Writers' Block

I am a victim of Writers' Block.

Not the version most people know. I am not a writer whose muse has deserted him. I don't have a problem with fresh material to write about or some new, clever way to entertain the vast, unwashed masses. I don't have a problem putting words on paper, or more likely, into some form of word processor.

I don't have these problems because basically, I don't write.

My neighbors do.

I live on a block populated with writers. Neophyte wannabes, published veterans, alter egos hidden behind nom de plumes. And I am their victim.

Next door to me is Adrienne -- all these names will be fictitious, mostly to protect me, from them -- a Paranormal Romance writer wannabe. She aspires to the greatness accorded authors like Laurell K. Hamilton, or Sherrilyn Kenyon, or Nora Robert and J. D. Robb (same difference). And she isn't shy about regaling anyone who will listen with unending discourse about her fantastic new fantasy world and her latest plot within it, both cobbled together from scenes and stories of her idols.

On the other side is James. He was born in the wrong century. He fancies himself the next Zane Grey, extolling the virtues of writing about the Wild West the way he thinks it was.

Behind me, across the alley, is Jennifer. She used to be a successful romance novelist back in the 50's, when True Confessions and Popular Love were the preferred way to break into publishing, but the pills and the booze did a number on her and now it seems she's still living in her glory days, imagining a vast array of adoring fans.

On one side of Jennifer is Stephen, who considers himself a cross between Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury and Robert A. Heinlein -- essentially, God's gift to Science Fiction. He claims some of his best ideas were stolen for Star Trek episodes and whatever the popular Sci-Fi film of the month is. He keeps talking about how he is going to learn from L. Ron Hubbard and start his own religion, so he can retire.

On the other side of Jennifer are Selma and Henry. They used to co-write adult books for Greenleaf Classics and Liverpool Library. They think "Bondage on a Budget" is one of the cleverest books ever written and they still regularly skinny-dip in their backyard pool.

And all six of these people think my backyard patio and barbeque grill is the ideal place to spend a warm Spring/Summer/Fall evening, eating my food, drinking my booze and talking until dawn.

To be fair, there are four other houses on our block. Their occupants like to come around when the writers aren't there to crab, complain, bitch and moan about the writers. But they're a different story. They're artists.

Like the other day... I came home from my 9 to 5 at the newspaper -- I print them, I don't write them -- to find the delivery van from my local package goods store ready to pull away. I'm a fairly good customer and I know the driver, so I waved and called over, "How's it going, Pete?"

He waves back and tells me, "just great, Mr. Smith," -- I'm not about to use my real name, either -- "I just put it on your tab." And he drove off.

Put what on my tab? I thought as I headed into the house, getting a little concerned, and with good reason. There were four aluminum beer kegs on my back deck that I didn't order. Big ones. I pretty much guessed that they came from the seven people clustered around my grill, from which I could see smoke rising. Which is a bad sign, because it's a gas grill.

Six of them were the usual suspects. The one I didn't recognize was a guy decked out in biker leather. You know, chaps over jeans, muscle shirt, tattoos and a Marlon Brando hat. He was standing with Selma and Henry while she showed him her latest tattoo -- the words "jIHvaD roS" on her shaved mons. She was explaining that it meant "lick me" in Klingon and Stephen was arguing that it wasn't really Klingon but an Anglicized version of it, while James was ogling her nudity and Adrienne was trying to get a better look at the werewolf and vampire tattooed on Selma's ass.

When Jennifer asked "anyone want to see my tattoo?" and started opening her blouse, I walked over to the police whistle which I keep by the door for such emergencies.

It only took one blast to get their attention -- and to let the artists know not to come over.

"Okay," I asked pointedly, staring at the crowd, "who the fuck is that?"

"Oh, hi, Eddie!" Adrienne greeted me, standing up from Selma's ass cheek inspection. "This is Marvin, my new boyfriend. Marvin, meet Eddie Smith -- my neighbor."

"Cool man..." were the first and almost only words out of his mouth. "Nice pad..." I could smell the dope from twenty feet away.

"Thank you," I told him curtly. "Is there some reason you are all over here on a Thursday night? And will someone please put out the steaks?" I could see they'd nearly reached black.

"Oh! Yeah... sorry," James told me as he turned his attention away from Selma's naked body, to dousing the burning meat with a dry chemical fire extinguisher. "I was supposed to be watching them."

"It's the Walpurgisnacht Concordance, Eddie," Adrienne informed me. "That's why we've invited our local Writers' Guild to come over and watch it."

"It's the what?" I asked. I'd get to the "we invited the Writers' Guild" part in a minute.

"The Walpurgisnacht Concordance, silly," Adrienne told me, like I should know what she was talking about. "When Mars and Venus and the Moon and Uranus and the Earth all come into conjunction -- it's supposed to instill insanity and strange behaviour like Walpurgisnacht does -- you know, the German Witches' Night festival?"

"And I would detect these changes in behavior how?" I asked.

"Hey, Eddie... would you like to see my tattoo?" Jennifer asked me as she walked towards me with her big old tits flopping out of her blouse and a faded red rose jouncing around on one of them.

"Hmmm... good point," Adrienne acknowledged.

"So this Concorde thing is supposed to make people crazy... How many people did you invite over to partake in this revel?" I asked. I was beginning to think that a preemptive call to the police SWAT team was in order.

"Hey, Eddie!" Selma called over. "Have you got a hairbrush? I want to show Marvin what happens when the Werewolf and Vampire get punished!"

"Not at the moment," I told her, then turned my attention back to Adrienne. "How many?" I iterated.

"Oh, don't worry about it," Jennifer told me, reaching me and throwing her cushy arms around my neck and pushing her boobs into my chest. "It's only a couple dozen or so... and their S-O's."

I was trying to figure where I was going to put fifty people in my backyard when a voice called over from the service door of my garage.

"Hey! Where do you want the band?"

The... Band??? I turned to see a bunch of guys hauling amplifiers and drum cases through the garage.

"Over in the corner by the utility box is fine," Henry told them. "You can plug into the service tap... it isn't metered."

That's when the rental company showed up with the tables.

I decided I needed to go back inside and take a shit-load of Valium with something that was a lot more alcohol and a lot less mixer than I usually have. And discovered the people in my kitchen, preparing food. Food which, apparently, I had bought. My other contribution to the evening's festivities.

I grabbed a tall tumbler and filled it two-thirds rum and one third orange juice, then headed upstairs to my medicine chest... and found the naked couple screwing on my bed.

"Would you please close the door?" the guy buried to the hilt missionary-style with the stacked redhead asked me, with a bit of an attitude. Like I was inconveniencing them.

"Excuse me," I pointed out. "My house, my bedroom."

"Oh. Sorry..." he told me as he picked up the leggy broad and waddled to the edge of the bed, then stood up and walked across the hall to the guest bedroom without missing a stroke. "Would you toss us our clothes?"

"No," I told him and walked into my bathroom, shutting the door behind me.

I was about to play host to an orgy of demented psychos and I had to go to work the next day. I thought about calling in sick, but last time I did that, work sent someone out to check on me and when they saw the aftermath of the last party, they had me involuntarily confined for observation for three days because of their great concern that I had gone berserk and tried to trash my house, and should be considered a danger to the community.

And they wouldn't listen when I tried to tell them what really happened. They just figured I was trying to cover my butt, like any clever sociopath would. So calling in to work was out. Tomorrow was going to hurt. In the meantime...

My phone rang.

I grabbed the bottle of Valium and walked out to answer it. It was my artist neighbor, Jan.

"Eddie," she chided me, "if you're going to throw a party, you could at least invite the rest of us."

"It isn't me," I tried to tell her. "It's the Writers' Guild."

"What, you have something against the Art League?" she demanded. "If you're going to invite the Writers, you should at least extend the invitation to the Artists. What are you celebrating, anyway?"

"The Walpurgisnacht Concordance?" I told her, hoping I got it right.

"Oh, yeah!" she suddenly sparkled. "That' right, it's tonight! Thanks! And I'll spread the word..."

She hung up and I stood there looking at the phone. When the thing started beeping at me, I put it back on its cradle.

Maybe, if I pack a bag, I thought, and throw my valuables in the trunk, I could make it to Denver before sunup. That should be well clear of Ground Zero...

"Oh, sorry, man..." The naked guy was back. "We need to get our clothes."

He and the equally naked redhead walked on in and grabbed their stuff, then walked over to me. Naked Guy held out his hand.

"Hi, I'm Gary," he told me. "High Point Writers' Guild. Only a couple of years."

I took his hand and shook it. I didn't know what else to do. "Eddie Smith, groundskeeper," I told him.

"Cool," he nodded and dropped my hand. Naked Lady walked up and gave me a huge hug. And an arms around the neck kiss.

"Glad to meet you, Eddie Smith Groundskeeper," she told me. "I'm Angie. High Point Writers' Guild. Five years."

"Likewise, I'm sure," I told her then watched as the two of them swaggered their way out into the hall.

"Is this the coatroom?" a middle-aged woman asked from the doorway.

"No," I told her, "the coat closet is downstairs, by the front door."

"Oh, that one is full," she informed me. "I thought there would be extra space upstairs."

"Across the hall," I pointed. And took another long pull on my drink. My car was probably blocked in by now. Maybe my motorcycle...

"Hi, Eddie!" Jan greeted me as she entered the bedroom, closed and locked the door. "Gettin' any?"

"Any what?" I answered with a nod. "Older? Yes. More frustrated? Yes. More pissed off? Yes."

"Sex," she added. "With all the tail runnin' around here, I figured you were in the bedroom for a reason. Is somebody in the bathroom?"

"Nope," I told her. "Feel free." As she walked in, I sat down on the bed, putting the pill bottle on the nightstand and started rubbing my temples. A migraine was the last thing I needed right now. And the fact that the band started up right then wasn't helping things any. I was about ready to go get some hearing protection from my gun safe when Jan came out of the bathroom.

"Hey, let me do that," she told me, sliding into the bed and pulling me back onto her lap so she could rub my head -- and smother me with her tits.

If any of my neighbors is going to be the death of me, it's Jan. She's divorced, mid-thirties and built like a brick shithouse. She has the most massive rack I've ever seen that was still above the navel. She had to be like a double-E or something. On a petite frame. With curly red hair, green eyes and a terminally cute smile. And I had avoided sex with her like the plague. She had "voracious" written all over her.

Not that she didn't do anything for me... I'm an intact, red-blooded American male. I just figured dying prematurely from a heart attack was inelegant. But when she bent over me with those double-E's dangling in my face, I started to have a change of heart. That's when someone pounded on the door.

I groaned and started to get up.

"No, you stay there," Jan told me and scooted out from under me, going over to the door, unlocking it and opening it, to find Henry standing there in his Speedo -- not a pretty sight -- holding a couple of hot dogs and beers, and ketchup and mustard bottles.

"Hi," he said, mostly to Jan's tits. "Thought you and whoever was with you, Eddie, might want a bite to eat." He began to offer the food to Jan.

For the record, I will swear that it was an accident. I have no reason to believe that Henry dumped the ketchup all over Jan's blouse on purpose. He did offer to lick it up, though. She just took the food, pushed him back and closed the door.

"I'll get a washcloth or something," I told her, but she told me to forget it, she'd convert it to one of her painting shirts. Pre-stained and all that. She dabbed up most of it, then decided to resume massaging my temples.

The band was loud and really getting to me, so I told her to hang on a second while I got some earplugs. Of course, I couldn't find them where they should have been, so I ended up dragging out the range bag and sifting through it, putting my M1911 on the nightstand and rummaging around until I found a packet of foam plugs. I kicked the bag out of the way, put in the plugs and laid back on her marvelous lap.

After awhile, I figured a half an Imitrex and a Valium or two were in order, and gave a couple to Jan as well, washed down with rum and beer. Being a bit looped, a few minutes later I started petting her thighs as she rubbed my head. That got a favorable response, so I got more daring. I moved up to pet her pussy through her panties and discovered she wasn't wearing any.

"You're hesitating," she informed me as I did, indeed, stop short. I guess that was all the encouragement I needed. I moved over on top of her, hiked up her skirt and went down on her.

Not to toot my own horn, but... I'm pretty good with my hands and my mouth, and once I zeroed in on her clit and her G-spot, I got her off like gangbusters. And not just once. I discovered she was the dictionary definition of multiorgasmic. I must've gotten her off a couple dozen times, maybe more, before she told me "enough!" and I stopped, while she virtually passed out, sprawled right where she was on the bed.

I moved back over by the nightstand, intending to take one more Valium and finish my drink before taking a forced nap to escape the revelers. Unfortunately, I spilled the damn pill bottle. Just one more thing to go wrong in a day. That's when the local constabulary burst into the room -- a Disturbing the Peace complaint of all things.

What they saw, though, was me sitting on the edge of the bed with a drink in one hand, my head in the other, my pistol on the nightstand, pills scattered all over and a half-naked woman sprawled on the bed with red all over her chest.

My lawyer says that I can get out of jail once Jan comes out of the coma she got shocked into by the sudden arrival of the SWAT guys, and can testify that I wasn't doing anything criminal or even perverted to her.

I hate writers.