A brief excerpt from 'The Note.'

Add caption

“Ah, hell.”

The whole damned crew stood around Dev’s desk, with the note out of the drawer and showing signs of being passed from one sweaty hand to another.

“Sorry, but this is just too good.” Doug Pinton slapped him on the shoulder while Devlin resisted the urge to punch him in the head.

He should have known, of course.

Mr. GreenJeans, which was what everybody called Ed Milliken, grinned voraciously. He was the editor and sole reporter for the Garnerville Gazette, circulation three thousand but an additional two thousand went out as mailbox stuffers in the surrounding rural areas. Mr. GreenJeans loved the production area and spent a lot of time out there, but he laid out his own paper and Park did their flagship, the News.

“I’ll bet she’s a big fat sloppy thing, all sweaty, with hairy armpits and ever-so-desperate for your body.”

Pinton and Milliken laughed, and high-fived each other.

Ed Milliken, ‘Mr. GreenJeans,’ had bypassed the company dress code, which was, in a word, ‘no jeans,’ by wearing tan work boots, green work trousers and the matching farmer’s work shirt with two pockets from day one. The pocket on the left had a plastic protector and two or three pens and pencils sticking out of it at all times. Ed was the only one who had a mini tape-recorder, for example. He’d gone to the extent of having a pin-on plastic tag made up with his name, and The Garnerville Gazette on it. He wore it on his shirt pocket.

Dev didn’t even have a cell-phone. Although polite hints had been dropped, he just didn’t have the cash to even consider it. So far, he’d managed to do the job without one.

Devlin’s mom had bought him a whole shit-load of clothes, putting it on her credit card when her boy left town for the big new career. She was so damned proud of him. With his grey Italian-made blazer, dark blue shirt and hot pink silk tie, usually a pair of charcoal trousers and black shiny leather shoes, he was arguably the best-dressed guy in the whole town. He had a couple of other pairs of shoes as well.

Maybe that was part of the problem. At his height, and in that get-up, he was the best thing to hit town in ages.

Lately he’d been getting some weird vibes out the place. It was like he stuck out like a sore thumb.

END

The Note. Ian Cooper.

by Ian Cooper.

The literary erotic novelette entitled ‘The Note’ is based on some experiences that happened to me many years ago. It’s not really autobiographical in nature because of all the changes made to the basic story line, and in fact things up ended a lot differently in my case.

Devlin, whose last name is never given in the story, is young, he’s a long ways away from home, and he’s lonely and inexperienced. He kills a lot of time driving around or drinking in his room. He seems a bit immature. These bits are autobiographical.

This was a fun story to write. And it’s true: there was a place where I lived and worked, some interesting things happened, and I still think about that place today. I still refer back to those experiences, those people, that particular time and place in my life, and yes, back to a time when I was young. My whole life lay ahead of me and it seemed the world was my oyster.

It seems to me that no fear equates with no experience. Perhaps that’s the difference. As we get older we’re less likely to take those risks, and perhaps to seek those joys which are the province of the young, and those with not much to lose and possibly everything to gain.

There is no beating the optimism of youth. It’s true I made some mistakes, pretty much the same ones Devlin made.

Those experiences helped me to become who I am today and perhaps it is wise to keep that in perspective.