I Need a Bailout

I need a bailout. I have been neglectful of my responsibilities to my fictional characters, greedy in the use of my time, wasteful in my keystrokes, and just another typical lazy American thinking I can get by on my arrogant attitude and pollyanna optimism.

It is so much harder not to write than to write. It is so much more effort to flog myself for not writing than it is just to sit down and write. I need a bailout. I need someone to pick up my lazy wrists, flop them on a keyboard, and bring my neglected characters back to life.

I took a look at Charlie today. I realize you don't know him, but you could when his story is published, assuming I ever finish it.

Charlie has dark, oily hair and very long legs and arms. When he sits in one of the barber chairs and stretches his legs, his feet are clear over on the other side of his shop. He puts his hands behind his head to take a little snooze and his elbows nearly graze the yellow ceiling tiles that are stained by years of his ever-present cigar.

Charlie learned his trade at Bethel Estate, otherwise known as State Prison in Bethel. He secretly enjoyed sculpturing stubborn nappy hair into billboards for gang signs and coaxing thin strands of blonde static electricity to lie down with their brethren. The aroma of hair and shaving products and the glistening shine of scissors and razors tickled his delicate senses. Cutting hair was a reprieve (we dare not say “escape”); it was a time-out from the smell of urine-stained beige and starched blues. It was a place where men could laugh and joke with each other, sometimes even directing their jokes at the ever-present eyes standing a few feet away. But Charlie’s pleasures were hidden, restrained behind the boyish face, and masked by his best attempt to look stern and worldly in order to survive in a stern and other-worldly environment.

By the time, Charlie arrived at Twisted Roots, many years after learning his trade, the stern and worldly countenance would be a constant veneer. Deprivation of love would starve his full face, smiles would be rationed to only a few, and his olive skin would yellow and sag from the weight of sins unforgiving and nearly as many unpunished.

It was from his careful observations of people that Charlie learned to fit into the town’s population as if he had been there all his life. For some of the younger folk, it seemed as if Charlie had always been there, perhaps conceived from some anonymous donor and immediately full-grown.

Charlie has an important role to play in the strange town of Twisted Roots. Regrettably, no one may ever know about his contributions and retributions if his story is never finished.

Please support my cause. Please, please support the Filed and Forgotten Universal Character Keeper (FFUCK) Act and give me the bailout, however undeserved. Thank you, and once again, God Bless America!