My Brother Arthur

In 2002, when 9.11 was still fresh in everyone's consciousness, my brother was in the hospital. I tried to visit him everyday. One day, I leaned over and kissed him on the forehead to say goodbye. He usually made some corny joke, but that day, he grabbed my arm.

"Write a novel for me. Put everything I love in it."

His blue eyes watched me. That look was intense and serious. I promised. 

He never left the hospital and died of cancer before I could write the novel. Later that year, I wrote the book he asked me to write. I threw in everything he loved to read. It had humor, science fiction, a fantasy character, sex, family relationships, conspiracy theories, an assassin, and more.

That novel is unpublished and sitting on a shelf behind me. Why?

Well, I gave it to one of my best friends to read. He gave it back with comments, and his parting words went something like this, "There are too many genres. Reading it is like getting whiplash. Pick a genre."

He was right. There wasn't one genre holding the story together. All the genres were fighting with each other. Like me, my brother read a lot and loved many different genres. I tried to cram them all into one book. The experiment was not successful.

The story I wrote for my brother was about a man dying of cancer. Sounds like a tearjerker movie, right? It wasn't because my brother was funny. He had a strange sense of humor and loved all things absurd.

In chapter one, a strange man appears and brings science fiction into the story with a sprinkling of fantasy. An ex-marine character (my brother was a marine) showed up. He planned to kill my protagonist. So murder or mystery came into play. I threw in some lame comedy and even lamer sex. Family drama from one daughter and five ex-wives--one ex-wife was a ex-CIA spy.

Everything my brother loved, plus chaos, which he also loved. Those things are why the book is unpublished. The only person who might want to read it isn't here anymore. Occasionally, I have a wild thought that someday, I might give that story another try. See if I can figure out how to make it work. Who knows? Maybe I will.

However, I've fixed the problem of keeping my promise to my brother.

"How?" you ask.

My novels, novellas, and shorty stories have an over arching and mostly unmentioned thread that hold everything together. That tread is represented by one character. He appears now and again, often throwing events into chaos. Yes, he was the stranger who showed up in that unpublished novel to help the man dying of cancer.

In deciding not to publish the book, I thought I put an end to that strange character. Looking back, this odd ball man represented my brother.

As I said in a previous post, this man, who sometimes calls himself Raymond, has appeared many times in the League of the Daring series. He is hinted at in Dragon Speakers. He is talked about as a myth in Swords for Hire. In several of my short stories, he appears somewhat regularly. I'm always excited when he shows up.

I recently realized that my subconscious mind was still trying to keep the promise I made my brother. That crazy mixed-up novel I'd created long ago gave me Raymond, who represents my brother. In this odd way, I'm keeping my promise to my brother. I'm writing the kind of books he loved to read. Every once in awhile, my brother, disguised as the eccentric character Raymond, shows up in my stories. 

One day when we were younger and carefree, brother phoned. Without the typical phone greeting, he said, "Hey, I just finished this great book. You gotta read it."

"Okay, does this book have a name?"

"Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy." He laughed and hung up before I finished writing the title. That was my brother Arthur!

He's gone. Yet in a peculiar way, he is still with me.