The Transplants

Philip Johnson

Prologue

Princeton Dynamics was a successful national company with a division just south of Chicago, and they had one major problem, operating costs. Their bottom line was sagging like an old hammock. And like most companies with that problem it was largely due to excessive wages and employee benefits, but the taxes in Chicago were getting too high as well. Some manufacturing had moved to the south for the same reasons, but Princeton Dynamics had an offer from Evansville, Indiana to relocate there and have a five year tax relief, so the decision was made to build a new more efficient facility and move to Evansville.

That change was good for Princeton Dynamics but it was bad news for the rank and file employees in Chicago. Some of the assembly line employees had the option to relocate and they did that as did several office managers. The office people that did relocate were between twenty three and thirty two years old but the fact that they were all in the younger age group wasn't much of a coincidence. It was more a matter that of the office staff, they were young enough to have few strings to tie them to Chicago. Simply put, they were more mobile than the older employees with families to consider. They simply packed up, turned in the keys to their apartments, and moved to a new apartment in Evansville. What none of them had expected was they also became better friends and a surrogate family for each other. There were rumors of a budding romantic between Ken and Sandra and Dean and Carol, but all any of them would admit to was a strong friendship.

Chapter One

I don't know which was gloomier, the weather or my mood. I'd look out of the window and it would be raining, and the next time I looked it would be snowing, so the only thing I could do was quit looking out of the window, but I still felt restless and depressed. Friday had been windy and bleak with the last of the falling leaves whipping around as I drove home from work, and then during the night it started the rain and snow assault. The only bright thought I could come up with was getting together with what we had decided to call our family. There were four of us that were transplants from Chicago, and one by one we had all arrived in Evansville within weeks of each other. In fact all four of us lived in the same apartment complex. I was lucky to get the apartment I had, but I had to take a ground floor unit. That wasn't all bad, and in fact it was good, except it cost me an extra sixty bucks a month for the privilege. My sour mood was pushed aside when I heard, "Ken?"

"Yeah Dean."

"You home?"

"No I'm not home Dean, you just think you hear my voice," and he came in. I would unlock my door in the morning on the weekends and leave it that way. I didn't have anything worth stealing so I didn't worry about it.

Dean found me pouring coffee and said, "Sorry, I just spent a few days with my parents and they talk like that all the time."

"Don't mind me, I'm just in a shitty mood."

"Why?"

"I don't really know."

"We still getting together here tonight?"

"Yeah the usual seven o'clock."

"You gonna be in a shitty mood tonight too?"

Nah, I'll be okay. I think it's just the thought of the next four to six months of crappy weather. I go through this every year."

"So why don't you move to the middle of Florida or someplace?"

"Well besides the money issue, have you ever been in Florida in the summer time?"

"No."

"My advice is don't ever go there between the months of April and October or November. The heat is more unbearable than winters are up here. When you get cold you can put on warm clothes and a coat. When you get hot you can only get just so naked."

"Good Point. What can I bring tonight?"

"Whatever you want."

"I mean drinks, finger food or what?"

"Hell, I don't know what anybody else is brining so it doesn't matter."

"I'll come up with something then." I didn't bother to ask Dean if he wanted coffee, I just poured him one and handed it to him. "Thanks."

"Did you get the e-mail from Sandy about Tom Dayton?"

"Yeah I voted to have him join our group permanently."

"I did too. I don't know much about him, but he seemed like a nice guy." He can't be part of the our family since he's not a transplant from Chicago, but he could be a friend of the family."

"Yeah or a second cousin or something." I raised my cup and said, "To family and friends." Tom Dayton was a guy that moved in near Sandy, and about a month ago she asked if he could join us for one Saturday gathering as a friendly gesture. Now after he had joined us on two occasions it looked like he might become a regular part of our group. The Saturday night gathering that Dean had asked about was something we did every week or two depending on people's schedules. When the four of us transferred to Evansville about eight months ago we became our own support group as we went through the traumas of separation from family and in my case a girlfriend. She thought I should forfeit my company shares and seniority to stay with her, and I thought she should move to Evansville with me. In the end I moved and she stayed in Chicago. I used Sandy as my crying towel for a week or so after I moved, and that was what started some thinking there was something between us beyond friendship. But in truth she was my strength and we really were just good friends.

None of us was overly flush with cash, so as the family gathered Saturday night we ended up with the usual snack crackers, cheeses and summer sausage among other things. Then Dean arrived carrying a tray of one ounce Jello shots. None of us were big drinkers, so when he came in we were all surprised by his contribution. His comment was simply, "I wanted to have something different for a change. They're small and not terribly potent and there's only four or five for each of us. The lime ones are tequila shots and the orange ones are called Sex On The Beach." Needless to say everybody had to taste one of those right away. Then Carol told everybody to choose a shot because she was going to make a toast.

We looked pretty silly holding our little one ounce shooters up as she said, "Since Tom isn't part of the family, I say we toast him and welcome him as a permanent member of our group as our official friend of the family." Every body raised their shot to him then and tossed it back.

"Thank you Carol for the toast and thanks all of you for taking this orphan into your fold."

We were well into our snacks and the shooters were disappearing at a steady rate when Carol said, "Hey everybody, guess what I learned today? We have a celebrity in our midst."

Sandy said, "Well don't stop there, give us the whole story."

"Our own Tom is a published author." All eyes went to him and he just smiled and leaned back in silence.

"Is that true Tom," I asked him.

"Yeah it's true I have all of one novel published."

"But don't you work for premier Plastics?"

"Yes. My novel sold well, but I was an unknown so the money from it wasn't all that great. Consequently I still need a steady income and insurance just like you do.

"Well I for one am impressed."

"Thanks."

"You writing another one?"

"Working on it but I don't write fast and I'm not far into it."

"We all wish you success."

"Thanks."

I wasn't sure if it was the alcohol or just Carol being her usual outspoken self when she asked him, "Why not write some porn to keep the money coming in while you write your novel?"

Dean looked at her and said, "Carol it isn't like you can say I'll just dash off some porn and make some bucks."

"Oh come on, writing trash can't be that hard."

Dean came back with, "Okay then why don't you write some porn?"

"Okay so make it romance then." Tom was smart enough to stay out of the whole discussion and I did the same.

Dean kept at her saying, "Even porn or romance has to have something going for it. It has to have substance beyond slam bam thank you ma'am or a mush heart throb crisis."

Sandy added, "I agree with Dean, even those thin romance books have to tell a story and give the reader a reason to keep reading, right Tom?"

"I'm not getting into this one." Then he smiled and without mentioning porn he added, "I've never read romance," and we all laughed.

Dean went back to Carol and said, "Write us a short porn or romance story and bring it to our next gathering and read it to us."

"Well okay so I've never tried writing romance or garbage and maybe it isn't that simple, but it can't be so terribly hard."

Sandy surprised me when she said, "Okay Carol you start a story. Write the first chapter and bring it to the next gathering. Then one of us will write the second chapter and so on. That will give us all something to do and think about over the winter."

Tom stepped in and said, "I'll pass on that if you don't mind. If I'm writing it better be on my story."

There was a moments pause and then Sandy said, "Okay Tom, you be the...I don't know the moderator or something. Carol will send it to you when she's done and then you read it to us at the next gather."

"I'll read it but I won't critique it."

"That's okay, it's just for fun anyway."

Chapter Two

I passed the last of the shots around and said, "I hope it's just for the fun because we all know it's going to be awful."

"One rule though, no porn in it," Carol said.

"I disagree," and I was surprised that it as me that said that. "I'm not saying we set out to write porn, but what I consider simple harmless erotica and maybe a good contribution to the story, you might see as just porn. We each write our chapter using our own guidelines."

Tom added, "Here's a suggestion. You each must be willing to do or live the part that you're writing about. That way none of you will be likely to get too carried away with your imaginations and believe me that can happen too."

Sandy looked at him and said, "So if say I write some passionate scene and the man...never mind."

"No go ahead, if you can't say it you certainly couldn't do it."

"Well I mean if...if he starts to undress me."

"So that doesn't mean you have to let one of us undress you just to see if you're willing to do it. Let me see if I can give you and example of what I mean." He thought about it for a minute and then said, "Okay, let's say your protagonist is into a hot relationship, but you write she suddenly suggests they have a threesome. Would you be willing to have a threesome? If so okay but I'll bet you'll have to do some fancy talking to convince the rest of us."

"How do you know I wouldn't...just kidding Tom. I get our point. We can be as passionate or sexy or whatever as we want to be but we have to keep it believable. We have to be able to defend our writing."

"That's right, but it won't be easy because unless your writing a biography, writing to the edge of believability is pretty standard form. If my protagonist had to live in the real world like you and I do there would be no story."

"This is starting to get complicated."

"I think it would be fun to see what all of you come up with. Of course it won't likely have literary merit, but so what. If you have fun with it then that's all that matters."

"What you're saying though is we have to suspend believability to make it even a little interesting to read but we can't do that because we have to be willing to live or do the part that we write."

"That's right. Maybe you can modify the rule a little so it will work."

Carol said, "Okay, how about this. If it involves romance, of course we can say we have to be willing to do what we write. I mean what's to prove about kissing and embracing and so forth? but if it involves porn then that's where it becomes important that we can do what we write."

"But what is porn? Even the supreme court had a hard time with that one."

"We'll decide by vote. Say Ken writes a racy scene and I say it's porn and he says it's just romance and passion and doesn't have to prove himself, we'll let the family decide."

Dean got back into the discussion and said, "I like that. This will be a story by committee and governed by the same committee."

"This could be the worst story every told."

"It probably will be, but so what? With four of us writing you can bet the story will change focus faster than a woman can change her mind." It was at that point that he was pelted by empty shooter cups.

"Okay," Carol continued. "What about grammatical or punctuation errors?"

"What is written stays as it 's written is my thought," I added.

Dean had been quiet for awhile but said, "I agree, we're not going to publish this mess so why risk hurting somebody's feelings?"

"Okay, so Carol writes the first chapter and gives it to Tom. Then he'll read it to us and give a copy to the person that will write the second chapter and so on."

Tom added one more thing saying, "Don't ask me for advice though, because I'm staying out of this. I can't wait to see how this goes, but I'm going to be an objective observer and will not critique, comment or assist beyond reading, and of course I won't vote on any contested chapter either, unless you need me as the tie breaker."

"That tie breaker idea is a good one."

I looked over at Carol and said, "See what you've started?"

"Yes and I don't have a clue how to start a story."

"Tom said, You could write a preface if you want to do it that way, but it would have to be similar in length as a chapter or the others will nag you to death."

Carol went over and selected some crackers and cheese, and then stood there and asked, "So I can start this however I want."

Sandy said, "Pretty much Carol, you can establish a character or a location or a crime or even all of those things and more. Or can spend the whole first chapter introducing one character that won't even be the protagonist. You could even introduce a character and then kill him off."

I had to laugh and said, "Carol, don't lose any sleep over it because somebody is going to change the story direction anyway."

"That's true, but thinking like that is a little like passing the buck."

"Well that is true."

"Besides I want to do the best I can."

The plan was set, and with everybody's mind on our new project, it was hard to keep a conversation going that didn't involve our story in the making. As the family started to leave, Sandy helped me pick things up and asked me, "What do you think of the story idea?"

"I think it's going to be fun, but it will be awful reading. Can you imagine Dean or me writing romantic passages?"

"You have a gentle and romantic heart, I've seen it remember?"

"Thank you, but that doesn't mean I can write about it. Besides I have my rough side too."

"Of course you do, you're a guy. Besides when it's your turn you can kill somebody off if you want to."

"Hey that's right I can. Or I could send one of them to a nudist camp."

"No you can't because you have to prove that you would do that." "I can, I went to one once."

"you didn't."

"I did. I was all of I think twenty one at the time."

"What was it like?"

"Weird."

"Not sexy?"

"Not very, but I did get a killer tan that day." Sandy thought that was pretty funny. She rinsed the sink and then turning around said, "You know the one I think will have the hardest time dealing with romance is Dean."

"Why him?"

"I think he's very sensitive but he works hard at hiding it.

"Interesting but why do you think that?"

"Just a feeling I guess.

"So will he make fun of it, or will he try to shift the focus when it's his turn?"

"He won't make fun of it I don't think."

"Who do you think will get the closest to porn?"

"You maybe."

"Me? Why me?"

"Because I think you have more of an edge in your personality than the others."

"I'm not sure what you mean by that."

"Well like going to the nudist camp. Not many guys would actually do that, despite what they might say. Oh and I think you should put the nudist camp thing in one of our chapters just for fun."

"What if they say I have to do it again to prove myself?"

"Would you?"

"Nope."

"Then I'd say you argue your point and if they insist you withdraw your chapter."

"Oh. We didn't talk about that option."

"No, but it has to be that way or the story could come to a stop." Sandy kissed my cheek then and said, "I'm going home."

"Thanks for helping me clean up the mess."

"You're welcome. Hey, we forgot to talk about when we're having our next gathering."

"I'll bet that as soon as Carol has her chapter done we'll all hear about it and the rush will be on to get together."

"I'll bet you're right. Night Ken."

Chapter Three

It had been about ten days since our gathering, and the story idea was hatched, but Carol hadn't indicated that she had the first chapter written. I'd just parked in front of my apartment when I saw her getting out of her car.

"Hey Carol."

"Hi, got time for a beer?"

"I'll make time." I followed her in and up the steps to her apartment and she brought me a Heineken. "Thanks."

She tapped her bottle to mine and, "To writers and writing," and we took a taste. We went over and settled in the living room and it struck me yet again that all of our apartments were identical in lay out and very similar in furniture arrangements. About the biggest differences were the decorator touches as each of us tried to personalize our little living spaces. "New painting," I asked as I pointed at the wall.

"I had it but just got it up yesterday."

"I like it."

"Thanks, so what do you think of our project?"

"Fun but it will be embarrassingly bad."

She laughed and said, "I don't doubt that.

"Have you done any writing before?"

"Nothing more than school essays or reports, that sort of thing."

"Me too. I'm like most guys I have a vivid imagination but no talent to record it or bring it to life."

She smiled and said, "Bringing our own ideas or fantasies to life is a dream we all share I'm sure."

"I guess."

Before taking her next taste of her beer she said, "I hope we get to see your vivid imagination in your chapters."

"I'll see what I can do, but I don't want to create a situation where I have to prove myself either."

She laughed and said, "Now that's something I'm going to be very careful about."

"Maybe we should have two books going and the other one could be flat out fantasy."

"Oh, now that could be very interesting and perhaps very revealing."

"It could be very telling I'm sure."

"What does Sandy think about all of this?"

"I haven't talked to her since the gathering, but at that time she was looking forward to it."

"So you and she really aren't ...you know, together?"

"No, but we are really good friends. I guess I'd call her my best friend, certainly better than any I had in Chicago."

Carol set her beer on a little plastic coaster, leaned back and tucked one foot under her butt. "What do you think of Tom?"

"I think he's pretty damn smart and I like him."

"He's smart enough to stay out of our writing silliness.

"That's right." I emptied my beer and said, "Getting back to the story for a second, do you think each of us will end up being a person in the story?"

"You mean when I write I'd adopt a character and become him or her?"

"Something like that."

"But if we do it will be like writing about ourselves. Now that could become pretty cathartic, but also it could get a little touchy."

"Touchy how?"

"Well purely for purposes of example, let's say you write in the first person and your character gets involved with say a character name Didi.

But Didi just happens to be the person that I ended up adopting as my character. It could be like we were having a literary affair or something, you know what I mean?"