Four Theater of the Absurd Novelettes

Bumbling officer Marty Brimfeeler probes the death of a brainwashed terrorist in Houston. Five horses break out of their corral and reduce the city of Dallas to rubble. Hapless insurance executive Bobby Thompson proves his manhood on the mean streets of Dallas. Special agent Atoka surveils Houston on his nuclear-powered bicycle until software glitches trap him on a coastal freeway.

lulu.com mass market-size paperback
Smashwords eBook in numerous formats (incidentally free on Smashwords’ Read an Ebook Week, March 3-March 9)

Three weeks ago I wondered whether I should give in to a sudden urge to publish four 1975 novelettes. Not my earliest writing, but the first long stories composed during my first year of marriage, my first year in Dallas, and my first year out of Rice. Definitely overwritten and sounding quite counterculture, they all were instrumental in my writing development. They also all have a decent heart to them that may appeal to at least some readers. So this informal collection developed into something like an autobiographical investigation of fresh creative energies arising in my 1975, shortly before I began my breakthrough novel Akard Drearstone.

I always referred to these works as stories but hadn’t been aware until recently that they can be classified as novelettes, with word count between 7,500-19,000. This may account for their many rejections from short story magazines. But these lengths show how eager I was at the time to abandon story writing and move into the exploratory possibilities of the novel.

From the beginning I acknowledged that this MATH project was more created for my own satisfaction than to become a new expression. Thus I felt my initial options on February 7 were:

1. Just assemble a manuscript but never publish it.
2. Create a paperback on lulu.com that no one can see, like Akard Drearstone Draft 1.
3. Publish a paperback on lulu.com only, like The UR Jack Commer, with minimal marketing and minimal profit.
4. In addition, or instead of, put it on Smashwords for free.

The Wraparound Cover

Two days after these first musings I decided I would, after all, like to hold a paperback of this project in my hands. Sixteen days after conception Sortmind Press published a lulu.com mass market paperback.

But I decided not to put Man Against the Horses! on Amazon as a trade paperback or Kindle eBook. Despite my being one of a zillion authors on Amazon, I still want to maintain a brand there with only my best novels showing.

Light Revisions

I decided I wanted to maintain these stories’ 1975 quality, but I also wanted to feel comfortable with what I now choose to display on the page. I feel I’m bringing out the true 1975 versions as they should have been finalized at the time. However, I left in all manner of stylistic frills that no modern editor would allow; that’s my 1975 style, heavily influenced by late-sixties and early-seventies counterculture.

Space, Time, and Tania

Bumbling ex-Texas Department of Public Death officer Marty Brimfeeler probes the death of metaphysical terrorist Tania in Houston shortly before World War III erupts. This is a fun, intelligent, loopy story, despite being inspired by the kidnapping of Patty Hearst and her brainwashing by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974. “Tania” strikes me now as properly channeling the universe. There doesn’t seem to be a career-minded ego trip to it. Of course it’s not really about Patty Hearst.

Begun in 1974 and completed in 1975, “Tania” was published in PigIron Magazine in 1977 after three or four rejections. I’m fully satisfied with the story the way it was published, except for PigIron’s occasional spacewasting edits (for instance, adding a two-word paragraph, “A raindrop,” to even out the end of a page in the era before computers) and the editor’s last-line change of “this little Marty” to “this little Marsden.” He can be excused for thinking “Marty” was a typo, but I really did mean that the motorcycle revolutionary Marsden Oillamp was a tiny version of our deluded Marty Brimfeeler. Beyond that I just made a handful of error corrections.

As I was working on this project I suddenly saw the weird relation between my 1975 style, especially in “Tania,” and the disgruntled robot Mickey Mal Michaels’ overbearing discourse in Supreme Commander Laurie, soon to be published. Maybe that was why I’ve so reverberated with 1975 consciousness.

A 1975 View of Vengeful Horses

Man Against the Horses!

Five horses in Paris, Texas have finally had enough. They break out of their corral, charge down the highway, and, imbued with fresh superpowers, tear the city of Dallas to pieces. This rough draft manages to express my antipathy toward my new city of Dallas and my post-college job’s bleak regimentation, which felt like a return to high school compared to my insular, satisfied university life in Houston.

After “Tania,” the other three unpublished stories received a bit more clean-up for this collection, but these edits aren’t extensive and usually just excise the occasional eruption of obvious BS. But I did rethink my initial vow not to revise any further, because the original end of “Man Against the Horses!”–which after all never emerged from rough draft, was never finalized, and was never sent to any magazine publishers–has a jarring, cynical, depressing tone, along with a sense of animal cruelty I can’t bear. I just excised 166 words from the last section and changed the tone from despairing to, I hope, karmically mystical, which I think was the whole point of this bizarre plot. I have to hope my 1975 self would’ve similarly finalized this story.

A 1975 View of Our Anti-Hero

The Highland Park Cadillac Races

This piece continues my vengeful satire of my new city as it showcases how hapless insurance executive Bobby Thompson, plagued by numerous philosophical questions, races Cadillac against Cadillac to prove his manhood on the mean streets of Dallas. I removed a disgusting and unnecessary first scene which probably accounted for the continual rejections of this story. My instincts here have proven correct; what follows is the real narrative, much improved with the loss of the gross first section. Something even heartfelt and endearing emerges from Bobby’s whacked-out terror near the end.

Otherwise I just made light edits, broke sprawling paragraphs into shorter ones, and took out a handful of distracting embellishments. Note that whenever I needed to impress the reader with Cadillac engine technology, I just made something up.

“The Highland Park Cadillac Races” collected rejections from five publishers. Again, it was probably that first obnoxious section that kept editors from ever seeing, or laughing out loud at, the first crazed Cadillac race on Beverly Drive in Highland Park.

The 66,000 M.P.H. Bicycle

Special agent Atoka evades “the Americans” on his nuclear-powered, 66,000-m.p.h. bicycle until he’s trapped on a Texas coastal freeway. This final 1975 story only needed very light edits. I think the discerning reader can enjoy the story even though the author was able to ignore numerous physics problems–though I don’t think this was why six magazine publishers rejected this work. I recently came up with some glib answers to these problems, italicized below:

• Above all, 66,000 M.P.H. is more than twice escape velocity, so that Atoka would’ve been out far past the orbit of the moon before his four hours of patrol were up. [Unless special rocket tubes thrust downward to keep him on the ground. Would this work, though?]
• Inertial problems are not addressed. Getting to 66,000 M.P.H. in 300 feet would turn Atoka into pudding. [Unless there is a great inertial subsystem–but the vacuum-magnetizing spacesuit does not seem to be it.]
• The bicycle’s tires are not mentioned in the final MS., although they are in drafts 1 and 2, where their physical composition is described and the tires are said to be pressured to 5,200 PSI. But the strain on hubs and tires and bearings can only be imagined.
• Friction effects and burning up at high speed is somewhat addressed. But that a bicycle shape could stand this strain does not seem believable. [Of course you can just postulate that Atoka and his design team solved this issue.]
• Then we have the problem of the continual breaking of the sound barrier for four hours throughout the night. That would surely give Atoka away, not to mention that he might be setting the air on fire behind him. [Postulate that this problem is solved with complex algorithms and atmospheric cooling devices that “replace the air exactly as it was” and also mask all sound barrier effects. Or perhaps the bicycle actually slips outside spacetime and in effect doesn’t exist until it’s time to make a turn! That would definitely accentuate the pointlessness of all the technology brought to bear on these nonsensical “patrols.”]

Further observations:

• What works here is the ludicrousness of Atoka’s mission, never explained. The description of the rider’s surreal disorientation in four hours of acceleration, deceleration, and thousands of random turns demonstrates the rebels’ determination. That’s a hell of a lot of work, but for what?
• The computer programming stuff is great for 1975, considering I knew nothing about computers at the time. “Form B” is the equivalent of “Restart.” The logic behind many of the computer scenarios is decently thought out, although giving the rider fifteen seconds to respond to a Form B before bike explosion is pretty tough.
• We never know if Nerf Woman betrays Atoka or if, in caring for him, she passes on, against orders, her foreknowledge of his demise.
• The Americans must really be obsessed with Atoka and his ilk if they’re willing to destroy an entire section of freeway just to get one rider.
• “Acknowledging the Leader with a wave” was a deliberate ambiguity in the 1975 MS. To me it reads as if there is, even in espionage and rebellion, a sense of kinship to, or grudging respect for, the society Atoka is undermining.
• I’m not sure I’d read up on the benefits of zero-gravity manufacturing by 1975, but the bike being built in orbit in zero gravity indicates that the rebellion is well-financed and powerful. After all, even though Atoka designed the bike, he’s only one of many riders.

copyright 2024 by Michael D. Smith

Further MATH background