DRAKENEWS #115: July 3 2020
Dear People,
I hope you’re all doing okay. I am but I sure wish I were doing better. A friend has taken to slugging her e-mails In this time of plague. This is a useful reminder that we are not in a unique problem, but it’s sure an unpleasant one.
I continue to batter ahead on The Serpent. A few weeks ago I came to the end of my plot and added up my texts, hoping that I was finished. I was still way short of novel length. I started writing before I had a proper plot. Nobody was pushing me to do that; it was all on myself. The crash schedule on which I wrote the previous one, To Clear Away the Shadows, did my ability to concentrate serious harm. I seem to be getting back to normal, but jeepers! I wish it hadn’t happened.
I was badly disappointed that my book wasn’t longer and responded by doing more research and plotting another scene which I am writing now. It may take more than this, in which case I will do more (or die trying).
The covid-19 business doesn’t directly affect me, but the pall it casts over all human endeavors certainly doesn’t help.
I have an enlarged prostate and went to a urologist. He sent me off for an MRI, saying that if surgery was required it would help guide the surgeon. Boy! was I glad when he called back to say there was no cancer. (That was definitely one of the things which went right in the past couple months. I’ve had several friends on chemotherapy in the past few years, and even the one who survived had a really difficult time with the treatment. I’m having a hard enough time concentrating as it is.)
I’ve agreed to do a couple short stories after I’ve turned in the novel. I like short stories–reading as well as writing them. That still looks a good ways in the future, I fear.
What recent news hasn’t been covid-19 has been about how police treat outgroups, particularly blacks, in this country. I suspect Hispanics and Native Americans have similar problems, but the current riots are largely black, and George Floyd, who was choked to death on video, was black. I’m a WASP, but I ride a motorcycle, which gives me some slight insight into the problem.
The Chapel Hill police force doesn’t have a bad reputation for brutality (the way the Minneapolis police have since I lived in the Midwest decades ago). Some years ago a fellow ran a red light and just about killed me. Instead of letting it go, I called the police from the mall where I was going to pick up a rose for my wife on our anniversary. (This was before I had a cell phone. It was a stupid over reaction on my part, but I thought of the police as my friends–and I was hot about the driver’s behavior.)
Officer Steve Riddle wasn’t one of the policemen I knew personally but when he pulled up to the curb I walked over to greet him. His response was to shout, “Back up Cowboy!” and arrest and handcuff me.
In the magistrate’s office Officer Riddle lied that I was carrying a concealed weapon. (Most bike riders carry a folding knife on their belt. I instead had an AG Russell Sting with a 3″ fixed blade clipped to the side pocket of my trousers.)
I went a lawyer whom I knew and liked. The case was dismissed in court.
I don’t mean all Chapel Hill police would have behaved that way (in fact a couple of them looked me up to apologize for Steve Riddle’s behavior).
I was wearing a motorcycle jacket rather than a business suit. But a black can’t change his skin color because he expects to come into contact with the police, and Steve Riddle isn’t unique among the police you’re going to meet. There are some who are willing to choke to death someone who committed no crime. (George Floyd attempted to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. There was no evidence of intent. Do you have a dud twenty in your wallet? I’m damned if I know whether all of mine are good.)
So that’s my story. It doesn’t involve any brutality: just a policeman who jumped to conclusions and arrested a man who’d called for police help. That’s not a mistake I’ve made since. Incidentally I was very polite throughout the business. Officer Riddle had already demonstrated his willingness to lie; if he shot me in the back I was sure he could find an exculpatory lie for that also.
I am neither liberal nor PC, but I have quite a lot of sympathy for black people who live in Minneapolis. Or for that matter, in Chapel Hill, NC.
One last point. I was just looking for a card to send to a friend who lost her business due to covid-19 and I found one with a picture I took in a 19th century shopping arcade in Naples. Right out the back door was a building with a historical marker saying that Rossini lived there–but the palazzo was owned by his employer, the impressario of the Naples opera.
The marker commemorates Rossini, though, not the rich man who employed him. I told my friend not to regret going into the arts instead of focusing on making money: the rich impressario is forgotten but Rossini will be remembered for further centuries to come.
Think positively people. And be nice to other folks in this difficult time.
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–Dave Drake