"I believe my subject is bewilderment. But I could be wrong." Donald E. Westlake 1933-2008Yesterday, while doing time in the seasonally long checkout line at the supermarket, Christmas muzak forced itself in my ears: It’s the MOST wonderFUL TIME of the YEAR….  Ha. More like, over-rated. No, over-advertised.  

What’s a synonym for advertise?  Hypnotize. Via TV, radio, facebook, google, twitter, tablets, phones, you name it, vendors use it to do it. From Black Friday through New Year’s Eve, everywhere you go, eddying masses of shopping-bag-encrusted people with glazed eyes at half-mast get in the way. Especially in parking lots. Oh joy.

From behind me in the queue, a woman’s voice broke up these festive thoughts, “Did you get the croutons?”

A second female voice answered, “Capons? I thought we were going with turkey. Do they even carry capons here? Awfully fancy.”

The first voice said, impatiently, “Croutons!”

The second, “Coupons?”

The soundtrack changed to Rudolph, The Red Nosed Reindeer had a very shiny nose, and if you ever saw it and I was at the OJ Bar & Grill, standing at the bar with Dortmunder, my favorite thief, waiting for Rollo, the meaty, blue-jawed bartender to notice us. Meanwhile, the regulars at the bar talked amongst themselves. Oh joy!

Overhearing the regulars at the OJ is the best of all possible interludes in this best of all possible worlds: a Dortmunder caper by Donald Westlake. (Also in this, the real world.)

As you know, Westlake is my favorite author.  The reasons are many, and here’s another. In every stream of action there are lulls, during which people around us talk, and who listens? Westlake. Master alchemist, he takes this dross and makes comedic gold.

At some point in every Dortmunder caper— Oh, when? The anticipation!— the gang meets in the back room of the OJ. Which means passing by the bar where the regulars take sloshy slugs at life’s pressing conundrums. And miss.

Let's listen. We gotta wait for Rollo anyway.

When Dortmunder walked into the O.J. Bar & Grill on Amsterdam Avenue at four minutes before six that evening, Rollo, the bulky, balding bartender, was painting MERY XM on the extremely dusty mirror over the back bar, using some kind of white foam from a spray can, possibly shaving cream, while the regulars, clustered at one end of the bar, were discussing the names of Santa’s reindeer. “I know it starts,” the first regular said, “’Now, Flasher, now Lancer, now—‘”

“Now, now, wait a second,” the second regular said.  “One of those is wrong.”

For Terry

I call my mom, aged 86, every week to ten days. I know I should call more, but that’s all I can stand. 

First Week June: Let The Games Begin

“Hi Mom. How are you?”

She carps, “Baby Sis still hasn’t printed out your blogs for me to read. I don’t know what her problem is.” 

Baby Sis works a sixty+ hour week as a high-powered criminal defense attorney for the feds, and puts in another forty between home and parenting two young children with her equally busy architect hubby.  Maybe she sleeps. She and Mom live in the same megatropolis.

“A blog is an online magazine, Mom. I’ll be glad to send you the pieces I’ve published to mine.”

“I know what a blog is! No, don’t bother. Baby Sis will do it.” 

Mom doesn’t “need” a computer, e-mail or the Internet. Her time is too valuable to waste on learning such nonsense. Besides, she knows everything already. 

I print off and mail Mom the year’s collection of posts.

***

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***

Back to the arena, where Mature D is interviewing Little D. 

Mature D:  So little girl, you threw down the gauntlet! Will Mom dish up some approval, do you think? 

Little D: I hope so!

Mature D: Knowing Mom, not likely.

Little D: Really?

Donald Westlake (1933 - 2008)

“And what are you reading, Miss ---?” “Oh, it is only a novel! replies the young lady: while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame.  It is only… some work in which the most thorough of knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humor are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.” Jane Austen 

Born the year prohibition was repealed, Westlake’s writing career took off in 1962 with the publication of The Hunter, (written as Richard Stark), the first Parker novel, a ground-breaking noir masterpiece, and didn’t slacken till he had the nerve to die in 2008 with close to a hundred books behind him and some still in the oven. 

No more Westlakes. It’s cause for wailing, gnashing of teeth, and obsessive hunting in used bookstores for out of print books. 

Westlake wrote quirky, smart stories about quirky, smart people living full lives outside the law. Sure, they go down quick and easy as escapist trash. But to think they are trash would be a mistake, like falling for Columbo’s dull bulb act.  Single-handed creator of the comedic caper and noir crime fiction, Westlake is THE Grand Master. 

You can read him for belly laughs. (And you should. There is nobody funnier than Westlake.) You can read him for the worldly vitamins and knowing minerals missing from your diet. You can read him to figure out how he does his magic. However you read him, his writing is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

Here is the first sentence from Watch Your Back!, the thirteenth novel in the Dortmunder series: 

When John Dortmunder, a free man, not even on parole, walked into the O. J. Bar & Grill on Amsterdam Avenue that Friday night, the regulars were discussing the afterlife.

Already I’m laughing.

This is a guest post from author Elle Garrell Berger. Enjoy!

* * * * *

I am much too busy.  And I'm not alone.  Today, the traditional greeting "How are you?" prompts an unsettling, new response. 

Gone is the old standby, "Oh, just fine" and the somewhat more honest, "Mmm, things could be better."  Even the grammatically questionable, "Real good," seems to have given way.  Our new answer follows a deep intake of breath, audibly exhaled, and dramatized by a roll of the eyes: "Busy."

Bucolic. Zen flow. At peace with the world. That’s how this city girl felt last Friday twilight strolling to pick raspberries at Essex Farm, the thriving CSA farm we belong to. From the pavilion where members pick up the week’s veggies, dairy, eggs and such, it’s under a mile to the raspberry field. A pleasant walk over cover-crop grasses, clumpy clods of dirt and small sinks of squelchy mud.  

I pass row after row of blue-green and purple-red cabbage, ferny-topped carrots and red-green-leafed beets, stands of dark green broccoli, forests of feathery asparagus and rustling corn. The two straight raspberry rows stretch south forever before t-boning on Rural Route 22. A few action-figure-sized members hunch over the bushes down there, cars parked by the side of the road. By walking through the fields, I have the north end to myself.

I sweat and squat, plucking ripe berries exposed between leaves and hiding under them, a treasure hunt that stains my fingers deep red. I pop them into my mouth and drop them into a quart cardboard box, into my mouth, into the box, a lovely rhythm.

In the humid air, the sounds of Indian summer swell and fall, fortissimo and pianissimo. Cattle low unseen from a field far away behind a scrim of trees, crickets saw, bees airplane-buzz, and mosquitoes screech and howl as they dive-bomb me from all directions. They are so aggressive, and my swats so frantic, I slap the glasses off my nose.

But nothing can stop me— I am consumed by pick-your-own lust.

It’s been five weeks of brain drain: memory lapses, unproductive fretting, poor sleep and worst of all: poor flow of post ideas. Enough already. 

Denial (No problem, it’ll go away by itself…) is no longer tenable. Time to do something. But… what? 

Without knowing the cause of the problem, intervention is futile. So first: think. (Can we not, and say we did?) 

What’s the differential diagnosis? Three possibles raise their hands.

1. dementia
2. depression
3. exhaustion

The first is unthinkable. So forget that. Ha. (Sorry.) 

What about depression? (What about it?) I’ve had these symptoms for more than two weeks, which meets criteria for the diagnosis. Which justifies a trial of antidepressant. But that’s jumping ahead. (Damn skippy.)  

Why? Because psychiatric diagnoses are diagnoses of exclusion. Meaning, all other medical causes for symptoms must first be ruled out and/or addressed. And that would be option number three: exhaustion. 

Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are well known to derail cognition and snuff creativity. Have I made a serious effort to rest? Not really. It’s been business as usual: too much going on, not enough sleep, not enough down time. 

To test the hypothesis that exhaustion is the cause of my symptoms and rest the cure, what I have to do is… rest.  How? 

I feel tired just thinking about the pace of my life. Doctor, heal thyself.  So. What  specifically am I over-doing?

• Care-taking others: patients and family. 
• Administering: home and office. 

It’s too much. Too many details. Too many decisions. Too many people pulling on me. From morning to night. Day after day. Etc. 

Like Greta Garbo, I want to be alone. 

The solution is obvious: I’ll play hooky! I’ll go to Omega for a weekend of R & R (Rest & Rejuvenation)! he he he

Two days later, I drive south to Rhinebeck. The first couple hours on the Northway cut through the ancient evergreen beauty of the Adirondack Park, a six million acre natural preserve. For a timeless hour, I enjoy. 

Then orange traffic cones appear, and signs indicating a construction merge. I absent-mindedly barrel along and about a mile later, the left lane narrows into the right. I tap tap tap the brake in a controlled deceleration. A state trooper pulls out of a tangle of construction equipment, flashing his headlights at me.

I know immediately: the ticket won’t sting, it’ll gore. 

For David and Lorraine 

Here’s the thing about posting once a week: first you have to write something. No write, no post. Usually ideas ricochet around my head. Me! Me! Use Me! Not this week. Maybe they’re on vacation. Or sleeping in. Or on strike. 

OK. Let’s see. Hmmmm. Surely there’s more to milk from our trip to the UK. For instance. People there are so well spoken, so droll, so understated. The national ethos is reflected in business names and public notices. “Keep Edinburgh clean. Bin your trash!”

“I’m from the States. I’ve never seen “bin” used as a verb before!” I exclaim to the rain-coated older lady standing under the bus shelter with this exhortation running along the roof rim. She looks at me politely. Too politely. I smile broadly and tip my chin up at the writing above her head, then step back to point and shoot. 

She looks up. “Ah!” 

“Mind you,” she lilts in a beautiful Scots accent, with a twinkle in her eye. “There’s not a bin to be found anywhere up or down this street!” 

OK, good start. Now what?  

Nothing.  I want to grab my brain and shake it: Wake up! Ordinarily, the first idea ignites a second, which sparks a third, and so on, the writing rushing forward like a brush fire. I resist feeling discouraged. I must be patient. Receptive. Something will come.

For the past week, I’ve reveled in the simple pleasures of being home: eating fresh food, sleeping in my own bed, fearing for my life from Hurricane Irene. As dawn dissipates night, my state of usual mental health returns.  Which highlights how cognitively scrambled I was for the two weeks we traveled in the UK. How emotionally unstrung. How demented. From jet lag.

The discombobulation wasn’t as bad— but almost— as that on-call-night-from-hell when I was an intern. The first two years of residency training, I was on-call every third or fourth day, depending on the clinical rotation. Which meant a thirty-six hour shift, usually with no sleep, every three or four days.  

I had just finished admitting a patient to the floor from the E.R. It was 4:30 a.m. At 6:00, the regular workday started, leaving an hour-and-a-half to catch some zzz’s if, pleasepleaseplease, the pager didn’t go off.  I bolted from the desk to go to the call room and the pager went off. A sick feeling impossible to describe came over me. 

When the E.R. nurse told me the patient was 86 years old, a nursing home resident, febrile and delirious, I knew: urinary tract infection, blood culture, IV. I put my head down on the desk and sobbed, completely undone. Why? I had to calculate the osmolality of the IV fluid and could not call up the equation. It was gone. 

Maybe I fell asleep and dreamed this...

Today is the last day of our two-week trip in the U.K.  And it’s the first that I don’t feel like I was left in a pocket and run through the wash cycle. Jet lag. A wee problem, that. Son kept me company in this misery. Hubby wakened daily raring to go. Good he was nobbled by incipient arthritis of his hips, or we’d have killed him. 

Befogged from flying across the Atlantic instead of sleeping, we no sooner stepped off the plane than the problem solving that IS travel began. How to get from the airport to London (train). From the train station to the hotel (tube, or underground). In the tube, which line, and then which platform. All this while buffeted by surging and eddying crowds. 

My jangling ganglions stuck out at least a foot from my body. Hubby, bright eyed and bushy tailed, laughed at me. Shamed, I let him lead us onto the wrong train.