The Second Empire of My Cunctatorship
A delayer. That's
the political definition.
Cunctator: one who acts tardily.
As opposed to a Quidnuncracy.
Nosy, gossipy.
Queen Nosy Spinozey.
A cunctator
must be a hero
every day
to keep up. It's a killing pace.
So, John, Citizen,
Johnny Prophet, Rock Hobbyist,
I duly salude you.
And pin to your disappearing breast
the Medal of the Two Locked Souls,
First Class. Long may you give.
I'm almost there. I have 79,126 words done; and 80,000 is the benchmark for action novels set in World War Two, in Northern Ireland, where green Yanks have replaced Brits shipped off to fight Rommel. Three things got me through. Write scenes, not words. Took decades to learn that. And these two considerations: "Coming from" and "Going into." Before attempting a scene, I revisit: Where are the characters now? Where are they coming from? What's their next destination? What are they going into? How to write a novel.
Remember the good old days? Bush 2 is inaugurated. (Okay, in his mind the word means "crowned." He's not a dictionary kind of guy.) Promises Washington the "corporate presidency." Despite the dot-com collapse-a-thon, there's still vestigial respect on the street for the "corporate approach." Enron's in the future. Maybe corporations DO have some secret mojo. Yay, Bush, Mr. President CEO. Then comes the meteor. 9/11. My goodness. Everything changes. They need to deliver, be clever, have a plan. Not a freeze-dried plan, either. Something cool they've just dreamed up based on the ways things really are. My heartmate and I stand on our gravel driveway, in farm country at night. For a week no blinking lights transit the sky. No UFOs dare show their jukebox lights and mysterious ways. Life has changed. We thought. But it turns out, no one read the small print. This is the OLD corporate model in the White House. The BIG BRAIN model. The BIG BRAIN at the top. "I'll have all the ideas, thank you." Only this time replaced by a front man, a bunch of big egos, and an ideologically-tainted agenda some would say divorced from the facts and chillingly inflexible. At least when Thelma and Louise drive off the cliff, they don't pretend they're taking the shortest route to the next town over. Bless you, Bob Woodward. You've chronicled this freak show. I once thought it was rhetorical extravagance to say that any idiot could be president. No more.
There's Johnny. What to do? He has no money. By October 15, he'll have no place to live. He's a bit sluggish. In 35 years he's written four songs, but they are brilliant, in my opinion. When he played with Elvis Sinatra (studio musician equipped with gypsy soul) people danced and cried. Johnny is 63. A "rock hobbyist" by his self-definition. As of this morning he plans to flee to Nashville, to stay with his elderly brother. The blues.
