CHAPTER THREE

What Paul liked most about Don Patchogue’s novels was the fact that they were not the usual science fiction books that had come out of the 1970s. Patchogue wasn’t heavy on technology or hardcore scientific theories. Sure his novels contained the staples of SF: time travel, robots, parallel universes, outer space, bizarre creatures, and extraterrestrials but they were all placed within books that defied categorization.

Paul thought back to when he first read Patchogue’s third book THE GRUB STAR SHUDDERS. It was no doubt influenced by the author having worked in the brick industry because the story was about a man named Muck Flanagan who was the night manager at a brick-making plant. Flanagan became obsessed with a certain pile of clay so much so that he refused to have it made into bricks.

Night after night he stared at it, prayed to it, and eventually wrote a bible of sorts that was dedicated to every lump, crack, and crevice of the pile of clay. Eventually the story takes the reader on a journey from a monolithic city in the depths of the Pacific Ocean to the planet Mars where Flanagan recruits a small army of worm-like aliens in order to convert the people of Earth to his religion. It all ends in a bizarre apocalyptic battle of complete with giant monsters with metallic tentacles, horny robotic vixens, and a doppelganger of Flanagan who comes to Earth in order to destroy it with his own army of man-eating worms. It all ends with the universe being blown up by the atomic burp of one of the giant monsters.

What starts off as a story about one man’s obsession with a pile of clay ends with a cataclysmic battle for the fate of the universe. Patchogue’s stories always started at one point and end at a completely unexpected place and that’s what Paul liked most about the books.

Paul was thinking about THE GRUB STAR SHUDDERS as he made his way up Patchogue’s street. He was grateful that the librarian’s directions had been perfect. The street itself looked like every other he had passed in the town. Nondescript houses, some in more disrepair than others but all with some amount of small town charm. It reminded Paul of the sitcom Roseanne. This street was exactly the sort of town he thought of when he thought of that show: a dismal but somewhat quaint working-class neighborhood.

Don Patchogue’s house came as a surprise to Paul. He had expected it to be a broken down shithole with a lawn that was months overdue for mowing. It was all expectations that he had for this reclusive, retired author. Instead, the house was probably the nicest on the street, freshly painted and with a well-manicured lawn. Paul walked up the patch to the front door and rang the doorbell.

There was no car in the driveway but there was a closed garage. He hoped that Patchogue was home but was fully prepared to walk around the block until the man came home. He was lucky, however, because a few seconds after he rung the doorbell, he heard footsteps.

A bright and cheery voice said, “Just a minute!”

Paul took a quick survey of how he looked.

Goddamn, he thought. I look like shit.

He was covered in dirt, grass, and his clothing had large amounts of dried blood. His face was no doubt just as filthy and he was worried about the impression he would make. Even if Don Patchogue was inclined to be interviewed, would he want to be interviewed by the disheveled young guy who was standing at his door right now?

The door opened and Paul got his first glance at Don Patchogue: a muscular man in his late fifties, clean shaven with a full head of black hair. He was wearing a button down shirt and a pair of dress pants. Paul thought he looked like a high school Math teacher.

“Can I help you?”

Paul said, “Hi, my name’s Paul Minisink. I’m looking for Don Patchogue?”

“You got ‘em. What can I do for you?”

“Well, I’m a fan of your books and I was wondering if I could maybe, uh, talk to you and maybe interview you or something. I mean, it doesn’t have to be now or anything. I can come back.”

Don Patchogue had been looking Paul in the eye right up until the interview was mentioned. Then his eyes went down to the ground and he lost some of his cheeriness.

He said, “Well, I’m pretty surprised. I haven’t had someone ask about my writing for years. Where’re you from?”

“Pennsylvania.”

“No, I mean, what magazine, newspaper, website, that sort of thing?”

Paul felt his face blush again for the second time that day. “Oh, uh, no where. It’s just for myself. I wanted to interview you and do some research and maybe if it was okay with you maybe write a biography or something.”

Don Patchogue looked up from the ground and looked into Paul’s eyes. “You mean to tell me you came all the way from Pennsylvania just for yourself? Shit, son, I haven’t had a book published in, what is it, thirty years or so?”

“I know but, uh, I’m really interested and if it wasn’t any trouble I thought maybe we can just talk for a little bit?”

Patchogue sighed. “Yeah, I guess we could. I can’t promise you that you’re gonna get anything interesting out of it. I guess you probably came up here expecting Salinger or Pynchon or something. Just to warn you now, I’m a pretty normal guy, not a recluse or hermit. Up until a year ago I did brickwork for a general contractor, I go to church every Sunday, and I like gardening. Nothing special.”

He motioned with his hands and walked inside as Paul followed. The house was tidy and smelt like potpourri. They walked into the kitchen where Patchogue asked if he wanted anything to drink.

“Water, please,” Paul said, now realizing that his throat was very close to being able to be considered sandpaper.

Don poured a glass of water and put it on the table as Paul got out a notebook and a pen.

“What, no tape recorder?” Don said, smiling.

Paul blushed yet again. “Uh, no. No tape recorder.”

“So what is it you want to know?”

“I guess my first question is why did you stop writing?”

Don said, “I never stopped writing. I just stopped having my stuff published.”

“Why’s that?”

“My wife was the reason why I gave up sending my work to publishers. She hated science fiction or anything like that. She wanted me to be a serious writer. You know, write the great American novel. There was a point where I felt like I was betraying her by writing the stuff. So I stopped for a while and then just started writing here and there when she wasn’t around. I had a little typewriter set up in the garage. Most of the stuff I wrote was complete shit, though, so I guess you could put down in your little book that Don Patchogue’s work from the eighties and nineties isn’t worth wondering about. I don’t think it would’ve sold anyway. That was when that whole cyberpunk stuff was in vogue and I wasn’t into computers and all that so no one would’ve been interested anyway.”

Paul thought it would’ve been shitty to have a wife that didn’t approve of what you did, causing you to stop doing what you love.

Don said, “Guess you may not know, my wife died two years ago.”

“Yeah, I heard. I’m very sorry to hear that.”

“It’s okay. I think I’ve gotten past it, you know, as much as a man can, considering they still didn’t catch the guy.” He waved his hand. “But I really don’t want to talk about that, really.”

Paul nodded sympathetically.

Don went on, “But just so you don’t blame it all on my wife, I guess that wasn’t the only reason. The time I was getting published, we’re talking about the seventies here and back then most books didn’t have so much sex and violence as the books today. Mine did and that seemed to be a problem. After my last book was published, I got a lot of bad reviews because of the content and I just thought ‘fuck it’ and didn’t feel like I had a choice. I didn’t want to tone down what I wrote but I also didn’t want to hear a bunch of prudes complain about it. So what, you know? Writers write for themselves mostly. Unless you’re a hack and just out to make a buck or to get attention. But true writers write to express whatever shit they have in their heads and so whether it’s published or not, who cares?”

Paul was scribbling as fast as he could. He said, “But don’t you think every good writer has gotten bad reviews? It’s sort of letting those critics win, don’t you think?”

“Win? They didn’t win. I had a happy life despite not getting published all those years so they didn’t win shit.”

Paul said, “If you don’t mind me asking, you said you never stopped writing. Don’t you have anything that you would want to have published? Anything you’ve written recently?”

There was silence for a minute while Don put his hand to his chin and looked down at the table. Paul sat there with the tip of the pen touching the notebook, waiting to write.

Finally Don said, “Yeah. A few things.”

“Would you mind telling..”

“I guess if you want to know about them I’ll tell you. Stay here.”

Don got up from the table and walked out of the house. Paul could hear the garage door open and then close after a minute. The man walked back in with three stacks of paper.

“I wrote three novels within the last two years. If I had to judge it against my other books, I’d say they were better but who knows because that was thirty years ago. Stll, I didn’t even bother trying to get them published because I just don’t think people would appreciate them. Back thirty years ago, people who read these types of books were true fans of the whole genre but now, you got these attention-deficit kids who read one chapter and then give up. And don’t get me started on the Internet. Everyone on there is a fucking critic.”

Don laid the stacks on the table.

Paul looked at the titles of the three novels: THE VAMPIRES OF THE APOC’O’LIPS, WEREWOLVES FROM VENUS, and THE ECTOPLASMIC BOSS.

He said, “What are they about?”

“One’s about some vampires from a parallel world that come busting through into our world but they aren’t romantic vampires or anything like that. They look like big bald goliaths and they suck blood through fangs in their testicles. Then the other one is about telepathic werewolves from Venus that act like some sort of CIA with surveillance and they are messing with some guy on Earth and the last one is about a group of horny old women who worship a big ball of ectoplasm that lives in the basement of a bed-and-breakfast down in Cape May. That last one is a bit perverted but it was fun as hell to write.”

“That all sounds awesome,” Paul said. He was genuinely excited to hear about the novels. At that moment he would have given anything to see them in print, to hold the published versions in his hands.

They talked a little more about the new books as well as Don’s past working in the brick industry. Not once did the fact that Don’s wife was found in the brick factory come up. Paul knew it would be too sensitive of a subject though he was dying to know how the man felt about that.

After an hour Don said, “Well, Paul, it was very nice talking to you but I’ll tell you I’m pretty tired now and I have to get to sleep early tonight. But how about I make you a sandwich to take with you?”

“Sure, thanks.”

“Ham and cheese okay?”

Paul nodded. Half of his notebook was full and he was close to being completely satisfied. The only thing that he really wanted to do was read those three novels. Throughout the conversation he had wanted to ask but knew that it might have been pretty presumptuous of him to even ask for that honor. So instead he sat there hoping that Don would offer. He didn’t.

Don was at the counter slapping ham onto a piece of bread when something crashed through the window. Paul’s eyes widened and he instinctively fell to the floor.

A shimmering gob of space-cum had flown into the kitchen and was now swallowing Don Patchogue whole as he was just starting to put cheese on the sandwich. What had previously been the author of Paul’s favorite science fiction novels was now a convulsing mass of gooey cosmic light and smoldering flesh. His bones were liquefying.

Paul quickly crawled across the floor into the living room. As he passed the Patchogue-thing, he could feel the air being sucked from his lungs and the sound being sucked from his ears. He made it to the couch when he heard what sounded like glass being shattered against teeth. Paul looked back.

The kitchen was empty. The thing had disappeared. Paul wondered what would happen to it. Maybe it turned into an offspring of Outer Space. It would continue to try to rape Paul and in the process, birth more and more children by its stray cum.

Though he was in saddened shock at having witnessed the warped destruction of Don Patchogue, Paul quickly thought of the three abandoned manuscripts that were still on the kitchen table. There was really no question as to whether or not he’d take them. He knew he had to even if only to read them himself.

Paul stood up, walked to the kitchen, and grabbed the manuscripts along with his notebook. He then briskly walked out of the house with a delirious grin on his face.