Jax Book Nook

My interview with Terry Bartley on his podcast “Most Writers are Fans” is now available on Anchor.  https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/PcjuIQ9Xqvb

This is the final excerpt of my book that I can make available for free. If you want to read the full book, check it out on Amazon! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLSVRZN5  

“Oh, I just don’t know if I’ll ever find
anyone.”
Morgana leaned on the bar, her hand
cupping her right cheek. Bill poured her a
Tripel and placed it in front of her eyes.
Mario had just dumped her.
“On the house,” Bill said.
“Thank you, you’re so kind,”
Morgana said. “I thought Mario was the one.
We never fought.”
“He seemed rather full of himself. I
mean, that’s how he came across to me
when he was in here.”
“Oh, yes, Mario did think very
highly of himself. I like a man with
confidence.”
A man with confidence, Bill thought.
Maybe now was the time to take his shot.
“Do you have anything scheduled for
Monday? That’s my day off and there’s a
showing of Hamilton at the Zorbak Fine
Arts Center. There’s a Vietnamese
restaurant I know right next to it.”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” Morgana
said, sipping the Tripel. “I’m not much for
works of antiquity. I prefer more modern
art.”
“In a few weeks, Sorvasen’s got an
exhibition of his art. You know, being a
waiter here is just his day job. He’s quite the
sculptor.”
“Oh, it’s a wonderful idea, but I just
don’t think I’m over Mario yet. You’ll
always be a good friend, Bill.”
Morgana took her drink and went
outside to the benches in front of the
brewery, leaving Bill alone in the bar with
his employees. Lucia giggled at Bill’s failed
attempt to land the big fish.
“I always wondered what would
happen if you caught that car you’ve been
chasing, Rover,” she said. “Dinner and a
show. How old fashioned.”
“I’m an old-fashioned guy.”
“Which is why I’m wondering about
the other girl you took home recently. You
know the one in the back?”
“Lower your voice,” Bill said,
scanning the bar for eavesdroppers. “Who
told you?”
“Zota told me, don’t you blame
Jimmy for this,” Lucia said. “Like I wasn’t
going to find out.”
“Hopefully we aren’t that bad at
keeping secrets. You realize the government
will be looking for that thing.”
“And if they apply the same
competence and integrity that they do in
chasing down criminals and paving roads,
we’re in no danger. Hey, you’re not going to
replace me with that thing, are you?”
“I’ll tell you after I get it working.”
“Oh, if that’s the case, maybe I call
the authorities.”
Lucia raised her eyebrows at Bill,
and he rolled his eyes to the back of his
head. If the authorities found out, Bill would
be in deep trouble. What would he do with
the android if he got it going? This was
potentially a very deep philosophical
question, thankfully delayed by the
television hanging above the bar. The TV
had been broadcasting a debate on trade
between an economics professor wearing a
tweed jacket, and a large, burly Lunatic,
wearing a Tuxedo T-shirt and a tie with
Daffy Duck on it.
“We need to stop all trade with the
outside world,” the Lunatic said. The
caption beneath him identified him as Jethro
Duff, one of the main organizers of the
referendum. “The Moon loses two-hundredmillion jobs a year to off-worlding.”
“The Moon only has three hundredmillion people on it,” the economics
professor said, barely able to form words.
The screen shifted to an image of a
starship on fire, floating in dead space.
“We interrupt this program to
regretfully announce that over one thousand
people are dead,” the anchor jawed in a
thick non-regional accent. “The U.S.S.
Starstorm, an S-level spacecraft with a crew
of 1,072 people, has now been burnt to a
crisp after colliding with the Terran sun.”
“Oh, shit,” Lucia said.
“The Starstorm was the flagship of
the third fleet, commanded by Captain John
Krieger,” the anchor said, as a picture of
Krieger appeared on screen in full dress
uniform, pointing off into the distance.
“Captain Krieger is counted among the
dead. While the investigation is ongoing,
initial analysis of the black box indicates the
ship attempted to warp through the star.”
Lucia pointed at the image of the
burnt husk of a spaceship being towed to
port by several smaller spacecraft.
“Isn’t that the guy who wanted to
speak with you last night?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Bill said. “I wonder if
Krieger relied on the hull design to protect
him from that one.”

An Old Memory

“Put it back in, careful now.”
Bill’s father guided his hand as he
placed A-1’s emotion chip back into the
carefully constructed positronic brain. Bill
heard the chip click. A place for everything
and everything in its place. Prof. Stiltson
turned to his son and offered him a high
five, which Bill gladly took. The good
professor then closed the hatch on A-1’s
head, made to look like the professor’s own,
and flipped the switch at the bottom of the
android’s titanium skull. A-1 blinked twice
and then turned his head to smile at Bill.
“You have improved me,” A-1 said.
Bill giggled at the thought he that
improved A-1. His father beamed at him.
“You may have had a little help, but
very good for an eight-year-old. Now let’s
see what this thing can do. A-1, I’m going to
show you a film. It’s called Bambi. I’ve
equipped you with tear ducts. Now let’s see
if we can make you cry.”

Here is the third part of Beer Run. We are only doing the first thirty pages, per my publishing contract. If I’ve gotten your interest, the full book is available on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLSVRZN5  

***

Years Long Past
“Stiltson, please explain to me why you
thought this was sufficient.”
Commander Krieger looked at the
electronic pad displaying Bill’s schematics
for the next shuttle with an elevated
contempt. Bill looked quizzically at the
same mechanical drawings. The other
officers in the room just looked at each other
and snickered as Krieger wound up another
lecture against Bill.
“I don’t understand, sir,” Bill said. “I
ran a simulation. That model works.”
“I know it can fly, Stiltson,”
Commander Krieger said. “This might shock
you, but I expect a little more of that from
my acting Ensign.”
Why Krieger would expect anything
in the field of spacecraft design from a
fourteen-year-old boy with a made-up title
was anyone’s guess, but Bill thought he’d
done pretty well.
“Stiltson, I believe the purpose of
this exercise was to design a shuttle that
could withstand the radiation from inside the
corona of a star, was it not?” Krieger asked.
“Yes, I believe that’s what we’re
doing,” Bill said.
“Is anything about this model you’ve
created designed to do that?”
“No, I didn’t think the design of the
ship itself would accomplish that. I assumed
the shields would be the primary line of
defense.”
“You assumed? So, you made an ass
out of you and me, is that what you did?”
The young officers in Krieger’s crew
started to openly laugh at Bill. His cheeks
burned bright red.
“Let them laugh, it’s funny. So, you
concluded that there was nothing you could
do to insulate the ship from radiation in
terms of the structure?” Krieger asked.
“I never thought about it. By the time
we’re relying on the structure, that means
the shields have failed and anything you
could put in the hull of the ship would be a
last gasp measure.”
“A last gasp measure that could save
a man’s life, Mr. Stiltson!” Krieger shouted.
“These schematics are worthless to me! Try
again and this time, think about what you’re
doing!”
Krieger pressed a button on the
electronic pad and deleted the schematics for
the shuttlecraft.
Back to the Present
Bill woke up. Another bad memory
expressed in dream. Just seeing Krieger
brought back the trauma. Bill shook his head
and looked at his clock. Eleven a.m. Shit. He
slept in, past the time for the auction. By this
time, the good stuff was likely gone. He
rolled out of bed, threw on some jeans and a
collared shirt, and ran out of his apartment.
As soon as he got out the door, he had to
shield his eyes from the blinding light
coming from the lunar dome’s projector.
The artificial sun put out by weather control
was a little bright today. He’d filed a
complaint with the city about turning the sun
down a few months ago, and he got a form
response from the city council about taking
his concerns very seriously.
Bill scrambled down the stairs
outside his apartment and into his car. He
pulled down the sun visor. He programmed
the address of the park where the auction
was being held into the car’s computer. The
vehicle lifted off the ground and floated in
the direction of the road.
Fifteen minutes later, he jogged
through the park on what would normally be
a beautiful Saturday morning, trying to get
to the auction to see if anything could be
salvaged. Green grass. Lush trees. Birds
singing. A blue sky. Tough to believe this
was all man-made. Bill’s father showed him
pictures of the surface of the Moon outside
of the terraformed bubbles. It was a desert at
night.
Bill spotted the stage where Scott
Ross, the local bankruptcy trustee, banged a
gavel on a podium next to a large fermenting
tank. At the foot of the stage, a crowd of
Bill’s local competitors conversed with each
other as Ross closed the auction. Jimmy and
Zota waved their hands in the air. Bill
walked over to them.
“It’s all gone,” Zota said. “Mr. Ross
has disposed of the inventory.”
“I can see that,” Bill said, watching
helplessly as his competitors gobbled up the
last of the equipment from the dissolution of
Over the Moon Brewing. “Well, Jimmy,
you’ve learned something today. Set an
alarm.”
Jimmy took out a notepad and
actually wrote the advice down. Bill would
have told him to stop, but his train of
thought was interrupted by someone poking
him on the shoulder. He turned around and
found Scott Ross, a squat pig of a man with
pepper gray hair.
“Sorry, I couldn’t hold off the
auction,” he said. “It wouldn’t be fair to the
other bidders.”
“No, this is what happens when my
past comes back to haunt me for an
evening,” Bill said. “I should have just stood
that ghost up.”
“That’s a shame. Because there’s a
special item I have that would be right up
the old Bill Stiltson’s alley.”
“You’re not going to sell me that
canning machine?”
“No, I’ve got something else
actually,” Ross said, lowering his voice to a
whisper. “Not from the bankruptcy. I found
it in a junkyard yesterday.”
Ross motioned his head in the
direction of his car. Bill knew Ross well
enough to realize this likely involved
something illegal. The last time Ross offered
him a deal on the down-low, it was five
cases of Latinian Rum, which had been
illegal for eighty-six years under the
embargo. It might seem odd for a
bankruptcy trustee to be involved in such
shady practices, but Ross was the kind of
Yankee hustler who built the Moon and it’s
not like the DUP could find anyone else who
knew how to get top dollar for a bunch of
dented brewing tanks. Bill decided to at least
take a look at the illegal merchandise. As
long as it wasn’t drugs, it couldn’t get them
into too much trouble.
“Stay here,” Bill told Jimmy. “And
do as I say, not as I do.”
Bill and Zota followed Ross to his
ancient car, covered in scrapes and duct
tape. Ross popped the trunk. Bill looked
inside to find a human face looking back at
him. Blue eyes, red hair, pale skin, female
features. The face was human but lifeless.
Bill snapped his fingers in front of the
human face. Unresponsive.
“It’s inactive,” Ross said. “Doesn’t
work.”
“I figured,” Bill said. “If it worked, it
would be reporting you to the Intergalactic
Navy via its internal server for stealing it.”
“I stole nothing. As I said, I found it
at the junkyard yesterday.”
“It’s illegal for private individuals to
own androids,” Bill said, rolling his eyes.
“Given the possibility that they are sentient,
supposedly it’s slavery. I guess it’s okay to
be enslaved by the government.”
“I think they normally call that
conscription.”
“Or imprisonment, which is what we
could be facing if we’re caught. I don’t think
federal agents will believe that someone in
the IN would just dump an android in a
junkyard and run.”
“That’s the only story I have,” Ross
said. “No, really, it is. Will you take it?”
“How would I use it? Even if I got it
working, it would report me.”
“Not if you wiped its memory. I
assume you can do that.”
Bill looked at Zota and bit his own
tongue.
“Can I speak about this with Zota
alone?” Bill asked.
“Sure.”
Ross walked over to Jimmy to shoot
the breeze with him. Bill turned to Zota.
“What do you think? Could we use
the extra help around the brewery?”
“Another helping hand? Always, but
can you fix this thing and wipe its memory
like Ross claimed?” Zota asked.
“I can do both. My dad taught me
how to fix a positronic brain before my tenth
birthday. However, even with the memory
wiped, I’m still worried about getting
caught.”
“How would we get caught? Ross is
right. This looks like a human woman. I
mean, to me at least. Like I said last night, I
can’t always tell humans apart.”
“So long as you don’t look too
closely, it looks like a real woman,” Bill
said. “Why would someone in the IN just
leave it?”
“It’s defective. It doesn’t work.”
“When androids stop working, the
IN has a place to fix them. They’re
constantly offering me a job. Whoever threw
this android away could be court-martialed.”
“I mean, it’s a mystery, but I could
use some help beyond what Jimmy can do
working part-time. It’s your call.”
Bill looked deeply into the android’s
lifeless blue eyes. A flash of memory
crossed his mind: his father fine-tuning
in his workshop, A-1 getting up and walking
across the room, A-1 singing the scales, A-1
learning to dance. He hadn’t spoken to A-1
in a while. Last time Bill checked, A-1 was
still teaching in Cambridge.
“No, I hate to leave it like this,” Bill
said. “I grew up with androids. They’re
almost like little people to me. Just leaving
her broken doesn’t seem right.”
Bill noticed that he referred to the
android as ‘her.’ He was beginning to get
some of those old feelings again. To hell
with you, Krieger. Let me show you
disappointment.
Zota went to Jimmy and told him to
bring the car around. Jimmy did just that,
backing the car up to Ross’s trunk. When
Jimmy came out to help Bill move the
android, he freaked.
“Shit! Is that…?”
“No, and you never saw it,” Bill
whispered. “Now help me get it in the back
of the car.”
Jimmy nodded. Bill lifted the
android by the arms while Jimmy got it by
the legs. They transferred the body from one
trunk to the other discretely. Bill felt slightly
amazed at how light the body was. A-1 was
made from much heavier metals.
Once they had the android moved,
Bill whispered to Jimmy, “I’ll explain later.”

Here is the second part of the Beer Run. If you like what you see, check out the entire book on Amazon! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLSVRZN5  

***

“So, we’re set to put the extra special bitter
on tap next week,” Zota said, pouring a
small snifter and handing it to Bill.
Zota, a Clothonian, rubbed the bright
tank with his rubbery bat-like wings. Bill
lifted the glass to his lips, tilted the amber
liquid into his mouth, felt the sweet and
burning sensation of a very special batch
circle his tongue, and swallowed. He nodded
his head.
“We’ll call it the Professor’s Little
Helper,” Bill said. “My dad’s birthday was
in November, so I’ll dedicate it to him.
Another excellent batch.”
Zota beamed with pride. Some
people in this business would scoff at hiring
a master brewer from a planet where beer
wasn’t indigenously made, but the bat knew
his suds. Zota had worked for three other
microbreweries before Bill found him. The
turnover made Bill nervous until he tasted
Zota’s product. After that, he didn’t care.
“I’m putting a new batch of Porter
into the fermenter tomorrow,” Zota said.
“I’ve added cinnamon to this batch.”
“Haven’t heard that one before,” said
a voice from the back.
Bill turned around and found Jimmy
Park walking into the room. Bill had
employed the twenty-year-old business
major from Seoul to clean the brewery after
hours. This was a ruse to avoid the
regulators, who wouldn’t let Bill have an
intern under the age of twenty-one in the
microbrewery business. Jimmy wouldn’t
turn twenty-one until two weeks from now.
Jimmy cleaned the brewery for free.
“Well, young man,” Zota croaked
while letting out a toothy grin, “you keep at
it and someday Bill here might trust you
enough to make your own Frankenstein
monster.”
“My own what?” Jimmy asked.
“Bill, this kid doesn’t know his own
heritage,” Zota said.
“Frankenstein comes from Britain
and he’s Korean, actually,” Bill said. “Not
the same heritage, though I suppose you
think we humans are the same.”
“Yes, I have to admit you all look
very similar to me,” Zota said. “Except
when it comes to sex. Lucia out there has the
distinctive pissed-off look of a woman who
has been made to wait.”
Bill looked out to the front of the
brewery. Lucia tapped her fingers
impatiently on her arm. Sorvasen, his other
waiter, sat patiently at one of the tables,
putting his finger in a glass of water while
his gills fluttered. Bill whistled loudly.
“I’ve got to take care of this,” he
said. “Jimmy, there’s an auction tomorrow
morning you might want to be at. Good
learning experience. I might pick up a tank.”
“I’ll be there,” Jimmy said.
Jimmy picked up a mop leaning
against the wall, while Bill went out to the
main serving area. Lucia eyed him the entire
time as he made his way to them with their
paychecks in hand. Sorvasen, the fish man,
stood up from his chair as Bill came in, only
now paying attention. If only Lucia was so
easygoing.
“I’ve got your checks,” Bill said,
holding out two thin pieces of paper. “I’ve
divided up the tips without taking anything
out, as I’ve promised.”
Lucia snatched the check out of his
hand. She looked at it. She then took out a
notepad from her back pocket to make sure
nothing was deducted. Bill offered direct
deposit, but Lucia wouldn’t have it, and she
wouldn’t let Sorvasen take it either. She’d
been screwed over before when she didn’t
have a physical check in her hand.
“Have I ever stolen your tips?” Bill
protested.
“You didn’t pay us once,” Lucia
answered.
“I paid you; I just didn’t pay you on
time. I paid you a day later, and I had to take
out a loan to do that.”
“The billionaire needed to take out a
loan to pay me one thousand credits?”
“That was before my mother died. I
hadn’t got the inheritance yet.”
The room got quiet after that. Bill’s
mother hadn’t been gone long. A few
months.
“It’s all here,” Lucia said, her lips
pursed.
Sorvasen looked at his own check
and nodded. Sorvasen’s people shake their
heads to say yes, so he needed some time to
adjust when he came to work here. At the IT
place where he worked before, they had a
Coruscan liaison who helped him
communicate with management, but at the
bar, he had to relearn every social
interaction. Like a lot of immigrants,
Sorvasen didn’t know when he was allowed
to be mad. Lucia knew when they could be
mad all too well, so she negotiated for him.
Sorvasen left. Lucia stayed behind.
“Yes, Lucia,” Bill said, patiently.
“I wanted you to know that a man
came by and wanted to speak with you,”
Lucia said. “He told me that he would be at
the Crystal Palace if you wanted to speak
with him.”
“Odd place for a man to want to
speak to me. Can’t imagine what such a
high-roller would want to talk to me about.”
“Maybe you could be a high-roller if
you decided to work from an office instead
of behind a bar. You ever thought about
that? Maybe if you let someone else do the
bartending.”
This again. Lucia was pushing him
to start canning beer and selling six-packs.
Bill had told Lucia he wasn’t interested in
expanding. Too much work.
“What did this man look like?” Bill
asked.
“White man, white hair, both on top
and his beard, Intergalactic Navy uniform,
command red, seems like he used to be
attractive before he put on a few pounds.”
Michael Krieger, Bill thought,
rolling his eyes. What universal force of
cosmic unholiness brought that shit stain to
my door?
“Thank you for telling me,” he said.
“Have a good evening.”
Lucia turned and left. Bill looked
behind him and saw Jimmy starting to clean
the tanks in the brewing chamber. Maybe
Bill would make that appointment.

---

“Bill Stiltson. I’m here to speak with
Krieger.”
The bouncer looked skeptically at
Bill over his cheap sunglasses. Bill didn’t
seem dressed for the Crystal Palace, as he
was standing there in the jeans and a faded
T-shirt he had sweated through during a
night of serving people drinks. Of course, he
was dressed like someone who worked for a
living, not the sort of person who showed up
at a nightclub at one a.m. on Lunar Standard
Time. The people around him were. The
bouncer looked down on the list with a
smirk, which disappeared as he ran across a
particular name.
“I guess you get to come in,” the
bouncer said, looking crestfallen. Bill
figured he had never gotten to come in
himself.
Bill walked in and found himself
blinded by the flashing lights emanating
from the ceiling of a dark chamber filled
with twisting figures of pink and green flesh.
Bill’s father made him read Dante’s Inferno,
so the scene rang a bell in his head. Music
vibrated through the floors and walls. Bill
also heard the music, but the screeching they
called pop music today made no impression
on him. He had always preferred death
metal.
Bill told the hostess he was there to
see Captain Krieger. After repeating himself
three times over the sound of the
nonsensical noise, the hostess nodded and
walked in the direction of a spiral staircase.
Bill followed her to a platform above the
main dance floor, where he found a ghost.
Not literally, but a man from the past who
looked like he was dead. Krieger sat
between two women, who Bill assumed
were escorts based on their attire. His legs
were spread wide open with an Old
Fashioned in his right hand, propped up on
his knee. His uniform and medals indicated
a Captain ranking, but Bill knew him as a
Commander, so that’s what Bill called him.
Krieger, whose white hairs revealed his age,
appeared out of it, nodding off, perhaps
under the influence of more than alcohol.
“Commander, Commander,” Bill
repeated.
Krieger finally came to, seemingly
recognizing Bill for the first time, pointing
at him.
“Stiltson. I wanted to see you.”
“I know, that’s what you told my
waitress. You could have just spoken to me.
I was behind the bar. I think you would have
noticed that.”
“I did. I had to see it to believe it.
You have just given up on life.”
Krieger slurred his speech as he
talked. Occasionally, the customers would
bring in opiates and drop them in the beers.
The girls couldn’t handle the larger men
who did this, so Bill would have to come
from behind the bar and throw the bums out.
He’d seen this before.
“You could have been something
special,” Krieger yelled, losing track of the
volume of his voice. “You could have been
great!!!”
Krieger’s drunken rant could have
been whispered for all the effect it had. His
screams were absorbed by the mindless
music around them, but Bill could read his
lips.
“Calm down,” he said, motioning
with his hands to lower the volume.
“Now, you just get people drunk!”
Krieger bellowed as he emptied his Old
Fashioned down his gullet. “If you just
understood what I was trying to do! You’d
have made lieutenant commander by now.”
Yeah, and I’d still be taking orders
from you, Commander Dickhead, no thanks.
“Goddamn it! Would you listen to
me!” Krieger slurred. “We’re mortal, Bill!
We only have so much time on this Earth!”
You’re on the Moon, idiot.
“I tried to make a man out of you!
To be a father to you!” Krieger shouted,
dropping his glass. “Like a replacement for
your father!”
“If you ever talk about my father
again in my presence, I will knock your
teeth out,” Bill said, getting up from his seat.
“And this conversation is over.”
“Don’t talk to me like that!” Krieger
yelled while falling to the floor.
Bill just flipped Krieger off as he
walked away. Wow, a moralistic lecture
from a whoremongering drunkard. Krieger
hit a new low. Bill figured he’d better get
home and get to sleep. He had work in the
morning.

As promised, I’m posting the first thirty pages of Beer Run on this blog for free. The first section is posted below. Enjoy!

***

In the year 2538, the galaxy is governed by
the benevolent Democratic Union of
Planets, a confederation of intelligent races
united by the values of government by
consent, freedom of expression, and the rule
of law. The brave officers of the
Intergalactic Navy explore the universe
while defending the DUP from all foes,
intergalactic and domestic.
This is not a story about them. This
is a story about regular schmoes who work
at a brewery on the surface of the Moon in
the outskirts of Luna Park.

---

Bill Stiltson tilted the pint glass at an acute
angle and pressed the tap against the logo
imprinted on the front. He pulled the handle
down and watched as the Marzen flowed
down the side to the bottom of the glass. Bill
slowly lowered the glass from its angle until
it was straight. Not too fast. You didn’t want
it to come out all head, he heard his
deceased father’s voice warn him. The glass
filled with amber goodness. Bill admired his
handiwork for a moment and then turned to
give the glass to the Tuscanian who sat at
the bar.
Tuscanians tend to be large people.
Big bones. Green skin. His mother saw a
Tuscanian once and grabbed her purse.
Bill’s mom had subtle prejudices.
Sometimes, she would still call people from
other planets “aliens,” a term that didn’t
make much sense given that Earth and
Tuscania were both parts of the Democratic
Union of Planets and had been for well over
a century. The Tuscanian smiled at him with
long yellow teeth. He took a sip.
“It’s very good,” he said. “And I’ve
had a lot of beer since I moved here. We
don’t have beer on Tuscania.”
“I know,” Bill said. “I think you call
your drink Frule. I had a little when I went
on vacation once. It’s a little like rum.”
“I’ll have to have rum sometime so I
can tell you if you’re right or crazy,” the
Tuscanian said. “I have a meeting on Earth
tomorrow. In-person.”
“Fancy. These people you work for
couldn’t just do a teleconference?”
“I’m supposed to be meeting the
client,” the Tuscanian said, taking another
sip. “I design artificial gravity systems for
spacecraft, orbital stations, and lunar
ecospheres. It’s a step up for me. I wouldn’t
refuse.”
A step up, Bill thought. He
remembered when he had those. Now, he
settled for the Moon. Couldn’t be happier.
Well, he could be happier, if Morgana
would give him a second look. She was
sitting on the bench outside with her latest
flame. Her dark, frizzy hair bobbed up and
down as she listened to the wide-chested
Adonis who had been driving her around in
his Lamborghini. Bill thought his name was
Mario, though compared to Bill’s thin figure
and greasy skin, he could very well be
Casanova.
Thunk. The thudding of a flight
holder, right next to him, woke Bill from his
daydream. Lucia, one of the waitresses, had
alerted him to an order, which Bill began to
fill. An IPA in this slot. A stout over there.
A Tripel in the middle. When he was
finished, Lucia came and took the flight over
to a group of men wearing military fatigues.
Bill looked the rough men over. One of
them was wearing a black trucker’s hat with
the words ‘Full Moon’ on it. As in ‘Moon is
full, no more aliens.’
“Yeah, I noticed them, too,” the
Tuscanian said, looking straight forward as
he finished the Marzen. “I’ll have the stout.
Seeing a lot of them recently. You don’t
think the referendum…”
“No,” Bill said, filling up the next
pint. “If we left the DUP, the economy
would tank overnight. How those Lunatics
ever got the signatures, I’ll never know.”
The term Lunatic wasn’t an insult.
Well, it was, but it was also the chosen term
for people in the ‘New Moon’ movement,
which sought independence from the
Democratic Union of Planets. Most
economists on the Moon warned that having
the Moon declare independence from an
intergalactic confederation that surrounded it
would be the equivalent of voting for a
depression. Somehow, the Lunatics scrapped
up enough signatures to put Lunar
independence on the ballot for the mid-term
election next Friday. The polls said they
were dead in the water.
“I think the polls are wrong,” the
Tuscanian said. “I’m seeing a lot of dark
hats.”
“They’d have to be very wrong,” Bill
said, putting the glass down next to his
green patron.
The Tuscanian took a drink from the
stout. He swished it around his mouth and
lifted his eyes to the ceiling for a moment.
Then he shook his head.
“People here are very generous and
welcoming. They wouldn’t tell you to go
back to your own planet. Not to your face.
That doesn’t stop them from wondering if
they really would be better off if you
weren’t there. Believe me. Maybe when I’m
on Earth tomorrow, I’ll do some apartment
shopping after the meeting. I’m Vardok, by
the way.”
The Tuscanian offered his hand, and
Bill took it.
“Bill Stiltson. I own this joint.”
He spread his arms to signify his
ownership of the palace that was Lunar
Brewing Co. He was behind his bar and all
was right in the world.

Attention to all my readers! Both of you! Starting next week, I will be posting excerpts of my novel, Beer Run, on this blog, for free up to the First Thirty pages! Yes! You can read the first part of my book before ponying up the cash for the rest of it! Hooray!!!!!

First, I will be on the podcast “Most Writers are Fans” tonight with Terry Bartley. Terry is another author in the Charleston, WV area and we are going to talk about Beer Run and the writing process.

Also, if you finish Beer Run, first, thank you for taking interest in my writing, but also, please review me on Goodreads! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63275013-beer-run?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=oDKkHsZx7p&rank=19

Beer Run is now available in print!

Ebook: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLSVRZN5  

Print: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLR6TSZN

My premier novel, Beer Run, is out on Amazon! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLSVRZN5/ref=sr_1_10?crid=1D75ISDSHRVP8&keywords=Beer+Run&qid=1667939052&s=books&sprefix=beer+run%2Cstripbooks%2C106&sr=1-10

Thanks to everyone’s support along the way, especially Solstice Publishing! http://www.solsticeempire.com/

Another post over a Twitter argument. Not really an argument. More like a philosophical question. Someone asked whether I liked Halloween better than Christmas. Answer: absolutely.

You might balk at this answer. “Are you saying that candy is better than presents?” No. I’m saying that neither of those things should be the primary factor we use to judge a holiday. If I had it my way, the gifts we get at Christmas would be better spread out over the course of the year for multiple holidays, anniversaries, and birthdays etc. No need to have them all at once. What are you getting your kids for the Fourth of July this year?

And let me point out that the gifts really are important for that demographic: kids. Adults can buy their own gifts. Kids generally need a special occasion to get toys. Why is Christmas the designated special occasion and not Easter? Who knows! Seems random to me. For most adults, Christmas isn’t that special for the same reason summer isn’t that special. It’s really just another day where we eat special food, have parties, sing songs, etc.

My point is that once you get outside the presents for kids, which can be redistributed to other special occasions, Christmas is actually a fairly tyrannical holiday. Every year, retailers start using Christmas as a selling point earlier and earlier. Normally, it’s October, but in some places, I’ve even started seeing Christmas creep into September and even August. At first, it’s just silly, but then in November, we really start getting serious. It makes the other holidays around it, Thanksgiving and New Years, practically disappear, and God help you if you’ve got a birthday in December (you’ve probably never gotten a real birthday gift in your life).

Not only does Christmas show up rudely early, it leaves unfashionably late. If you leave pumpkins out too long, they rot, so most people know to trash them quickly. Even complex decorations come down after Halloween rather quickly. Maybe hanging corpses, headstones, and spider-webs detract more from property value than trees and lights. Christmas decorations stay up until February. They’re like a party guest that doesn’t leave.

Maybe that’s because the majority of us only put them up under compulsion in the first place. Christmas Trees and lights are labor intensive to put up and most of us don’t know why we bother other than the fact that everyone else is doing it. Don’t decorate your house on Christmas, people accuse you of being Scrooge. When was the last time someone made you feel awkward for not decorating your house for Halloween?

I guess that’s the heart of my thesis: Christmas is coercive. Halloween is libertarian. Through a series of mutually enforced cultural norms concerning gift giving, decorations, carols, and movies, Christmas forces you to go along with the mantra that it’s the most wonderful time of year. Halloween doesn’t mind if you ignore it completely. Dress up, don’t dress up. Jack Skellington doesn’t care.

The movies associated with each respective holiday say a lot. Halloween movies are…horror movies, which Americans enjoy watching all year round. There are a few movies that are centered on the holiday itself but not many. Halloween gives us an excuse to watch movies we like watching anyway. Christmas movies on the other hand are all pretty much about Christmas and most of us wouldn’t watch one outside of the months of November through January. The exceptions might be “Christmas” movies like Die Hard or the Nightmare Before Christmas which aren’t really Christmas movies. Traditional Christmas movies like It’s a Wonderful Life and A Miracle on 34th Street function like Soviet propaganda films, force feeding us a message about how wonderful Christmas is. There are a few such movies that qualify as watchable, most notably Home Alone and Elf. Funny thing is that Christmas even ruins those movies. Now you can only watch Home Alone during Christmas time so you may as well do it now! Nobody will ever ask you why you are watching The Exorcist in March.

Christmas is so coercive that it controls other holidays. We’ve already talked about Thanksgiving and New Years. What’s really frightening is Hannukah. Hannukah didn’t become the Jewish equivalent of Christmas until the Christmas season became so overtly totalitarian that Jewish people in America felt the need to pump Hannukah up in order to compete. It was actually a minor holiday. Every year we get sermons from pastors and priests about how we shouldn’t let Christmas take Advent away. I say this sermon is unrealistic in this day and age and should be replaced with “Don’t let Christmas take away All Saints Day.” All Saints Day and its better-known companion, Halloween, don’t intrude at all, on the other hand. They make so little nuisance that every year in Halloween’s shadow we have an angry argument over Columbus Day, a trifling holiday if ever there was one, and Jack Skellington just smiles at us while we make fools of ourselves.

I know you all are bringing up the gifts again. If parents didn’t give kids gifts on Christmas, they wouldn’t give them gifts ever we are told. I think that if we hadn’t specifically designated Christmas as gift day that parents would space their gifts out more. Concentrating all gift giving in one day has had some really negative social consequences. It begins in grade school where it becomes clear that Santa favors the rich kids in town not the best behaved. If gift giving was spread out more evenly, income inequality might not be so obvious. Thus, Christmas becomes a dick measuring contests to see who can get the best haul. This continues itself into adulthood with Christmas decoration contests resulting in lighting displays so bright they are a danger to low flying aircraft. Christmas becomes an opportunity for Americans to one-up each other with Veblen goods. (Real economic term). It has gotten to the point where we expect to see people to stampede each other the Friday after Thanksgiving every year. I don’t even go outside on Black Friday. Forget the movie series. Go to the mall the day after Thanksgiving and witness the real Purge.

While Christmas drowns in commercialism Halloween actually fulfills the role of an actual holy day: getting people to behave better. On Halloween people send their children out, often unattended, to the homes of their neighbors asking for candy, and the neighbors usually respond by providing the candy without any kind of compulsion, governmental or not, or even complaint. It’s an act of faith. People dress up and go to parties with their friends and neighbors and have a good time. Sure, teenagers used to make trouble, but Hell Night’s been relegated to myth at this point.

When I was growing up, Christians would denounce Halloween as the devil’s day, but it’s probably Satan’s least favorite day of the year. People go around dressed up as evil incarnate in an obvious attempt to make fun of him, the most prideful being in existence. They watch a bunch of movies reminding people that evil is real, a fact he’d rather they forget. Children go around getting candy for free from people too happy to give it to them. No commercialism. No shallow competition. No one trying to politicize the whole thing by claiming some kind of “war on Halloween.” Just people leaving their house and conversing with friendly neighbors. If I were Lucifer, I’d find the whole thing rather depressing.

I propose we take this moment as an opportunity to fix Christmas. Now, we can’t make Christmas just like Halloween. Jack Skellington proved that for us. What we need to do is somehow fix what has turned Christmas into this miserable black hole of commercialism and politicization. Once again, I think it all has to do with the gifts. Now, kids need gifts, and there is some truth to the idea that parents wouldn’t buy their kids gifts unless the Christmas spirit forced them to. That’s why the way we fix Christmas is by making multiple Christmases: namely four of them. You see, Christmas used to be one of four dates on the western calendar that divided the year into four quarters and each had its own holiday: Feast of the Annunciation, the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, Michaelmas, and Christmas. These holidays got kicked to the curb as industrialization required a more standardized calendar, but with manufacturing now increasingly being done by robots, who’s to say we couldn’t do with another three days off? Hell, we could even give back Presidents Day and Columbus Day, and any other holidays we don’t care about. We don’t even have to make them particularly religious. The Nativity went by Midsommer sometimes, and the Annunciation was called Ladyday. That might offend a predominantly Protestant culture, but we can negotiate on the names.

More importantly, think of what this would do. By telling parents to give presents four days a year, they would no longer feel pressure to overdo it on Christmas, and the competition of who got the better haul during recess would end. Decorations would be simpler and easier to put up and remove. The business cycle would even out. Toy stores wouldn’t need to wait until November to reach the black. None of these holidays would be important enough on their own to overpower other holidays. Thanksgiving and New Years would actually mean something again other than being placeholders for Christmas. No one would ever tell someone born on September 13 that he should just wait a few weeks for Michaelmas. Turning Christmas into “Present Day” has ruined Christmas by making it too important. We need to spread some of that importance out to other holidays, and a funny thing will happen. We might actually start to enjoy Christmas again.

As it stands, I’m enjoying some last-minute Halloween fun before bracing myself for the grind of the upcoming Christmas season. Happy Halloween, and if a man in a red suit shows up at exactly midnight tonight pointing at his watch, tell him to buzz off.