with his first novel. In return, he’d write another love letter to St. Pete, a novel oozing over with the magic of his beloved city. The premise was that a bootlegger was trying to escape his ties to the Mafia and become an honest man. His agent had said the book might be a bit off brand but that he could sell it. His agent really meant, “I’ll take whatever I can get at this point.”
After putting on one of his favorite Paco de Lucía albums, he lifted his fingers and straightened his back. It’s time, he thought. With the effort of attempting to lift a car by oneself, Whitaker tapped the first key. Because the story would be in first person, “I” was a logical choice.
I.
I am.
No. Terrible verb.
I walked.
Even worse.
I ran.
Whitaker nodded his head.
I ran through the wild.
“What is this, Whitaker? You ran through the wild? No, no. You’re a bootlegger and a family man. Everything you do is for your family. And you just want out.”
Paco wailed on his flamenco guitar as Whitaker typed: I want out.
Ah, there it is. I want out. Who is he talking to? A crime boss. An Italian. Matteo.
Whitaker said triumphantly, “I want out, Matteo.”
There, he did it. He’d written the first line. “Thank you for the soundtrack, Paco.”
Feeling like he’d broken the tape at the finish line of a race, he pushed back from his chair and raised his hands in the air. “Victory,” he said. “It’s a start, Whitaker. It’s a start.”
Taking a break, he ambled to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. In place of the capers, cornichons, freshly caught fish, farmers market vegetables, and fine cheeses of yesteryear, the fridge was now a wasteland of items fit to make quick-and-easy meals. Heinz might have agreed to sponsor him if he’d asked. After processing the realization that he needed to toss out half of it, he fumbled around until he found a carton of Chinese food that was a few days old. How many days, exactly, he wasn’t sure. After a positive assessment, he grabbed a fork and dug in. No need heating it up. He was just looking for a little fix, something to stop his stomach from growling.
Halfway through, as soy sauce filled his taste buds, he said with a mouth full of food, “Coffee and cold moo goo gai pan. Couldn’t pull this off when I was married. There’s that.”
Noticing the time on the range clock, he felt frustrated that the hours were getting away from him. He wanted to get more writing done and treat himself to an hour or so of video games before this family thing. Every part of him wanted to call his brother with an excuse, but Riley would never let him live it down.
He cast an eye toward the door leading to his office and then to the hallway leading to the living room. Write more or kill zombies? Internally justifying his choice to kill zombies, he prided himself on finally getting that first sentence. Sometimes the first sentence was the most difficult.
Whitaker moved a wrinkled shirt out of the way and plopped down onto the black-and-white houndstooth sofa his parents had handed down to him. They replaced their furniture far more often than they needed to. He set the Chinese food down and grabbed a controller. Pushing a button, the game started, and in no time he was dropped into a foreign future world where his avatar was wielding a giant gun. With this level of technology now available, who said gaming was for kids only? He circumnavigated a boulder and climbed a hill. The zombies started after him, screaming wildly as they jumped and flew around him. Whitaker pulled the trigger and let his automatic weapon wreak havoc on these decaying meat bags.
As the dopamine began to satisfy Whitaker’s brain, a knock came at the door.
“Ay dios mío,” he said in Spanish, the language he often slipped into when he was angry. Also fluent, his ex-wife had started the habit and had truly mastered it by the end of their marriage.
Whitaker paused the game as a zombie was making a run at him. Shaking his head, he said, “Qué tipo de persona molesta a un hombre el domingo por la mañana?” What kind of person bothers a man on Sunday morning?
He eyed the front door. Wasn’t everyone supposed to be at church? Slinking lower on the sofa so that he couldn’t be seen through the window next to