JSBaumeister
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Story Statement
Privileged college student Dave Nolan’s life is spinning out of control. Increasingly serious drug and alcohol addiction issues are destroying his relationships and loosening his grip on reality. After a near fatal car crash, and now facing questioning from the police about the mysterious disappearance of an ex-girlfriend, Dave skips town and heads back to New York. With the help of his family, he enters rehab and endeavors to get his once promising future back on track. Just as Dave seems to be forging a new path, tragedy strikes and threatens to send him careening back into the abyss.Antagonistic ForceMinor antagonists are at various points Dave's ex-girlfriend Lindsey who provides the macguffin for his descent into addiction. Detective Toussaint who is looking into the mysterious disappearance of Britney. Madison, the girlfriend of Dave's best friend Steve, who attempts to ruin Dave's relationship with the girl he begins dating after rehab; and Jacques, a former friend who Dave blames for Steve's death. In the end though Dave is both the protagonist and the antagonist, as his insecurities, addictions and the internal struggles he grapples with are the driving factor in keeping him from becoming the person he wants to be.Proposed Titles1. You Can Never Go Home Again2. Free FallingGenre: Literary FictionComparables1. Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis2. My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh3. Twelve by Nick McdonellCore Wounds/Secondary ConflictsPrimary: Dave's breakup with the girl he considers the love of his life plunges him into despair, addiction and cruelty. He struggles against his feelings of loneliness, insecurity and weakness to try to become the person he hopes to be.Secondary: After reaching a breaking point, Dave emerges from rehab and tries to find a sober path forward in life while dealing with the challenges of sober relationships, the temptation of his old friends, ennui and a feeling that sober life is emotionally blunted and there must be more out there.Secondary: After the death of his best friend, Dave struggles to retain his grasp on sobriety as he feels those responsible have escaped consequences for their actions.SettingsPart I is set at a liberal arts college in the fictional town of Maskirovka, Ohio. Dave, originally from NYC, struggles as he feels isolated from home and like he has little to nothing in common with most of the other students. The first half of the novel travels (briefly) through the classrooms of the college, but is primarily set in various bars, houses and parties as we see Dave's life and addictions spin out of control.Part II is set primarily in New York City with brief sections taking place at a rehab facility after Dave returns from Ohio. In NYC scenes take place around the city in various bars and restaurants and friend's apartments as Dave tries to forge a new sober path forward, with a new woman, while trying to resist the draw of his old vices. After the death of his best friend, Dave visits friends at Princeton and considers transfering there as his commitment to his new path is pushed to the limit.
Algonkian Pre-event Narrative Enhancement Guide - Opening Hook
in Algonkian Writer Conferences - Events, FAQ, Contracts
Posted
I have included the excerpt I applied with and the opening pages, I hope that's OK!
Who the fuck is calling me in the middle of the fucking night? It’s after five in the morning and my phone has been vibrating for five minutes. It doesn’t seem to have woken Eve up, but it’s driving me crazy.
I grab my phone and see Madison is calling me. What could that bitch possibly want now? A drunk, emotional apology for getting Eve hammered? Couldn’t it wait until morning? I hit ignore.
Instantly my phone starts ringing again. It’s Madison.
“Hello?”
“Dave?”
“Yes?”
“You need to come to the hospital now. It’s Steve. We’re at Weill-Cornell. I think it’s on 68th maybe. I don’t know but come now.”
“Is he OK?”
“I don’t know.”
“He’s going to be OK?” I say almost pleading.
“I don’t think so.”
Madison sounds like she’s barely hanging on. I tell her I am on my way and hang up the phone. Eve is still unconscious and I don’t want to drag her into this. I scribble a quick note telling her I had to go to the hospital, some emergency with Steve and I’ll be back as soon as possible. I leave it on the nightstand then pull on my jeans and a sweater while I look up the address of the emergency room and request an uber.
In the car on my way to the hospital I tell myself over and over again that Steve will be OK. Nothing really bad can happen to him. He’s young, he’s strong, he’s about to be a fucking Marine. Steve is going to be totally fine. I might even go down to Parris Island one weekend when he has an off-base pass and I’ll hang out with him and his new Marine buddies. We’ll raise hell in the town and it’ll be great. Then after OCS, when he’s an officer and he gets posted somewhere exotic, Eve and I will go visit him. He’s going to be the best man at my wedding, and we’re going to be friends forever. Nothing bad is really going to happen to him. I do need to set him up with a more suitable girl though. It’s nice that he’s been having fun with Madison. She is hot and all, but she isn’t the kind of girl you really settle down with. I guess Steve doesn’t need to settle down yet though. He’s young, he’s about to be a Marine. This is still the time for him to have fun. We can find him a nice girl in a couple of years, and then they’ll settle down. Maybe we’ll sit on his porch and she’ll make us iced tea and it’ll be real calm and everything will be like it is in people’s stories. Steve’s going to be fine.
The car pulls up to the cul-de-sac in front of the Emergency Room at Weill-Cornell. I get out, run inside, and I see Mr. Norris, Mrs. Norris and Madison all sitting together in the waiting room crying. When I see them all sitting there, and see that no one is in with Steve, I know he’s dead. I don’t want to accept it yet, but I know it.
I lock eyes with Steve’s mother, because his dad can’t seem to bring his head up, or keep his hand from his face and we’re both searching for words as we look at each other. I start shaking my head from side to side furiously as if to say, “No,” and the tears start coming. When Mrs. Norris sees this, she starts crying even harder and lightly moves her head up and down to confirm my fears. Then her lip starts trembling and she’s back to wailing and her head is down in her hands. I start saying “No,” softly, then louder until I am screaming. I run over to his mother and hug her, and then I hug his dad, Carl, and I completely lose it. Madison tries to hug me from behind and I am furious at the intrusion. This bitch doesn’t belong here. We are all people that love Steve. She doesn’t have a place in this group. This cannot really be happening. WAKE UP. I ask Steve’s mom, who used to make lunch for us and cut the crusts off Steve’s sandwiches,
“Where is he?”
“He’s gone Dave.”
“I don’t believe it. I want to see him.”
“Please Dave. Please. He’s gone.”
“Then I want to say goodbye.”
The doctors don’t know what to make of this. They tell me they don’t advise that I see him and generally this sort of thing is only for family.
“He is my fucking family. He is my goddamn brother and I want to say goodbye.”
I am so forceful and sincere and upset that I think the doctor realizes he isn’t going to be able to reason with me, and he says OK. He warns me that it isn’t going to be pleasant, but if I insist, he’ll take me. I need to see it. I don’t believe it. This cannot be real. WAKE UP.
The guy leads me down to the morgue. When we get to the door, he tells me he’ll leave me alone for a few seconds. Then he opens the door. I enter alone and the door shuts. It’s just me and Steve for one last time. I’m alone with the horror.
There’s my best friend. Naked, partially covered by a sheet lying on a cold metal tray. I know you hear a lot about how people look like they’re sleeping when they’re dead. Maybe they do after the funeral home dresses them up and everything, but not when you are dealing with the raw reality.
Steve almost doesn’t look real. He’s lying there, his eyes are shut and it looks like his skin is sunken back, like he was in one of those G-force machines or something. It’s not like cartoonishly pulled back, but the skin doesn’t sit on a dead person’s face the way it does when someone’s alive. I know that my best friend is really and truly gone.
I’m not religious really, and I told you I don’t have a great handle on all of that stuff, but I hope that Steve’s spirit is somewhere in the room, or at least I hope he’s looking down on this whole scene from somewhere good.
“I love you brother.”
I’m going to miss him so goddamn much I don’t know what I am going to do. Forget me. I don’t know how his parents will ever be able to get on with their lives. How will Carl bury both of his sons and ever get out of bed again.
I start bawling. I am crying for Steve, and Steve’s parents but most of all I am crying for all of the things that will never happen. Steve won’t be the best man at my wedding. I’m not going to be there when he has kids. We aren’t going to end up old men sitting on a porch drinking iced tea with our wives, telling stories about when we used to be wild and crazy kids. Steve’s story is ending now. Tonight. On a fucking cold, gray metal table in the bowels of a hospital on the East Side. I am never going to be able to talk to him again, or hug him or ask him for advice.
I kiss him goodbye on his forehead. It’s cold to my lips and this is even more horrible than I thought it would be. I start crying harder and try to hug him, but he’s cold and stiff and I know this isn’t Steve anymore. I can’t wake up. This is real. This is forever and there’s nothing I can do.
For a while everything is kind of hazy. I don’t know exactly how many days go past. I get back from the hospital and Eve’s still in bed. I tell her what’s happened and the tears come back. I don’t get out of bed for a while, and I keep the lights off. When my parents find out what’s happened, they get on a plane straight away and are back in New York. At some point I tell Eve I’ll be OK and that she should go back downtown and go to class and get on with her life. I need some time and I will text her when I know about the funeral. My parents try to check on me every now and again, but I can’t move. I just want to lie in the dark and pretend none of this is happening.
Steve’s heart stopped. I knew he looked fucked up that night at his going away party, but I didn’t know half of the story. He’d been at it for a few nights already without sleep. Not just the drinking and the cocaine. He’d been getting into harder stuff with Jacques and Trent. Fucking Madison was close with those guys, and the four of them had apparently been on a bender for days. When they left Dorrian’s they all went back to Trent’s place, because he lived the closest.
Trent and Madison went out around two in the morning to meet up with Trent’s dealer, and Steve and Jacques stayed behind and kept partying. Apparently Steve collapsed some time around then and Jacques freaked the fuck out. Instead of calling 911 or helping Steve, he took off and went home. I guess he was worried if he called 911 he’d get in trouble for the drugs. So, instead of helping, he watched Steve collapse and slowly die on the floor, probably pleading, at least with his eyes if he couldn’t speak, for Jacques to help him, for anyone to get help and save his life. At least that’s what I imagine happened. Jacques isn’t talking to anyone, and if I see that motherfucker I will murder him. When Trent and Madison got back, they found Steve and called 911, but it was too late. The paramedics couldn’t revive him. They brought him to the hospital, because I guess that’s procedure, but the Doctors there couldn’t do anything besides pronounce him dead.
The funeral is on a Tuesday. My parents tell me the night before, and I text Eve. We agree she will meet me at my parent’s place and we’ll go together.
At the church, I hug Mrs. Norris and I tell her about the time I was in Chicago, and I was drunk and had nowhere to stay and I didn’t know what to do. I called Steve, and told him and he booked me a room with his credit card and told me to go over. He never brought it up again, asking for credit. He never even wanted the money back,
“That was just the kind of guy he was. He would do anything for his friends.”
“And you were his best friend Dave.”
This is too much for me, and I start crying again and hug his mother. This is the woman who used to make sure we didn’t drink too much soda and stay up all night when I would sleep over at Steve’s house when we were kids. How can this be happening? How can Steve be gone? How did we get here?
We settle into a pew with my parents and I’m in a fog for most of the day. I’m one of the pallbearers, and when we get to the cemetery, I’m situated behind Carl and I worry that my legs are going to give out like that night back in Ohio and I’m going to fall and fail Steve one last time.
I grip Eve’s hand so tight that I worry I might hurt her as we start coming to the conclusion of everything out at the cemetery. I don’t think I can even cry anymore. I feel like my eyes have been burned out and there’s nothing left inside me.
Then, they lower the casket and Steve’s parents shovel the first bit of dirt onto it. I have a lot more crying left in me. As I stand over the open grave with dirt in my hand and look down on the wooden box containing my best friend, I say, “Goodbye Steve, goodbye brother,” one last time, kiss my hand and throw the dirt down in the hole.
In my dream there is a white horse. He is muscular and powerful. He’s running at tremendous speed, but he doesn’t seem to be exerting himself at all. There’s no hint of fatigue. It seems as if the horse could continue ripping along at this pace forever. The cloudless sky is a deep cobalt and the flat sand is khaki. It’s expansively bleak in every direction and the terrain is so featureless that it could be a salt flat if not for the beige color of the sand. In the distance, days of riding away, there are ridgelines. Then suddenly, in a physics defying way, the horse goes from full gallop to a dead stop. There’s no transition to a trot, it’s an abrupt and sudden halt. Perched on the horse there’s a shadowy figure in dark robes. I can’t see his face. I hear,
“And I saw a pale horse,”
I wake up with a start. There’s an uneasy feeling of creeping dread in the pit of my stomach. I know that line is something from the Bible. I don’t remember all of it, but the gist of it is with the pale horse comes death.
This is just perfect. I’m flying this morning, and I am not a good flyer. On top of my normal “I’m going to die, I hate flying” craziness is the fact that on the other end of this flight there isn’t a beach or anything fun, just three more months at school in Maskirovka, Ohio. Three more months in the gray bleakness that is the United States between New York and Los Angeles.
At least Lindsey is out there. We’ve been together for a while now, and I’m fairly sure she’s the love of my life. We’ve been apart for all of winter break, and I really miss her. New Years wasn’t great without her.
The check-in line for first class is mercifully short. I get my ticket and quickly head through security, but there’s no time for a drink before boarding.
Seat 2F a window, excellent. The seats in first class are leather, and they’re supposed to be comfortable, but really they’re nothing too spectacular. The horrors of domestic air travel.
I carefully stow my carry-on in the overhead, and hope no one will crush it. I have a Christmas present for Lindsey in there.
I look out the window and do a quick scan over the wing, trying to ease my insane paranoia about flying by assuring myself that everything looks OK.
The stewardess stops by to take pre-departure beverage orders, and I surprise myself when I hear,
“I’ll have a Jack and Coke,”
Come out of my mouth. Not that I don’t drink or anything let’s get serious. Still, it’s pretty early in the morning, and normally I at least have the decorum to order an eye opener on morning flights. I need it to calm down. When “Teri” arrives with my drink, I throw it down pretty quick, and flag her down on her way back to the galley to order another.
She looks a bit shook but complies. I start worrying about the bag again, but figure nothing in there is really fragile. I don’t want the box to get messed up. The box is half the appeal right? I got Lindsey a necklace from Tiffany’s. It’s a heart with our initials on it. I also wrote a poem for her. I know it’s really sappy and cringe worthy, I’m a little embarrassed about it and I don’t want to dwell. The box should be sturdy enough to survive the journey.
Halfway through my second drink, Teri returns to gather the glasses, since I guess for some reason the FAA doesn’t feel it’s safe for passengers to have drinks during takeoff.
The plane pushes back from the gate and we’re rolling towards the runway. There’s no turning back now. Settle on the centerline. Hear the engines spool up. Take off time. I grip the armrest and my knuckles go white. I try to look at the seat in front of me as we climb, but sometimes I look out the window anyway and I realize just how far we are from the ground. I force myself to take deep breaths, trying to fight off the panic attack that’s coming on. I wish I had a Xanax.