Short Story / Twitter Town Watch (NO JOKE! version 3)
I signed up for this free dating website. Purely for research mind you. In my about me section I wrote “I’m a good cook when I have the time, surf and ride my bike for exercise, and love a good game of scrabble.” All three pictures of me on the site were action shots. Andrew Caffey, on a water ski. Andrew Caffey, in sunglasses with the top down. Andrew Caffey, at the top of Macchu Pichu with a Peruvian sunset in the background. I didn’t list my income bracket. My books were all Willa Cather and Kate Chopin.
I make most of my money from advertisements on my blog. The research was for an upcoming piece. Working title - Fishing With Dynamite: A Step by Step Walkthrough for Online Dating. I have stumbled into a modest but consistent readership. The article was a no-brainer considering my blog’s demographic. Cutenlexy25 was supposed to be the second date of five.
Fishing, real fishing, is the act of putting yourself in the best possible position to obtain dinner. The “patiently waiting” piece of the metaphor was important. The other sections of the profile were likewise peppered to give a strong and sensitive vibe. The hook was baited, the water chummed. Cutenlexy45 winked at me from across the interweb.
Online winking, on this particular dating site, goes like this. If a party is interested – after searching through the profiles of people with specific ethnicities, weight, and height - he or she can click the wink button. An electronic wink shows up on the recipient’s homepage; they choose whether or not to reciprocate and/or respond. I reciprocated. “Call me Alexis,” she messaged next.
She had four pictures on her profile, and in each picture her hair was the dark side of mahogany. Her nose was studded like the Hindu wear. Under “favorite books” she wrote, “I don’t read that much and even I know the Davinci Code sucked.” This was a point in her favor. I could already tell she was going to give me something interesting for the article. Best case scenario, I’d find a couple of inconspicuous tattoos..
Yes, it was cockeyed that she told me to wear a cowboy hat and a bandana. You do what you got to do.
*****
How do you think I got there? I drove. How am I supposed to know that meant “by what manner of circumstance did I arrive at the coffee shop.” I don’t like where this interview is going. I had nothing to do with that business across the street. You know full well I’m not a suspect. I’d like to speak to a lawyer.
If you promise to get me out of here, with all of my possessions by four o’clock I’ll tell you. Okay then, I have your word... I met her through my flickr page. I took this super long exposure of a pumpkin as it rotted and disintegrated into mold. She made a few flattering comments below the pic. She asked me where I set the picture up I told her where my studio was, just off of Broad and Washington. She seemed really keyed up to meet. She lived like twenty blocks away, she said. She wanted some help picking out her pictures for a portfolio she was submitting for grad school applications.
The only reason I had that getup on was that her homepage had this riveting self-portrait of the most beautiful dark haired girl I had ever seen. She had these eyes that I couldn’t tell if they were light brown or if the whole picture was set to the sepia filter. Same with her skin tone, it was shadow. She told me where to meet. That ridiculous hat – her idea. It was going to be some sort of social experiment flashmob thing. The gist was some cowboy/Indian modern day commentary. To tell you the truth, I didn’t sweat the details all that much. With that bone structure and figure, I would have met her in a beekeeper suit if she asked me to.
******
I put the add on craigslist. I was selling an autographed copy of Sandman #3. The Gaiman Sandman, not the Kirby one. I accidentally met Gaiman at a writer’s workshop I knew he’d be at. I had some of his books in my bag, which he was kind enough to sign. People collect autographs. I sell them.
She wanted to know if I had issues #13, #18. I have the whole run, and I told her as much. She wanted to meet to buy seventy-some of the out of print monthlies. “I’d just have some of the comics out on the table at the coffee shop,” I told her but she insisted I wear a cowboy hat so she would recognize me. She was paying, right? I wasn’t going to haggle terms at the condition of price.
*****
I had some bad ear infections as a kid. I hear about 10% in this ear and bupkiss in this one. Like, unless you’re as loud as a 929 D&D exhaust, I’m going to feel you coming up from behind way before I hear you. I work at The Lexington Machine Shop tooling parts for prototype fabrication. The shop floor, for me, sounds like being in Sea Isle City when I was four. My job is not contingent on other people being able to sign.
I met her in my guild. Started playing World of Warcraft a couple years ago. I have conversations with people, a shared hobby. The Stony Creek Guild goes on dungeon raids, sometimes forty or fifty of us at a clip. I’m the fourth ranking member, and #1 mage. I get to dole out a lot of heat. I throw all kinds of nukes, fireballs, flamethrowers. I coordinate a lot of the attacks. Nobody looks at me cockeyed when I say something with my hands.
She was a gnome priest, a healer. We would hang on the back line, lobbing our respective swaths of terror and tranquility. Watching the meat totems do the dirty work. After we destroyed Lady Vashj in Serpentshrine Cavern, we agreed to exchange some gear and log off for the night. I was as apprehensive as the next guy when she asked me out. What are the odds that two people in the same guild were from the same city? I never told her I was deaf and she didn’t tell me about the police in S.W.A.T gear.
*******
An odd job thing I picked off of Monster. Almost as good as overtime at fifteen per. Can’t pass up Saturday work, you know. I didn’t ask what the job was, just what I should wear. Be prepared for sun, dust, and wind. You tell me how to dress for that. It was supposed to be a long day…I was getting a coffee. I thought these other guys were there for the job too.
********
The Twitter Town Watch is happy to announce a winner. One lucky hostage of the bank robbery on October 19th, 2009 was Raphael DeSouza. Contest rules are as follows.
1) The tipster must not participate in the crime being committed.
2) That person must not put themself in any undo danger while Tipping the Twitter Nation.
3) The crime must be described in a such a way as to aid law enforcement in returning order and/or apprehending the alleged suspect(s).
4) The Twitter Tipster must use the phrase “Twitter Town Watch Alert”
5) The Twitter Tipster must have a minimum following of 2000 Twitterers.
Raphael has won a $30 dollar gift certificate to Amazon.com in addition to the knowledge he has helped make this world a safer place. If the information Raphael provided leads to any convictions, he will be eligible for the grand prize, which is an all expenses paid iVacation to the Pirate Bay, Deepweb, and Blogosphere. You can see Raphael’s contribution after the jump.
11:35 Heading to the bank. If its still in business lol. Holla at the blackberry.
11:48 TWITTER TOWN WATCH ALERT. I’m at the Wachovia in the strip mall off Delaware and South. Men with guns. NOT A RICKROLL.
11:49 TAZERS ARE NO JOKE. Two security guards down. Children crying. Holstered pistols visible. Two each
11:50 for each of the three guys white guys tall like six two all of them cowboy hats jeans guns in gun-belts. Can’t see their faces. Bandanas.
11:50 Taking peoples phones… Gave them my backup. Still broadcasting. The real guns are out now. POLICE THERE ARE 20 HOSTAGES.
11:51 Gerry, if anything happens, my password is the same as the place where we bought the dope calculator for Physics class. Carry my torch.
11:53 Gunmen just left. They are heading across the parking lot. IF YOU ARE IN STARBUCKS GO OUT THE BACK NOW.
12:30 The cops are here. I’m waiting around to be questioned. What a shit show. There’s 15 dudes in cowboy hats, and none of them have any
12:31 of the banks money, that I see.
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Please insert line breaks between paragraphs. ^^;
Very entertaining. I like the snippety style here, makes me go like “what happened to the other story?” It can be a little tiresome, though. But that’s just me. Maybe. :)
As for the last * section, I… sort of… didn’t get it. :O
inconsistency issue: Cutenlexy25 vs. Cutenlexy45. which is it?
other errors:
“Purely for research mind you.” = should be = Purely for research, mind you.
“goes like this.” = i’, not sure about this one but i think you should use a semicolon instead of a period. =
“How am I supposed to know that meant ‘by what manner of circumstance did I arrive at the coffee shop.’” = if this is a question, it should end in a question mark = “by what manner of circumstance did I arrive at the coffee shop”?
~GBÜ
- add/view comments (2)
“Andrew Caffey, on a water ski.” How about on “water skis?” Would this sound better?
Andrew Caffey, in sunglasses with the top down” On what kind of car. The car will help define Andrew.
My books were all Willa Cather and Kate Chopin.” How about? My favorite authors are Willa Cather and Kate Chopin (You have excellent taste in authors. I love both of them, too)
Ok here is what throws me: “How do you think I got there?”
It is the way you transition to the view of another character i assume. It is too quick. You can fix this by telling the reader that this person is at the police station.
Once inside the police station….Do you think i have a point or am i missing something? Or is he in the police station or practicing what he would say to the police, or is he revisiting or telling what had happened earlier. It may not be your fault that i am not clear. Its probably mine, okay. But i did read closely
“You know full well I’m not a suspect.” Oh contrair, he is a suspect if he is being grilled by the police. How about, you know i am not guilty of anything.
A very clever piece. i read it twice to make sure i understood it. Most of it is clear. I like how you use each person to describe the events. I suggested things above. Overall a nice piece. Sandi
My first impression was one of utter confusion. This story does not seem to follow a clear-flowing storyline and I have no idea who the main characters are, if there are any.
After reading this story a few more times I get a general idea of a bank robbery that took months to plan, with several men all wearing identical outfits all around the surrounding area of the bank that was robbed, and the interrogation of the men who wore the outfits.
The thing that still confuses me was the winner of the Twitter Town Watch, I have no idea how that connected to the rest of the story, other than the man who won was that he was present at the robbery.
I don’t think I would choose to read this story just by browsing or by reading this excerpt, it is too confusing for me to follow.
Very confusing at first – lots of disjointed paragraphs that made no apparent sense. Very nearly gave up in disgust, was going to tell you that it simply left me cold. I did perservere, mainly out of a sense of duty, and the ending did tie it together and I did get it – and it was funny and entertaining.
But if I’d read it in a magazine then I’d probably not have made it through to the end.
On page three I got confused a bit. The character states that it was an accident meeting Gaiman, then states after that he knew he was there. I was really interested until the subject changed to World of Warcraft. I’m not sure what character it is that works in the machine shop. There was disconnect between pages 4-6.
The end really got my interest again. I like how you tied in the cowboy hat with the robbery. It gave it a funny twist.
This story needs to make more sense. I don’t know if you’re using the “*” to break chronological order or just jump forward in the story but whatever you’re doing needs to start coming together a lot sooner because if you’re losing readers (for example, myself) less than half way through the story, there’s no way this is going to get read by a publisher.
So, after reading, I see that the breaks separated with asterisks were meant to be from new characters perspectives. I think that was the main problem I had reading through the piece… I had no way of knowing these were different characters, and I was trying to figure out why this one person was telling all of these different things. Some type of indicator that these are different people could be helpful. Maybe there is a way to set that up so the individuals pieces are also not so short?
Interesting idea to use these people as a way to confuse the police, I definitely didn’t expect that.
The only recommendations I have are what I said about how it was confusing because of no indicators of new people being the focal point. Hope that helps in some way.
In re-reading, it seems that most of the story is a flashback. He is remembering, or retelling, meeting the “girl”, and how he came to be in the area. This isn’t something that comes across with the first read through, and at times it is just confusing.
(“Yes, it was cockeyed that she told me to wear a cowboy hat and a bandanna. You do what you got to do.
*
How do you think I got there? I drove. How am I supposed to know that meant “by what manner of circumstance did I arrive at the coffee shop.” I don’t like where this interview is going. I had nothing to do with that business across the street. You know full well I’m not a suspect. I’d like to speak to a lawyer.”)
In this particular section, for example, it wasn’t clear until the second read through that he is talking to the police about the incident. I think the story would read better if you found a way to differentiate between the recollection and the current situation. Having the dialog better noted would probably help as well.
In my opinion, the beginning is a bit too ominous for where the story ends up. The way he met the “girl”, and the way she kept showing up to “meet” with him online was kind of weird. Even more unsettling was her desire to meet, coupled with her insistence on the cowboy get up. I was expecting something a bit more dreadful than a bank heist.
Speaking of bank heists, your story is a way too close to fact to pass as fiction without at least some mention of it being based on a true story. Being new to Urbis I’m not sure if posting links is allowed, so I won’t here, but I can provide it through email if you like. Cracked had a feature of “5 Real Bank Heists Right Out of the Movies“, and included in those 5, “The Inner Tube Bandit” who pulled the scheme in your story, right down to the ad in Cragslist.
The addition of that last section to tie it up and give the overview just pulls the piece together nicely. Decided improvement from the first draft.
The only addition I can suggest is to end it on a punchier line. A pithy one liner quote from one of the saps who got arrested or similar.
I think this great! You might have a hard time publishing it, but I dig it.
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