a nametage that comes off in the wash sometimes. His baggy eyes look down, always. The sunbeam x-rays his thin white paper bag. “Conor? You seen my uh…?”

“Not since last night,” he pulls out the pack in question. “When I pocketed them.” My old man reaches forward and grabs the pack.

“Dad?” I look over at the confused old man.

“Conor—I mean, what?”

“There’s a surprise for you in your other sandwich bag,” I say.

“In my lunch?” He roots through the bag and finds the ziplocked Winstons at the bottom. “How’d you know?”

“It’s from me and Hampshire. Thanks, you know,” I leaned up against the Dad’s beige Electra. “For the car. There’s two in
your lunch too, Conor. Thanks for the oil change.”

“Fuck,” Conor digs through his bag. “I knew I forgot to do something last night.”

“Need a favor,” Dad put one pack in his shirt pocket and clapped the other against his palm. “Mr. Kitten ended up with his ex-wife’s movie camera. Take it.” He walked into the kitchen and sifted through a bottom cupboard. The sharp silhouettes from the porch light fade as the sun pokes through the trees and leaves, burning its own shape on the ground, rounding out the shadows.

He comes outta the house with something that looked like a diaper bag. “You’ll probably hit two hundred thousand miles on my car somewhere in the next month. I missed it last time. Tape it for me.” He looked at me as the shoulder bag dangled from his arm. I never made a no-movie cameras rule. But I didn’t have to before.

“Uhm,” he’s looking at me like the most exciting thing I’ll see in the country is his odometer. But if he’s so easy to please, I can do that. “Definitely, pops. I’ll even call you right after it happens.”

“Really?” The smoke sticks to the toothpaste left on his teeth.

“Definitely, pops. It’s the least I can do for you.” We’re on the ledge of a dude moment here and I can tell they want to say something to me. They want to be able to tell me how to talk in Montana or where to park at Old Faithful or what they call ketchup in Kansas, but they can’t. I want to tell them to take care of each other. To call gramma if they need something to eat. To refill the propane in the grill so they can cook. To get used to not having me to organize them. To take care of each other. “Cable bill’s due tomorrow,” is all I can say. “You’re outta checks, but you can pay cash down at the office if you want. We’re a couple months behind but if you pay them some of it now we’ll—you’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” Pops hands me the camera bag and I work it in the back with the rice.

“Hey,” Conor’s big bronco eyes fix on mine. He pokes a thick piston of a finger at my chest. “If you have to sleep at a rest stop, back the car in so you’re facing the exit, lock the doors, crack the windows and keep the key in the ignition, a’right? And don’t forget to come back.”

“I won’t.” This long-distance-bill commercial fuzzes out when Hampshire’s mom pulls up in her big silver Technique. Through the Plexiglas you can barely make out the bass breaths of some talk radio show over the catfight they’re having in the front seat. Hampshire sits there with his mouth hanging open, rolling his eyes at the dashboard as he waits for his mom to finish. His tongue rolls around in his mouth, pressing out two day’s of unshaven hairs. I’d bail him out, but I don’t really mind watching.

“Just take them,” she pleads as the doors open. She cocks her head low to get her poufy real estate head through the door.

“If you don’t want them then don’t eat them. But at least you’ll have them to snack in case you get, you know, backed up sitting in the car all day.”

“We’re not going to be sitting in the car all day. We’re going to be doing stuff. Seeing stuff.” They slam their doors at eachother.

“Hi Pat, hi Conor!” she squints in pain as she fakes a smile. “Boy you two are up early!”

“Always,” Conor puffs his chest out. He and dad both have a man-wonder-bra of cigarettes perking up their breast pockets now. Makes ‘em look like generals.

“Pat, I got this great deal on raisins downtown the other day and I can’t get Scott to take them with him. Don’t you think boys would like to have something good inside them on the road?”

Dad loses himself somewhere after I hand him the keys to my car. “Huh?”

“Look, fine,” Hampshire interrupts. “I’ll take your goddam raisins with us. Now will you go?”

“You will?”

“Yes.”

“And the granola bars?”

“Mom.”

“You’re taking oatmeal, right? This is incase you run out or maybe you don’t feel like making breakfast every morning.”
Steve pulls into the driveway with Micks. Steve's still in his pajamas, holding his face together with his freehand as he parks. Micks’ cheek has the red imprint of his watchband. These two are not made for this hour. I feel proud and guilty at the same time as I watch their jealous eyes stare into the trunk of Dad’s Electra. My Electra for the summer.

“Hi Steve, hi Michael!” She squints again.

“What’re you kids doing?” Hampshire loads a colon-and-a-half of fiber into the trunk.

“Taking this bum to the airport,” Ben tosses a thumb to Micks.

“Just wanted to see you guys off before you go. When you think you’ll get to Milwaukee?”

“I don’t know, maybe tomorrow sometime. Depends on what we do in Cleveland.”

“I’ll be there before lunch today. I’m staying with my bassist Joe, from the old band.” He grabs the map outta the front seat and scribbles something in Lake Michigan on the Wisconsin page. “Here’s his number. Call me tomorrow. There’s a band I want you to see, so gimme a ring around seven and I’ll get you tickets.”

“A’right,” Hampshire looks over the lake as he packs some more shit in the car. He puts his camera next to mine on top of the library. Everyone else starts to mingle while we rearrange. Then he pulls out a red fanny pack. “Yo, I jacked this from lifeguarding last summer. Isn’t it sweet? I could do open heart surgery with this shit.” He’s got enough band-aids to patch the muffler.

Hi, Why don't you send me a sample of your manuscript?  Thanks, Famous Guy

Hi Brendan,

I would certainly be interested in looking at your manuscript.  You can email me the first few chapters if you'd like.

Also,

My best,
Another Fantastic Agent

Dear Brendan,
Many thanks for your note; it was good of your friend to recommend me. I ought to declare that it's my partner, Christy Fletcher, who handles [author you name dropped]'s work so you might want to be in touch with her.

She'll be back in the office after Labor Day and would I'm sure be very glad to hear
from you.

Best wishes,
British Agent

Brendan - why don't you email the manuscript my way, and I'll take a
look. See if it strikes magic with me.

Best,
A Very Famous and Well Connected Agent

Dear ___

(instert flattering introduction)

My manuscript was described as "Holden Caulfield meets The Outsiders" by Columbia graduate students who presented it to editors at Simon & Schuster as part of a class exercise. Chapter two—in which Liam tells the story of his town's Bomb Day
celebration—was selected by Anne Patchett (of Bel Canto) as a finalist in the Nashville Scene Fiction Contest and was later published in Too Much Coffee Man Magazine.  Chapter three was also published in an
anthology called "For Here or to Go?" by Garrett County Press.

This is the story of two working-class boys who are trying to escape their New England hometown after high school
graduation. For the narrator, Liam, this will give him the excuse to see the country he has dreamed about
since his mother disappeared when he was eleven.  For Scott Hampshire, Liam's best friend, the trip will give him the chance to join his sister in running as far from their own mother as possible.  And—most importantly—neither of them will end up working at the town's missile factory like their fathers.  But on the way out west, Liam gets wrapped up in a bizarre
murder.  They can't go to their jobs and they can't go home.  Out of money, the two take refuge at a disowned Uncle's house where the ghosts of Liam's past learn to catch up with him.

My first story was published in the Sunday magazine of The Hartford Courant when I was seventeen years old.  I later spent three years on-and-off as a reporter for their Life section.  Currently I live in New York City and I have done freelance work for Filter Music Magazine, The New Haven Advocate, and at Westchester's The Journal News.

Would you be interested in seeing a part of it?  Or would you perhaps know other agents or resources who I should contact?

Thank you for reading,

Brendan