Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
This is the Doctrine’s contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.
It is hosted by Denise.
(For those unfamiliar with the name, ‘Lou Ceasare’, he is a recurring character in the Ian Devereaux series. Lou owns and runs the Bottom of the Sea Strip Club and Lounge less than a block from the office of our MC, the aforementioned Mr. Devereaux. Lou’s been known to lend money, cultivate talent for interpretative dance and, generally, thrive in the shadowy world of nearly-organized crime.)
The prompt word this week?
BOOK
“You fuckin owe me, Devereaux, …bigtime,” Lou Ceasare smiled like a shark parachuting into the main tank at Sea World during ‘Fish Farming: Feeding the World’ Month.
Passing off a wave of disorientation as either someone walking on my grave or perhaps a momentary, spontaneous past-life regression, I stared at the crowd gathered in front of the Six Sentence Café and Bistro; even from a half block away it was clear there were two similar-but-different constituencies preventing all vehicular traffic and most pedestrian movement from getting more than bouncer-close to the entrance.
Nearest the short flight of granite steps down to the door, were those in an orderly line extending from a velvet rope turnstile, outwards along the sidewalk, they shuffled along in happy resignation towards a bearded man waiting to render his verdict on their value to the book signing within the club; there were easily three times as many people, resigned to accepting their lack of attractiveness yet, rather than retreat to private self-respect triage, seemed to celebrate simply being in the vicinity, satisfied with enhancing the exclusivity of the function.
Two days previous to standing at the frayed-edge of a daytime mob, my admin, Hazel, walked into my office and put a FedEx envelope on my desk, the return address was: Doppelgänger, Doppelgänger & ID, LLC, inside were two tickets and no explanation; on impulse and seeing how he was the only person I knew who owned a down-city lounge and strip club, I invited Lou.
Still somewhat surprised he took me up on my invitation, we now stood half a block from our destination, fortunately it was Lou Ceasare next to me; if the Red Sea was comprised entirely of hungover English majors, leather-elbowed publisher types and literary groupies of all genders, and Moses was played by a guy built like a fire hydrant, wore a three thousand dollar Zegna sports coat over an Old Navy Hawaiian shirt with a pair of reading glasses hung around his neck on what looked like re-purposed rosary beads and smoked a cigar, I suspect I might’ve paid more attention to the Old Testament as I served time in Our Lady of Mercy elementary school.
We got to the door and the bearded man, who seemed to know nearly everyone, but never lost his expression of concentration, nodded us in the door with a backstage-pass kind of smile/acknowledgement,
“Ya think maybe you could get that buddy of yours, whad’ya call him, oh yeah, a Proprietor,” Lou’s laughter had a quality that, somehow, sucked the volume out of the conversation that filled the room around him, it was what I figured you’d hear in a dining hall full of gladiators returning from an afternoon of life and death in the Colosseum, “If you could get the writer broad here to hold one of these book seances or palm signing things at the Bottom of the Sea, maybe it’d class up the joint.” Lou’s sotto voce aside wasn’t much louder than a fire alarm in a rest home, but before I could answer, he was standing in front of a woman sitting alone at the crowded bar, looking like he was meeting a long-lost friend.
About clarkscottroger
Forgive me for not agreeing with your timeline; allow me:
…oh yeah a Proprietor” Lou’s laughter etc. Lighting my small cigar, cause I have nothing to compensate for with a big one, looked Lou and said:
First off, the Proprietor will see you when and if he/she chooses to do so.
Second, there are no broads here.
So kindly, with lot’s of sugar on top…apologize, go get a coffee and come back in half an hour.
“You m%$*r, who do..”
Lou, I’ve done some bad things in my life… Things I’m not proud of. I promised someone I love very much that I would never go back to being that person… But for you, I’ll make an exception.
Lou comes back one hour later, after apologizing to Chris and stands in front of a woman etc.
lol
I’ll be sure to pass your thoughts along to κύριος Ceasare.
Serially, the challenge* for me was deciding which character and POV to use today: the sophomore (I know you, Nick, got a soft spot for the-kid-from-1972), my own ‘thin, graceful man sporting a wry grin and title ‘Proprietor’ and, from the deep of the night-before-papers-are-due, it occurred to me, “What about Ian? He’s always been 1st Person POV for me in my better moments… lets see if he’s available!”
(Don’t tell anyone, but getting Ian to go on for ‘me’, I wasn’t having a huge amount of fun. And then, I remembered interactions between Ian and Lou from the first two pulp detective stories, ‘the Case of the Missing Starr‘ and ‘the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf‘(still a WIP) and call me a clark, but I get a kick out of Lou.)
Not as confident with my raison d’être, my introduction, if you will, getting the two characters to the soiree, but then again, we’re, in the words of the still-incredible Firesign Theatre, all just bozos on this bus.
d’être or not, that’s the only way he will entree!
Nah, don’t bother…he got the message
In this joint, nobody speaks to/about my mates like this…😎
Thank you, kind Spira, for stepping to my aid!
Not that you need any; but it’s our house , our rules!
Oh, is there a book signing?
I hadn’t noticed…
lol ikr?
so much in this. you are Michnerian. (#notawordbutitisnow.) bueno!
Thanks, Paul
Nice description of Lou’s voice that “wasn’t much louder than a fire alarm in a rest home” and that “sucked the volume out of the conversation that filled the room around him”.
One of the things about Lou is that he’s fun to write. No filter, no contrived or polite deference. Loyal to a fault, direct and very often funny, and he’s been known to laugh at himself surely the one essential quality in a likable character.
The more the merrier, Clark, I always wanted to meet Mr Devereaux. As for Lou at the Lounge, I’d take up an offer to flog a few more books, especially since I have a back catalogue Sea Goddess that’s more than a match for him!
Lou Ceasare is clearly one of those characters (I) hope to find when starting a story. Shows up with ‘a voice’ and the willingness to tell me his view of things.
I should go and find some of the backstory interactions between Lou and others, my WIP and my first Ian Devereaux story.
(imo? all of us have had ‘a Lou’ in our lives. the farther back in our lives, the more fun. His personality type, (a scott in the Wakefield Doctrine) is exciting, risking and exhilerating along with embarrassing and how-did-I-end-up-here inducing… like I said, better when we’re young and not so serious-minded.)
Those characters (real or imagined) are the best. Hold on to ’em! They can carry the story.
totally agree… like road trips… hey man, you look like you’re getting tired, I’ll drive for a while.
I do like spending time in Lou’s presence.
Thank you.
Remind Mr. C that mama is watching! (And grinning, she knows boys.)
(There’s a story* behind the description of the reading glasses is wearing ’round his neck)
*will try and find it in… I think it might be Missing Starr (or maybe Missing Fig Leaf)
Bet you had fun writing Lou back into the series? He’s a big presence in many ways.
lol totally
Hey! I found it!!*
Lou was wearing a white shirt with a collar I thought out-lawed at the end of the seventies. Sticking out from his shirt pocket were two gold Cross pens and the blond-plastic ends of a couple of Tiparillos. That was a good sign. When he thought he might need to make a point or indicate a preferred interpretation of his closing argument, Lou smoked Coronas. I’ve actually heard detectives with the Providence PD, discussing a beating case, say, “Nah, nothin to do with that crowd at the Bottom of the Sea. Those burn mark are way too small.”
He wore half-lens reading glasses with a string of old-lady beads tying one earpiece to the other. I once asked him about it, when I first started having lunch at his place.
“This thing? A gift from my grandmother Rosa, may she rest in peace. I got a sneaking suspicion these are rosary beads. She was a bit of the rebel for her day, and probably figured it was as close to being a good Catholic as she was gonna get me.” He rolled a length of the beads between his fingers and looked at me, “You can’t never have too much muscle, you know what I mean?
Siddown”
I sat.
*I promised Mimi I’d find the backstory on the reading glasses Lou is wearing to the SSC&B
Lou! A surprise to see him away from the Bottom of the Sea.
Wouldn’t be surprised if he convinced Chris to do another book signing at his club. He can be quite persuasive.
Can only imagine the conversation at the bar between Lou and the mimi. Sure they’d be best buds – right after she set him straight first, lol
Fun Six, Clark and a hell of a book signing bash at the SSC&B!
Never not fun to be in the company of Mr. Caesare
There are certain characters that are darn fun to write, indeed! ‘Course, they have a tendency to take over some days :)
this is very true… like the others have said, sometimes a character invites themselves in (to the story), depending on the authors previous ideas as to storylines, that can be a good thing or a bad thing