Chapter One

This is the rough draft of the first chapter of my novel. Much needs to happen before I call it "done" but I wanted a new posting and this is the main thing I wrote today. Here's a fun game for readers: guess which character is the most developed. Go ahead. I bet you'll never guess.

Everett Gibson sat on a bench on top of Tanker Hill. Six miles from downtown he could see the lights become shrouded in fog and began to think about what happened a few hours ago.
He fumbled for his cigarettes and out it in his mouth. He lit the end and took a drag. It tasted funny. He lit the wrong end.
“Fuck” he said, only the damp grass heard him.
He pulled out another one; he made sure he had it the right way and lit up.
As the fog rolled into the scenery to city looked even more distant than before. He wished he could be anybody else in the city tonight.
He didn’t know why he went to visit her. Maybe it was because of her birthday. Maybe it was an obligation he felt as a son. Maybe it was because she was his only living relative.
“Maybe I’m just a pussy,” he whispered.
She had a gift. Mainly for making him feel like shit. Today was no exception. He did everything he could think of. He took her to lunch. He bought her a rose. He asked her questions about his father.
He thought about how the day started.
“Hey mom, how are they treating you?”
“Not like you care.”
“I do. You’re my mom.”
“Then why did you put me in this place?”
“Mom, we discussed this many times already. After you fell I was worried. I thought it was best if someone could help you if it happened again.”
“Why did you have to become a mortician? I’m embarrassed to tell my friends what you do.”
He must have been right or she wouldn’t have changed the subject. Still she went on.
“Sheila Johnson’s son is a doctor; Betty Goldstein has a son in residence and a daughter who’s a nurse.”
And on.
“I tell my friends you’re a business man.”
And on.
“I don’t want them to know my only son handles dead bodies for a living.
And on and on and on.
His thoughts scattered like vandals from a siren. He heard glass shattering from the area his car was in. He got up and ran as fast as he could.
When he got to his car, a shadow split in three and streaked in opposite directions.
“You stupid mother fuckers,” he said and he kicked a rock as hard as he could while he ran. He heard it clunk against his car, “if I ever find you I’m going to fuck you up in ways you can’t even imagine.”
He got to his car. A rock was lying on the hood. Where the stone had hit was now the center of an elaborate spider web in the windshield.
“Why did I switch to liability?” he mumbled to himself. He got in his car and drove home.

At that same moment, on the thirteenth floor of a building Gibson had been looking at just minutes before, Harvey Kopelson was pacing back and forth in his office.
BioServices Limited was doing well, and that was a problem. People needed transplants, people needed his transplants, and he couldn’t get enough.
He picked up the paper and flipped through it. He came to the obituaries.
He took off his glasses and rubbed his temples. He sighed. All that potential profit wasted. Sitting in the ground. Rotting. Thousands, no, millions of dollars were being turned into worm shit as he sat there trying to think of some way to help people and make a little money for himself.
He went to the bathroom and took a small measure of pride in watching the blue stuff in the toilet turn green, before he flushed five minutes of some hapless dupe’s work into nothingness.
He went back to his office and picked up the invoices. Little Johnny in California lost his tibia in a car accident. Joel’s house in El Paso caught on fire and his legs need new skin. Jimmy needs a heart valve for the time bomb in his chest. All these people had needs he could fill; to bad he didn’t have the products to fill it with.
He lit a cigarette. Fuck the ban, he thought, I pay for this goddamn place anyway.

Tom Menke had been at work for twenty straight hours. Things at the home had been ridiculous. He had to plan three separate funerals. Help select three separate caskets, show three different families books about floral arrangements, comfort three sobbing widows. Gibson had it easy. All he had to do was pump the corpses full of formaldehyde, slap some make-up on and call it a day.
He didn’t have any appointments the next day, so he was going to have Gibson mind the shop. He earned a day off.
He crept into his room where his wife was sleeping, careful not to step on any of Evan’s toys. He took off his suit and carefully folded it and hung it in his closet. He slid into the bed.
“Jenny?” he whispered.
She turned her head in his direction but her eyes were still closed.
“I’m takin’ tomorrow off babe. Let’s take Evan to the museum when he gets out of school.”
She smiled and nodded.
“Okay, go back to sleep,” he said before turning off the alarm. He put his arms around her and felt her bulging tummy right before he fell asleep.

The next day he took Evan to school. When he got back he checked the mail box and a chill went through him when he saw what was in it. The white, gold and blue of Visa greeted him with a sneer. He tried to keep his composure as he walked up the driveway, but found his footsteps were falling faster than usual. When he got inside he went directly to his study.
“Tom? Where are you?”
He began to panic. He moved to his desk as quietly as he could and opened the bottom left drawer. He fumbled with his keys.
“I swear to god I can never find the right key when I need it,” he muttered as he looked at the hunks of metal mocking him from their ring.
He heard footsteps coming down the stairs. He new his time was running out.
He snickered when he found the right one, opened the box and put the bill in it. Then he locked it, took a deep breath, smiled and opened the door.
“Good morning sweetheart. How are you today?”
“I’m fine. What were you doing in there?”
“Just some work stuff.”
“You work to hard, I’m going to make you breakfast.”
He smiled.