DONIS CASEY: Write Errant

A hearty welcome to my November Tell Me Your Story guest Steve Pease, who writes as Michael Chandos. Steve is a former space engineer and career Intelligence Officer living in the woods in Black Forest, Colorado. He was a Licensed Private Investigator in Colorado and New Mexico and is a member of the Private Eye Writers of America. He’s published in mystery and SF anthologies in the US and England, and on-line, under his Michael Chandos pseudonym, including his story,”Texas Barbeque”, which was Macavity-nominated from the Agatha-nominated anthology The Eyes of Texas. His latest is “The Lady in the Polka Dot Dress” from the More Groovy Gumshoes anthology. Steve posts a regular essay on alternate Mondays at Type M 4 Murder, an international mystery-writers’ blogs. (https://typem4murder.blogspot.com)

I’ve Always Been Writing

By Steve Pease

I’ve always been writing, even when the pencil wasn’t on the page. My Junior High School encouraged me to write. I presented book reviews to the school over the morning loudspeaker. I read all the time. Then, in high school, it all stopped. Not their culture. I backed off from reading too. My vector was space, engineering. I was accepted at MIT and Arizona, went to the latter. No writing still, as far as pencils and typewriters, but the stories were in my head. Images. Movies. (see “Movies in the Mind “ on Amazon). I became an Officer in the USAF, did some cool space stuff, did lots of intelligence analysis on other people’s space stuff. That vector lasted 40 years, Officer, then senior civilian. I did a lot of live theater, usually Shakespeare and dramatic plays, which kept my mental movies alive

When I retired the first time, I wanted to write Private Eye fiction, so I became one. I ran my biz for 7+ years (Glass Key Investigations, do you recognize the reference?) until recently. The mental movies couldn’t be denied. I retired from that business with the intention of changing my routine to make writing much more possible – i.e. no more excuses! I’ve published a dozen short stories in SF, mystery and horror, all professional sales, under the pseudonym Michael Chandos. To explain why the name is for another time.

I want to write about people. I prefer stories about “real” people, not cliché paper-people, characters we expect in “those kind of stories”. Just like when I was a working stage actor, my characters must Live. I put them in situations, with specific objectives and obstacles, and let them go. I just write down what they do and say. Mysteries afford the opportunity to portray life as rough, mean, desperate and maybe out of control. SF or mysteries – all similar, just the setting and intent changes.

I like images to feed my mental movie. My novel project (three books in concept) is set in Los Angeles 1963, before the JFK assassination (when the world changed). My view of ’63 LA is paved with cigarette butts, broken beer bottles and strong characters. Like many novelists, the research is some of the most fun. I’m writing about a protag with a “real” history, in a real place that doesn’t exist today. I need to get the details right, and photos help.

He’s a male nurse, a rare thing then, with a background as a Marine/Navy medic in the Korean War (Chosin). He works at the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital before the invention of Emergency Medicine (perhaps the only good thing to come from the Viet Nam War). I love the grittiness of the location, how it affects him and what he does. The grit comes from photographs and personal experience.

After high school graduation in Alexandria, Virginia, I got a job fighting fires at Sequoia National Park. I didn’t have a car, so I went to California by bus. Right Coast to Left Coast, several days, and, dammit, I remember almost nothing about the trip. Until I laid over in Long Beach for my next ride to Sequoia.

We arrived at the bus station at 2 AM for a three-hour layover. I remember a lot about that. The waiting room was half full of women and their children, and working men. Benches to sit on. The place felt dusty and the air was heavy. I went outside. The Dead Zone. Little sound. No cars. Harshly lit by street lights. With “dead” people, bums, denizens, street sleepers. So little color it might as well have been presented in black and white. One guy came up to me, a young, fresh white boy just off the bus. He was sleeping on the street, no doubt, would drink away any money I gave him. He offered to sell me an old pocket knife, rusty, the blade sharpened to a curve. I said I already had one. He was a kind of human I had never met before. He had buddies lingering behind him, perhaps waiting to see if I pulled out some money. I looked the easy fish, but I was lucky enough to say no. Another guy was Hispanic, too stocky for the black Navy top he was wearing. He was going thru garbage cans, finding things to eat, I was sorry to witness, all the while keeping up a very loud conversation in Spanish with no one. He finished and continued down the street buffet.

I backed up against the entrance to the station, withdrawing from further contact and to watch the “movie”. That experience is still with me.

I want to write about that place and those times. My short stories have sometimes reflected the feeling of that bus station at 2 AM. My novels are set there. Boyle Heights, a neighborhood in transition, Long Beach “transient” hotels, a mission, a bar, the police and an enigmatic murder, Then Downtown LA, the Italian cathedral, tough downtown bars, to Studio City, to a cheap motel. No happy ending, exactly…

One of the best sources for authentic period photos of 1963 LA has been the photo archive for the defunct Herald Examiner newspaper. Many photos of the rougher side of LA in the 40’s to 70’s are indexed online. Got to https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ljfy8i3cuznpkqgitzeb9/Photo-examples..docx?rlkey=mwcobghjgbdcy2h0ibv5npivq&e=2&dl=0 to see examples.

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