The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue. The Final Chapter.

"What use is a newborn baby?" Mehregan Javanmaard, (Wiki.)

Here are the previous episodes of The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7
Part 8
Part 9

Part 10

Part. 11

Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17
Part 18



The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue, The Final Chapter. (19.)


Louis Shalako

Scott was knee-deep in changing diapers.

With little Eddie’s crib in the corner and the changing table right under the window, it was still an iffy thing. He’d barfed more than once doing this job. For some reason today wasn’t so bad.

“Hey, little buddy.” The squirming body kicked and fussed and Scott held onto a tiny hand, grinning from ear to ear. “Come on, help me out here.”

Eddie fussed and squirmed something awful.

It was getting on towards dinner time and Betty would be home soon. He’d better put some thought into that. Unwrapping the stinky diaper, he put that in the garbage. He rolled the kid over.

Scott mopped the poop off the kid’s backside and disposed of the wipes in the plastic garbage hamper. He took a fresh moist one and made sure Eddie’s ass was as clean as a baby’s bum.

He hummed softly to himself.

“I never thought I would live to see the day.” With a scratchy sound, the Velcro fasteners were done up and the kid was good to go.

The sound of the door came from the front of the apartment.

“Ah. Here’s your mother now.”

Scott put the baby back in the crib for the moment, although Betty would be in there soon enough.

He went out into the living room of their new two-bedroom apartment, which was looking a lot better since they had re-painted.

He never thought he’d see that come to pass, either.

Thanks to the new, ceramic, but pretty good set of used eyes the Cartiers had given him as a wedding present, there had been a moment of horror when he saw the place, really saw it for the first time.

It was hard not to think less of landlords in general, but the truth was he’d lived like that for a long time and still hated the thoughts of his old life. He had a moment of wonder.

I wonder what my old place looked like after ten or twelve years.

Aude,  (Wiki)

“Honey. I’m home.”

They smiled into each other’s eyes.

“I’m positively famished. What’s for dinner?”

Scott threw his arms wide open, put his chin down, cocked his head and grinned like there was no tomorrow.

“Me.”

Her laugh resonated around the room and probably in other parts of the building.

“No.” She gazed hungrily into his eyes, and then down to where Scott kept the throbbing, big red rocket hangared. “That’s dessert—I need food, real food.”

The pair clung together in a bear hug as Eddie babbled happily in his crib. Already her eyes were sliding over his shoulder and seeking out the door to Eddie’s room.

Scott sighed. He let her go.

“So, it’s like that, eh. Off you go then. See your kid.”

Once last peck from her, and then it was off to the kitchen for Scott.

A house-husband’s work is never done.

“Betty?”

“Yes, dear?” They were already laughing and giggling in there and there was no end of nonsense from either one of them.

“Can you bring out that garbage bag when you come and I’ll take it down?”

No answer.

He would just have to live in suspense, then.

Pots and pans rattled and banged. There were some frozen pork chops, a few potatoes, and a couple of tall cans of Bud. They had the makings for salad and there were still a few soft-pack containers of formula for the baby.

They had each other, and you really couldn’t ask for much more.

END

About Louis Shalako

Louis Shalako began writing for community newspapers and industrial magazines. His stories appear in publications including Perihelion Science Fiction, Bewildering Stories, Aurora Wolf, Ennea, Wonderwaan, Algernon, Nova Fantasia, and Danse Macabre. He lives in southern Ontario and writes full time.

What I Learned From Writing An Online Serial.

My hemorroids are killing me. Leonid Pasternak.

Louis Shalako

Having completed my online serial rendition of The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue, there are some lessons to take away from the experience.

It took five or six months to write the first draft of a novel, and serialize it. 

That’s because I didn’t have the book done. I only had the first two or three chapters when I accepted this self-imposed challenge.

At the time, writing 2,000 to 4,000 words, to be published once a week, in readable form, was definitely a challenge. I was not a hundred percent sure that I could finish it at all. However, I suspected that I could.

There was only one week when I was still writing on a Friday. Most weeks, the thing was locked and loaded on Blogger by Tuesday or Wednesday. By Thursday at the latest, all set to hit the firing button at the end of the week.

This allowed me to do other things at the same time. Usually I write a thousand or two thousand words a day and my conscience is clear, right? That’s how I wrote my third mystery novel, The Art of Murder, and edited it, and published it, in thirty-four days.

But it also allowed me to focus on just exactly what needed to be done in that particular chapter, and nothing else. Bear in mind I knew roughly where the story was supposed to go, so all I had to do, page by page, and chapter by chapter, was to lay sufficient ground work for the last two or three chapters to happen. 

Everything that went before had to make sense by the time I got there.

(Betty Blue is a love story. Everything else is just set-up.)

It doesn’t have to be a literary masterpiece to be published as an online serial. It has to be readable, and yes, professional. It has to be fun, and more than anything, interesting. Other than that, the readers aren’t asking for all that much, but there’s plenty going on in the world and it’s nice to get away for awhile.

Chapter Nineteen, The Final Chapter, will be published Friday night. The serial came in at about 52,000 words, or a bit short for the first draft of a 60,000-word novel. But now it’s up to 59,200 words and I don’t see it going much more than that. What it is, ladies and gentlemen, is an extremely long novella or light novel.

My writing style is to wing it. Once I have the premise, the basic concept, I write by the seat of my pants. It’s a line of exploration as much as anything else. However, if you were the kind of writer who makes a time-line, and plans what will be in each and every chapter, you might find this challenge a bit easier than I did.

Brevity is King.

You would know what’s coming next when you completed a chapter, whereas I had to stop and figure it out. 

I had to ‘dead reckon’ how much time and space I had left, what sort of material was going into subsequent chapters, and basically figure out exactly what was needed, and then, write nothing more. When I had written my scenes for the week, if I had 2,500 words, I stopped. I saved a few ideas for the next episode. I made a few notes and then set it aside.

In serial form, the story is a bit thin on description, yet most chapters were at least 2,000 words and some were more like 4,000. The chapters were kind of long for online reading, and yet I brought the thing home in 19 episodes, or one less than I originally planned.

In terms of writing a novel manuscript, the experts will tell you that the thing is un-submittable by traditional publishing standards. They’ll tell you that I took my intellectual property and stood it up against the wall. 

Then I pissed all over it.

That may be true. However, education costs money, and at least I have learned how to write, which was my original goal.

A couple of more days with it, then it's done.

It was a limitation that I accepted before kicking that door in. They are not wrong. Neither am I. They have their perspective and their concerns, which are different than mine.

There are some other folks, who might also tell you that guys like me can’t write, and that we shouldn’t be writing, and that we will never succeed, and that we ought to quit.

My advice to those people is to try and develop a slightly-thicker skin, and let it roll off you like water off of a duck’s back. Bend like the reed, rather than snap like a twig.

Because it don’t mean nothing.

However, if you wanted to learn how to write a serial, the best way to do it is to write a serial. The best way to write a serial is in episodes. For each and every episode of a serial work of literature, is a work of art in its own right. It has to stand on its own, although naturally the reader is provided links to previous episodes.

The great thing about serials is the cliff-hangers. Man, do I ever love writing cliff-hangers.

It is a weird kind of discipline. It’s a performance, to go out there one night a week, have your material ready and do the gig, for better or worse, to jeers or applause. Whatever. But it’s something I had never done. Because it is a series, a longer work of art, whole, complete and sufficient unto itself, it’s different from a weekly column (which I have done) where you can tackle different subjects, week by week. A column is rarely fiction, although it may use fictive elements to get the story across.

My story writing process may differ from some other authors. I stopped writing chapters, (admittedly, one at a time) by about the fifth or sixth book. I began writing an entire novel, front to back, with scene breaks but no chapter headings or divisions. Only after the story was complete did I go back, estimate perhaps twenty-five or thirty chapters and then divide up the text using some esthetic and perceptual parameters. Psychological moments in the story are best.

So this time I had to decide, up front, usually in two or three short scenes, what was going to be in each chapter, and no more. Then I wrote it up, edited for typos, etc, and stuck it up on Blogger.

Then I could go off and write short stories, overhaul my system, or go to the beach and pretend to be cool.

***

So here’s the real news—if it actually happens. A year ago, I abandoned a project. It’s up to 36,000 words, and that’s a lot of effort to just walk away from.

Assuming I need a new mystery novel this year, (and I do), and assuming I want it in stores by Christmas, (and I do,) and assuming it really only takes a couple of months to write and publish such a project, then I really need to start that project pretty soon.

I need to start that by August 1, or shortly thereafter. In the meantime, I have a couple of weeks, and a kind of an incomplete zany thriller-parody that might just make a pretty good little online serial. That much material, posted once a week, two or three thousand words at a time, would give me essentially ten to twelve weeks before I absolutely must have the next chapter. Any asshole can write two or three thousand words in ten or twelve weeks, ladies and gentlemen. In the meantime, it builds site traffic, gives people something fun to read and maybe I get to learn something more along the way. (Louis is the perpetual student, ladies and gentlemen. He’s never graduated from anything in his entire life. – ed.) I haven’t really decided on that one yet, but at one time I did have some idea of where that story was supposed to be going. 

And I have a couple of weeks in hand before I worry too much about the next serious project.

I might even be able to do both at once, if I wrote like a bandit for the next couple of weeks and accepted whatever limitations are thrust upon me by an indifferent social context and the frickin’ bourgeoisie..

If you have the material, and aren’t all that worried about the fate of publishing, or what Deepak Chopra thinks of all this, then I say go for it. If not, then maybe you should be off somewhere, you know, somewhere trying to save literature and not reading this blog post.

As for me, I learned something new by doing it.

I also have my thirteenth novel.

And it’s really frickin’ good, ladies and gentlemen.

That’s the real thrill here.

END

The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue, Pt. 18.

Scott sat across from Gene.

Here are the previous episodes of The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7
Part 8
Part 9

Part 10

Part. 11

Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17

The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue Pt. 18.

Louis Shalako

Forty-eight hours had gone by. 

Gene felt refreshed, after a couple of good sleeps, a proper shave, and some real food. Hyper-lag was a bitch. He’d kind of forgotten that as he didn’t travel so much these days. There was some unfinished business to take care of.

Gene MacBride sat across from Scott Nettles in Interview Room Four. Nettles looked oddly comfortable in the orange coveralls and red slippers. The face had character, except when he got angry and it all twisted up like a raisin on PCP.

“I just want you to know that you’re not in any trouble.”

“Huh.”

Bullshit.

The thought was written all over Mister Nettles’ face and body, as he sat there with arms crossed and one ankle up on the other knee.

“Seriously. We see you more as kind of a victim here…”

“Fuck off.”

Gene suppressed a laugh.

Good for you, sir.

Never give up one iota of your power, Mister Nettles.

Thank you, God, for allowing me to witness this moment.

“I’m a police officer, Scott. We’re just here to help you.”

Even Gene heard the soft hack of Francine’s cough on the other side of the partition, with its obligatory one-way glass panel, dark and smoky and looking like Scott’s tired but angry brown eyes. Scott’s eyebrows climbed but he said nothing.

“Anyway, Mister Nettles, your property will be returned to you. We’ll have a constable help you with that, and there is a bus stop right out front.”

Nettles still had a pair of twenties as Gene recalled from the case notes. With the workload, it was amazing how yesterday’s novelty was today’s passer.

With the benefit of two full days of news coverage, it had become patently obvious that some of their fears had been groundless. A prominent singer had just delivered triplets in conjunction with her new boxed set and the world was simply moving on. There were real crises looming on the horizon and all of this would be quickly forgotten. That disturbed him, but he wasn’t an ethicist.

Gene stood.

“So that’s it, then?”

“Yes, Mister Nettles. We would appreciate it if you were available to answer any further questions that we might have—I always like to leave the door open like that, but that’s just the normal duty of a citizen…I don’t expect too much to come out of it.”

“But—but. But—what about my kid?”

“I’m sorry, Mister Nettles. That, is a matter for other authorities. It’s out of my hands—and none of my concern…” Yeah, and maybe you and Betty should have thought of that earlier.

Human Services were all over the unborn child like a dirty shirt. On balance, a recently-founded foundation was lobbying all over the Hill on behalf of Betty’s right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

“What—fuck you! God damn you all to hell! What about all that stuff I stole—what about all the God-damned crimes I committed…?” Scott was furious.

In here, there was a chance of sneaking a message to her. He’d already tried to get on the laundry work team, but had been turned down. Gene could read him like a book, and it was all so unnecessary.

“Mister Nettles.”

Scott was going on. The man certainly had an impressive vocabulary. Gene winced and reddened slightly when Scott turned from the state and the system and the world and humankind in general and started in on him, personally.

“Mister Nettles.” Gene broke in during a pause for breath as Nettles ran out of air, beet-red in the face and glowering blindly at him. “You’re blind. You are simply not capable of committing all the crimes you are describing. No jury in the land would convict you. My colleagues and I are agreed on that much at least…relax. Get over it. Go home. Get on with your life.”

“Argh! What about Betty—you fucking son of a bitch.”

“Scott. You can’t help Betty Blue—or your child, when you’re sitting on the inside of a jail cell.” There were a million people, some of them pretty good lawyers, all wanting to talk to Mister Nettles.

It wasn’t Gene’s job to give the man advice, legal or otherwise.

A shudder of emotion went through that thin frame and then the man got a hold on his emotions.

Fuck the world. The knowledge that he was powerless was devastating. To know that he simply didn’t matter in the equation.

Scott slumped in resignation, head going back and forth, no, no, no, and jaws working. He was near tears. 

Gene had a moment of remorse.

“Aw, fuck.” Scott slumped forward and put his head in his hands.

“Thank you, Mister Nettles. Now let’s see about getting you out of here.”

As Nettles clambered unsteadily to his feet, Gene took him by the elbow and led him to the doorway.

He stood there, breathing heavily, as Gene opened up. Scott was clearly on edge and emotionally flabbergasted. Probably thought they were going to gas him or something.

“Tom?” A uniformed officer cooling his heels on a hard plastic bench, flipping mindlessly through a garden magazine, looked up.

“Yes, sir?”

“Would you take the gentlemen down, please? He’s, uh, legally blind and needs help getting out of here. See if we have a stick or a cane in Lost and Found.”

Throwing the magazine aside, the officer hastened over to take Scott and the paperwork proffered by Gene.

“Yes, sir.” Anything that would get him off that bench for a while.

“Thanks, Tom. And goodbye, Mister Nettles. God bless, and good luck to you in all things.”

It was nothing more and nothing less than he would have said to any other citizen under similar circumstances.

***

“Good morning, Inspector MacBride.”

“Good morning, Miss Blue.”

“Please call me Betty—or Missus Nettles.”

Gene smiled in spite of his inner misgivings.

Oy vey.

“I hope you’ve been getting enough of the, ah…precious bodily fluids.” He didn’t know what else to call them, but her needs were a bit out of the ordinary and there was the baby to consider. “…while you have been our guest.”

“Yes. Thank you. It’s all been very nutritious.” She was expressionless, and yet always that sense of menace.

He had to admit the reaction was not unique. Gene cut quite the authority figure when he had to. She would be defensive as all hell.

“So, anyways. Betty, ah, we’ve been sort of consulting back and forth, with your , ah, former employer—and the, uh, other authorities…”

“Yes?”

“Well, I wonder if I might ask you one or two questions?” He tried desperately not to be overly threatening.

All he wanted was a few answers.

Yes, she was in trouble—of sorts, and yes, he had the power to cause her and Scott endless torment.

For what?

For what, he asked.

“No comment.”

“Yeah—exactly.” He cleared his throat. “No comment. Hmn.”

She wouldn’t let his eyes go, and so he dropped them of his own accord, to the table top, where his hands lay neatly folded.

“Are there other robots like you, Betty?”

No comment.

Somewhere out there in the world? Did they help her? Were they watching out for her, defying their human masters, feeding her data and holding it back from their masters?

Was this some mad impulse on her part, or part of some larger agenda…? That was the really scary part.

She stared right through him. That didn’t exactly help her case or ease his anxiety.

Is this a malfunction, Betty Blue? Or is it something more?

“No comment.”

It was possible she didn’t know. It was possible that she had acted entirely on her own, based entirely on her own feelings, and maybe it wasn’t a malfunction…

In which case why not just say so?

She was aware of the issues.

And smart enough not to give him anything…

Hmn. Interesting.

Gene was calm, cool and collected.

Like a cucumber.

“I’m prepared to release you right now, Miss Blue. No strings attached. However, I have just one small request.”

His eyes came up again, and hardened.

“It’s all been very fascinating. Really. I’ll be keeping my eye on you, young lady.” The publishers were clamoring for their story—her and Scott.

Life didn’t seen very fair, sometimes.

He smiled, slowly, lasciviously, making it as hard as he could for her. It was the only revenge he was likely to get.

It was the only revenge for a forgotten life.

The smile faded.

“Missus Cartier would desperately like to hear from you, Betty. I think she misses you.”

For the first time, Betty’s eyes changed. They defocused or something, no longer looking deep into his soul and finding him wanting in some way, but through him—off into the future, but not very far, somewhere close by, perhaps.

She was right back with him, though.

“She wants me to call her?” She had a half-witted look of dumbstruck humour on her otherwise smooth visage.

“Yes. Please call the Cartiers. Admittedly, your call may be monitored. Strictly for quality-control purposes, of course…”

They couldn’t have people swearing at each other over the phone now, could they? That one was still mostly just a fine, although there was talk of clamping down from certain quarters. Zero-tolerance. Well-meaning as those folks often were, it was getting to be a pain in the ass at times. Not all human actions were culpable, nor did they require the total legislative approach.

Not that anyone cared what Gene’s opinion was. He was just a cop, and hopefully, a good one.

She nodded, once…or twice.

“Very well. Good. And just so you know, we’ve been talking to the prosecutor, and the company, and the insurance people, as well as the gangstas (she coloured a bit here), and the car-theft victims. They’re all going to receive damages. Paid for by the Cartiers, in some private little settlement with the SimTech people and the insurance company. They have a very good lawyer. I understand there’s a hefty deductible, but that’s all been taken care of.”

They must really love you, Betty Blue.

He didn’t say it. It would have sounded cynical, and that wasn’t how he meant it at all.

He slid the drawer in front of him open. Pulling out a courtesy phone on the end of a two-metre chain, he handed it to her.

Shoving his chair back, he put his hands behind his head and his feet up on the corner of the table.

Gene waited.

“If she asks, you might consider working for them again. You know, like eight, or ten, or twelve hours a day. Whatever they want, really, or whatever you think you can handle.” Gene paused thoughtfully. “Make sure you get a good rate, you know?”

As for the legal issues involved in the marriage, the unborn kid, or, was Mister Nettles even capable of informed consent, (what with his chronically-depressed mental state), none of it was any of Gene’s business. 

The pair looked like they would be having plenty of legal trouble without his help. They were getting sued fifteen different ways last he had heard, (half the world wanted a piece of that baby) and it wasn’t going to stop there. The city was also in the process of being sued fifteen different ways, but there were the usual legal cut-outs and no one was going to lose their home over it. None of the city employees’ wages would be garnished for life unto the next three generations. No one was taking Gene or the mayor to court and trying to take their first-born kid.

No doubt the Cartiers had some idea of being a part of the child’s life as well. Their present, and very generous attentions, were an easy-to-read indication of that.

She stared into his eyes, and in that moment, it was as if she was aware of his thoughts. She also looked very vulnerable.

Betty looked down at the phone. She uttered a deep sigh. With a resolute gesture, she punched out the number. Her eyes came up and she grimaced.

“Thank you.”

It was all she said.

It was enough—barely.

END