Thicker Than Water — читать онлайн бесплатно полностью

The third I left a bit looser, and it changed more as I was writing it. I prefer on the whole to work with a detailed plan for the reasons I mentioned above. The plan is very useful as an anchor, and paradoxically it frees you up to change your mind because you’ve got a clear idea in your head of how a change here will feed through to what happens way over there.

Is this a strategy that has served you well in your comics writing?

It came out of the comics writing, to a large extent. I had the good fortune to work over many years with Shelly Bond at DC’s Vertigo imprint. Shelly is one of the best editors I’ve ever met, and she insists on very explicit scene breakdowns. At first I found that a bit of a bind, but I soon realised that when you’ve only got twenty-two pages to tell your story, you’ve more or less got to become a miser, counting out story beats one at a time from a grubby burlap bag that you hide under your mattress. I still tend to do those breakdowns, even when I’m working with editors who don’t specifically ask for them. Again, you don’t let them become strait-jackets: you launch from them and come back to them, again and again.

Some authors talk of their characters ‘surprising’ them by their actions; is this something that has happened to you?

You know, every time I hear someone say that, it sounds like a boast to me. Like, ‘my process is really, really organic; my characters are so vivid, they get up off the page and jam with me. Sometimes we go to wild parties together’. I guess it’s just a question of what you mean by that, though. It’s possible to get to a certain point in your story and suddenly think ‘yeah, but he wouldn’t do that, he’d do this’. And it can feel surprising. But really it’s your mind gradually getting a grasp of the character, and the details filling themselves out as you write. It happens gradually, but you can notice it suddenly. In that sense, I’ve been surprised."

"Finally, if the Felix Castor books were ever filmed, who would you like to see directing and starring in the movies?

I just want to be there when they cast Juliet, that’s all.

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THICKER THAN WATER

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ALREADY DEAD

by

Charlie Huston

I SMELL THEM BEFORE I SEE THEM. All the powders, perfumes and oils the half-smart ones smear on themselves. The stupid ones just stumble around reeking. The really smart ones take a Goddamn shower. The water doesn’t help them in the long run, but the truth is, nothing is gonna help them in the long run. In the long run they’re gonna die. Hell, in the long run they’re already dead.

So this pack is half-smart. They’ve splashed themselves with Chanel No. 5, Old Spice, whatever. Most folks just think they have a heavy hand at the personal scent counter. I close my eyes and inhale deeper, because it could just be a group of bridge and tunnelers in from Jersey or Long Island. But it’s not. I take that second breath and sure enough, there it is underneath: the sweet, subtle tang of something not quite dead. Something freshly rotting. I’m betting they’re the ones I’m looking for. And why wouldn’t they be? It’s not like these things are thick on the ground. Not yet. I walk a little farther down Avenue A and stop at the sidewalk window of Nino’s, the pizza joint on the corner of St Marks.

I rap on the counter with the ring on my middle finger and one of the Neapolitans comes over.

—Yeah?

—What’s fresh?

He looks blank.

—The pizza, what’s just out of the oven?

—Tomato and garlic.

—No way, no fucking garlic. How ’bout the broccoli, it

been out all day?

He shrugs.

—Fine, give me the broccoli. Not too hot, I don’t want to burn the roof of my mouth.

He cuts a slice and slides it into the oven to warm up. I could eat the tomato and garlic if I wanted to. It’s not like the garlic would hurt me or anything. I just don’t like the shit.

While I wait I lean on the counter and watch the customers inside the joint. The usual crowd for a Friday night: couple drunk NYU kids, couple drunk greasers, a drunk squatter, two drunk yuppies on an East Village adventure, a couple drunk hip-hoppers, and the ones I’m looking for. There are three of them standing around the far corner table: an old-school goth chick, and two rail-thin guys, with impossibly high cheekbones, that have fashion junkie written all over them. The kind of guys who live in a squat but make the fashion-week scene by virtue of the skag they bring to the parties. Just my favorite brand of shitdogs all in all.

—Broccoli.

The Neapolitan is back with my slice. I hand him three bucks. The goth and the fashion junkies watch the two NYU kids stumble out the door. They push their slices around for another minute, then follow. I sprinkle red pepper flakes þd ton my slice and take a big bite, and sure enough it’s too hot and I burn the roof of my mouth.