The Calm Before the Ghosts and Goblins and Writer's Block

Not a long post for this week, mainly because things have been slow at work. I've been gathering notes and preparing myself as much as possible for NaNoWriMo, which will begin on November 1st. As I mentioned in last week's post, I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month, which encourages people to write at least 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November. I've never tackled any kind of writing project of such length, so I'm looking forward to the challenge. Given how slow things are at work, I'm sure I can slip in some writing while the supervisors aren't looking. Their authority over me is mostly ceremonial anyway. When not in the field, operatives must adhere to the hierarchy of the office and are treated, more or less, like office drones. But only The Colonel has the power to fire us, since we are his private arsenal, in a sense.

I'm looking forward to having some other distraction. To break up the monotony of office work, I've found myself reading books on my Kindle for PC software. Since it's on my PC, the supervisors think I'm reading reports. This is probably not how Amazon wants to advertise its product, but it works. I've also been downloading free reading material from the Project Gutenberg Web site. I'm reverting back to my pre-teen, bookish self lately. Okay for the moment, but I'm itching to get back into the field.

The weather in Maryland this weekend should be picture perfect. Sunny skies and crisp, fall air with temperatures in the upper 50s and low 60s. Not really sure what I'm going to do with myself, although I did volunteer to hand out candy to the little rug rats while my mother and her boyfriend go out to dinner Halloween night. Not really all that thrilled with Halloween anymore. Turning your fears into harmless fun is almost cathartic for children, but continuing with Halloween antics into adulthood seems a little desperate and sad to me. Of course, I get enough opportunities to role play in my job, and some of the things I've dealt with since I started here make Halloween look like the Apple Blossom Festival, so I guess I'm not in a position to judge.

My mom dug out this old photo my dad took of me one Halloween. I look pretty excited about trick or treating. The anticipation of going out on Halloween night was akin to waiting for the ice cream truck to roll up the street. Amazing what food coloring and high fructose corn syrup can do to a child.

Happy Halloween everyone!

New Cover - Writer!

I'm mostly healed from my adventure in Vermont, so the old restlessness is beginning to set in again. Initially upon my return, I tried to set aside the more disturbing and mind-bending aspects of my last assignment by throwing myself into busy work at the office. I suppose "throwing myself" is a tired cliché, but I don't know how else to describe it. I memorized all the new people of interest on our Intranet site. I scoured through the recent reports for any details which may need further investigation. In short, I've been trying to make myself useful so The Colonel might give me a new assignment.

To my chagrin, this was not the best week to get The Colonel's attention. He seemed hopelessly preoccupied and down-right surly toward me. I tried to pull some insight out of his secretary during lunch one day, but she was her usual cagey self. "None of your business" was stamped on her forehead. Worn out from the effort, I've spent the last couple of day surfing the net on tax-payer dollars.

Speaking of which, I was on a stream-of-consciousness stroll through the web regarding creative writing when I came across this web site. National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, is designed to stimulate writers and would-be writers to get on with the exercise of creating a new novel. Every year, people sign up and commit to writing at least 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November. There's no real prize, but you have the satisfaction of getting a good running start on a novel which could one day be published. I have so many crazy thoughts rolling around my head after the Vermont assignment, I think I might have a go at putting the whole experience down on paper (or pixels, as the case may be). This could be a great form of encouragement and keep my mind off the banality of my current work state.

I've always had some interest in writing thanks to my Aunt Trudy. When I was a little girl, my dad's sister Gertrude was one of those free spirits who traveled around the world writing for various magazines as a freelance journalist. Whenever she found time to visit, Aunt Trudy would sweep in like a whirling dervish full of stories about the Congo and the Middle East and China.With her wiry salt-and-pepper hair, crazy mix of clothes from all over the globe, and deliberate lack of make-up, she seemed so exotic compared to my boring, suburban life. Certainly the polar opposite of my straight-laced father. When she would hug me, a slightly sickening cloud of patchouli engulfed me. The scent still makes me feel sad, although I don't know why.

Anyway, Aunt Trudy's stories inspired me to write just like her, so I would go to my room and scribble down fanciful adventures in my notebook about meeting the King of Japan and helping him fight dragons or some such nonsense. When I would present her with these crazy tales, she would react to the story as if I had really experienced it. "Oh, you are such a brave young lady to fight dragons! I hear the King has a birthmark on his neck shaped just like the island of Hokkaido! Is that true?" I felt a little guilty lying to my Aunt. What a silly kid I was!

I continued writing stories and keeping a journal right into high school. Then I got into gymnastics and working on my body (mainly to impress boys). By college, I had a steady boyfriend and other interests. Only recently, with all the strange experiences of this job and unanswered questions in my life, have I gravitated back to writing. I'm hoping this NaNoWriMo will help me purge some of the brain clutter I've accumulated over the last few months. Wish me luck! Writing begins on November 1, 2010, after the stroke of midnight.

Not much else to report this week, except that I believe I finally figured out why The Colonel was so preoccupied this week. Yesterday, we were told that my old contact in Las Vegas, code name Stephen, was killed in a car accident. Based on The Colonel's serene disposition after the news was reported, I can only presume that his demise was desired and, probably, cogitated. My accusations that Stephen was likely a double agent always seemed to fall on deaf ears, but now I see that this was not true. Rather, I'm realizing that The Colonel, and in fact this whole nameless agency, works in mysterious ways.

My Vermont Vacation

Last time I posted, I was sitting in my room in Vermont about to begin my new assignment. Now I'm back in my cubicle in DC taking a break from mind-numbing case studies. In between...well, all I can say is, it was quite a ride. I'm still sorting through all the details of the case and the potential ramifications. It's like some impenetrable foreign film that you keep thinking about days after you've seen it. The more you ponder it, the more complexities reveal themselves.

My report to The Colonel presented the facts of the case, but I left out some details, not to be secretive, but because I simply cannot explain them in any rational manner. It's quite clear to me now that there is far more to this universe than any of us can ever hope to grasp. I'm toying with the idea of putting down my experiences in a book. My Aunt Trudy, who is a writer, once told me that, if I had thoughts or feelings that kept me up at night, it helps to write them down and, through the process of writing, you can make sense of them. That advice seems most appropriate right now.

It will have to wait though. I'm nursing some cuts and bruises I sustained from the events in Vermont, along with a minor concussion which is causing occasional headaches. It's either the concussion or sinus headaches caused by the change of weather. At any rate, I'm better off than Lucky, who ended up in the hospital after attempting to save my innkeeper from a nasty attack. Maybe I should back up.

On my third day in Vermont, Lucky arrived out of the blue at the Bed & Breakfast where I was staying. Apparently, after he had not heard from me for several days, he decided to take my Tercel and drive across country to find me. I had let slip that I was originally from Bethesda, MD and that my mother's name was Helen, so he tracked her down. By this time, I was in Vermont, but good ol' Mom thought it was okay to tell him where I was. The poor guy showed up and started hounding me right as the case was getting hairy. It turns out he actually was a help, but he paid dearly for putting himself in harm's way. I feel guilty about that. At least, he doesn't ever want to see me again, which is what I wanted. I just didn't want it to be this way.

So the case is resolved, more or less, and I'm back to desk work. This time I think it could be for awhile, not because I'm in the doghouse, but because the agency doesn't like to send agents into the field too soon after a "traumatic assignment." That's how they phrase it anyway. I don't feel traumatized, but I am emotionally spent. I'm looking forward to having a regular schedule, watching football on Sunday, and catching a movie or two. Maybe now I can truly appreciate being home for awhile. Key words there are "for awhile."

Week of Transition

I'm writing this on my laptop in my cozy little room at a bed and breakfast in Bennington, Vermont. During the course of only a week and a half, I have gone from posing as Carla Fontaine, Internet porn vixen of Las Vegas, to plain old Angela Bayard, chastened office drone in Washington, DC, to Carla Franklin, mousy Manhattan office drone on vacation in scenic Vermont. I never thought I would be put back in the field so soon, but I'm eager to prove my worth after that botched assignment in Vegas.

My brief stint on desk duty shook me to the core. The past year was a whirlwind of training and exciting assignments both here and abroad. The work was shaping up to be just as exciting as I had hoped, but then came the mess in Vegas and I was stuck doing busy work in a gray cubicle. I realized that, if you are not a field agent in this organization, a career here would be just like any other government office job: dull and repetitive and safe. I'm not cut out for that, so I have to do everything in my power to stay in The Colonel's good graces and remain a field operative.

My period in purgatory wasn't all horrible though. I did get to reconnect with my mother, whom I haven't been able to spend much time with since my father died. When she started dating my old high school principal, Mr. Huggins, while I was in Vegas, I was angry and hurt and a little weirded out. I felt like she was betraying my dad or something. Not to mention the fact that I was forced to think of my mother as a sexual being for the first time in my life. It was all too much to handle while living thousands of miles away.

Now that I'm home, I recognize that she was working through her stages of grief completely on her own. I had work and travel to distract me. She had to live in the same house we all shared for so many years, left with all the memories and no inkling of a future. Finding Mr. Huggins was like having extra chapters added to her book of life. It doesn't just end abruptly with no finale. Her story goes on. I understand that now.

We all went out to dinner together last Saturday at McCormick & Schmick's. Strange how someone can seem like a completely different person when you meet them socially. As a teenager, Mr. Huggins was all grim and humorless, relentlessly on patrol for vandals and pot smokers and hall loiterers. He really had no personality, so far as I could tell, as if he were stored in one of the gym lockers during the night and trotted out the next day to continue his reign of terror. Last Saturday, sitting next to my mom, joking about his life and career, he became human in my eyes. Like my mom, he had adored his spouse and was devastated by her passing. Still is, I imagine. He seems happy with Mom though. And as he approaches retirement, he can joke freely about putting "the fear of God" in us kids so he could maintain just enough calm that we might learn something. Turns out, he's even ex-Navy like me, although he served peace time during the late 70s. I was so glad we had that dinner together.

Then, just when I was beginning to feel re-energized, The Colonel smiled upon me and handed me this new assignment. Not the most high profile job: playing bodyguard to a civilian professor working undercover for the FBI. I'm supposed to stage a fake romance with him so I can stay close in case he gets in danger. From porn star to ingenue. Can't say The Colonel isn't a bit sexist, but at least I'm in the field again.

Have to wrap this up so I can get downstairs and eat breakfast. The cooking aromas have been wafting up to my room all morning, and I'm dying to see what Edgar, the innkeeper, has whipped up. He's a bit of an odd duck, but friendly and eager to please. Frankly, I think he has a bit of a crush on me. Anyway, it's breakfast and then off to meet my contact. How thrilling it is to be back in the game!

What Happens in Vegas...

Sometimes events can turn so quickly your mind doesn't have time to catch up. That's the way I'm feeling right now. The past five days have been a blur, taking me from the heights of anticipation to the depths of disappointment. I guess the only way to sort through it is to start at the beginning.

Last Saturday was the night of the big operation. Stephen and I had been working out our scenario for almost two weeks. I was even simulating my moves by running around casinos to test my speed. Finally, it was the night of the 25th, and I was to meet the online customer known as Hommecornee and his boss, a major arms dealer who will remain nameless. Basically, the plan was for me to show up at the client's suite as sexy call girl Carla Fontaine. I was a little worried that the suite was in the same hotel where Lucky worked, but the chances of him spotting me in such an enormous place were slim.

I met Hommecornee and another hanger-on at the suite where I was told to see the arms dealer in his bedroom. Once I was in the room alone with the client, I was to administer a drug to him which would simulate a heart attack. I was to pretend to have called 911 and two men whom Stephen had hired to pose as paramedics were to arrive and carry the arms dealer away, supposedly to a hospital but actually to a safe house where he could be interrogated. I was to slip away when the paramedics arrived.

All of this had to be precisely timed because the drug we were using could kill our target if he was not given another drug to counteract the effects within 20 minutes. That's why we had to hire outside help with medical experience. Unfortunately, our freelancers never arrived. I panicked and took off before Hommecornee and his buddy could discover that their boss was dead. I was racing to get out of the hotel when I spotted the men  pursuing me in the casino. As if things couldn't be worse, I also spotted Lucky having a drink with another woman in the lounge. I was angry and hurt, but I had to focus on getting out of there alive. Then Lucky saw me and came over to explain himself, giving my pursuers time to move in. Only through some quick maneuvering (and the help of some bouncers at the hotel) did I manage to escape, losing both Lucky and the bad guys in the process.

By the time I made it back to Lucky's trailer in Henderson, I knew the operation was a shambles. I dutifully reported everything to The Colonel. He was clearly peeved, but gave me no reprimand. Instead, he ordered me back to Washington immediately. I packed my bags and took a cab to McCarran Airport, leaving Lucky, my little Tercel, and Carla Fontaine behind. By Sunday afternoon, I was back on the East Coast calling my mom for a ride home from the airport. Essentially homeless, I also had to ask if I could move back into my old room.

Saturday night, I was playing a call girl. Monday morning, I was playing civil servant and reporting to the office in my little gray suit. I had a meeting with The Colonel that morning. It didn't go well. Although he didn't place the blame for the operation's failure directly on me, his eyes and body language made me feel as if I was just some inexperienced screw-up. Inexperienced maybe, but I did my part perfectly. Something went wrong on Stephen's end, and I wasn't sure why he wasn't in that room with me getting the third degree. I can't help but think that Stephen is working for someone else.

Anyway, that's not my call. I have to trust that The Colonel will sort this all out. For me, I'm stuck on indefinite desk duty until The Colonel finishes his investigation. Sitting in a cubicle updating files and monitoring field reports is not exactly my natural state. One of the reasons I joined the Navy after college was to avoid the office trap and have some adventure. Then I came to this agency and had some interesting experiences, but the Vegas assignment was my first long-term undercover job. Despite the creepiness of the cover, I enjoyed the freedom of working on my own, away from The Colonel's steely glare. I need to get in the field again, but after last Saturday, I don't know what will become of me.

As it stands, I'm putting in my eight-hour days and coming home to my old bedroom. My mom goes out to dinner every night with Mr. Huggins while I sit alone watching cooking shows and wondering when she'll be home. It's like we've reversed roles since I last lived here. In less than one week, I'm a different person.

I suppose I could pretend the old me never existed except for the texts and voice mails I keep getting from Lucky. There's no way I can talk to him, although a part of me feels like he deserves some sort of explanation. Of course, it would just be another made up story since he can't know the truth. I lied to him; he lied to me. It was all a big pretend game. Best to just put it in the past. As the commercial says, What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Carla Fontaine is buried in Las Vegas.

Stephen, Rex, Lucky, and Faith

Stephen, my agency contact in Vegas, broke into Lucky's trailer in the wee hours of Sunday morning and tried to abduct me. The situation was completely bizarre.  I was sound asleep after a fairly long evening on the web cam. I knew Lucky would be out until sunrise with his friends from the show, so I was luxuriating in the prospect of a long, uninterrupted slumber.

Around four in the morning, I hear some creaking in the floor. Not the long, irritated groans of old floorboards like in my mom's house, but the short pops and squeaks made by whatever the floors are made of in the trailer. Anyway, I've heard Lucky come home enough times to know someone was lurking nearby. My body tingled from the adrenalin coursing through my veins. I was wide awake and fully prepared to act. My first assumption was that some meth fiend from the trailer park was poking around for cash or something to steal. I slid my hand into the partially opened drawer of my bedside table and wrapped my fingers around the Smith & Wesson inside. Just the sight of a pistol is usually enough to scare off a stoner.

I had just pulled the weapon under my pillow when I sensed the intruder enter my room. He took a few steps, and then paused for what seemed like hours but was surely only a few seconds. Before I could rise and surprise him, he surprised me by pouncing on the bed. I recognized his moves to overpower me since it was the same technique taught to all the newbies at the agency's training facility. It didn't take me long to slip out of his grasp and smack him upside the head with my pistol. Stephen was a pile on the floor when I turned on the light.

He told me this was just his way of ensuring that I was still in condition for the operation we are planning to take place on the 25th. "Had to make sure you hadn't gotten lazy after all these weeks of soft living," he told me. None of it rang true. He seemed genuinely shocked that I had overtaken him and his explanation seemed forced. I'm still not sure whether this guy is working for someone else or if he's just plain off his rocker. Whatever the case, he doesn't inspire much confidence in me regarding our upcoming sting.

Speaking of which, Stephen told me later in the week that he had settled on the scenario he felt would work best. Unfortunately, it involves recruiting some outside help. Our agency is built around utilizing civilians from various fields to supplement our meager manpower resources, but given the lack of lead time, we will need to find new people who have not been vetted by the agency. This is causing even more dread on my part. I want to call the whole thing off and handle it myself, but The Colonel is backing Stephen, so I have to go along. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, I've been continuing my cover routine with other men besides Mr. Hommecornee. Not the most fun occupation when you're on your period (I won't even go into the sleight-of-hand required during this time of the month). My one highlight of the week was catching the Ravens-Jets game on Monday Night Football. I was getting so sick of all the hype surrounding Rex Ryan and his Jets this summer and how the national media totally bought into it. It's as if the NFL and the sports journalists want to orchestrate their own storylines  like it's WWE wrestling. They have a handful of favorite teams and the rest are just supposed to stand around and get pounded by them like the witless henchmen on bad cop shows. Blustering Rex and pretty boy Sanchez were supposed to stomp all over the always hated Ravens, but the Ravens outplayed them the entire time. I was so thrilled, I almost spilled my diet root beer on my laptop!

Otherwise, I've been in a perpetual state of ennui (I haven't pulled that word out in awhile). My mom's been telling me how wonderful it's been spending time with Mr. Huggins (am I supposed to call him Brad now?). Then she asks about how Lucky and I are doing, and I dismissively say it's all good, but it isn't. The initial novelty of dating a performer in Vegas has worn off, and I'm beginning to wonder if I'm just staying with him for the free rent.

The other day, I was clearing out some of the songs that had piled up on my iTunes over the years and I wasn't listening to anymore. I came across Faith Hill's Breathe and I felt a stab in my gut. Memories of my senior year in high school flooded back, when I was reading too many romance novels and full of yearning for some passionate relationship. I know it sounds completely corny, but the feelings were nevertheless very real to a naive kid. Back then, I never had a boyfriend and only dated boys who were convenient; i.e., nonthreatening and possible gay. At night, I would lay in bed with Faith Hill's lyrics floating through my head, imagining that sense of reclining next to a man and feeling so completely comfortable and secure, totally enraptured by the moment of simply being together. I couldn't wait to find that man and have that feeling. My body fairly ached for that sensation.

In college, I had a steady boyfriend, and there were some passing flings during my time in the Navy. Now I have Lucky. Two nights ago, I laid next to him after a fairly perfunctory love making session and listened to him breathe, just like Faith Hill sang about. Only thing was, I felt nothing. He was a man laying next to me performing a necessary action for the perpetuation of his existence. Nothing more. I couldn't help but wonder, would I ever feel what Faith Hill felt?

Long Weekend and Longer Week

Labor Day weekend was pretty quiet. I didn't hear from Mr. Hommecornee at all, which gave me a much needed rest from my alternate life. Lucky was tied up with extra performances, so I was left alone most of the time.

On Saturday, I decided to just drive around for awhile, roaming up and down the strip and letting my mind wander. I drove south past the legendary Las Vegas sign and spotted the South Point Hotel. There was a great deal of commotion going on there in preparation for the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. Hate to say it, but I  didn't even know Jerry Lewis was still alive. I only have vague memories of the telethon from when I was a kid and the cable channels were more limited than they are today. There was this man with greasy hair in a tuxedo alternately acting like an ass and then yelling at the audience because they weren't sending him enough money. That's about all I could remember.

Since I felt some new, direct connection to it being in Vegas and all, I decided to catch a few minutes of telethon. It's kinda sad. Jerry was old and wheezing and befuddled and, despite promises of great entertainment, I didn't recognize any of the performers on the show. I sorta recall there being people like Mr. T on when I was little, but there were just lame comedians and lounge singers now. It all seemed so pathetic, I felt like I had to donate. They had a thing where I could text them and they were charge $10 on my phone bill, so I did that.

The rest of the time, I thought I'd get some use out of my new Word program and do some writing on my laptop. It felt good to unload some of the haunting memories from my encounter with my crazy old neighbor at my apartment building. Everything had been a blur for several weeks despite my efforts to sort through it all, but only now have I been able to put things into any kind of perspective. Funny what you can dredge up from your memory when you give it a good spanking. Some of the things the old lady said that night make me wonder if she was somehow connected with the white van that was hanging around the trailer park. There's a bigger picture here I'm only now starting to piece together.

So the weekend came and went. Mom called me on Tuesday to talk about her weekend with Mr. Huggins. After his anxiety attack, he decided to open up more to Mom about his feelings for his dead wife and his trepidations about dating again. She said he started crying in her arms and couldn't get a hold of himself for at least an hour. I can't picture gruff Mr. Huggins crying like a baby. Not the same high school principal who would threaten Eddie Tunsten with lame expressions like, "Make my day, Tunsten!" or "Do you smell what I'm cookin'?"

Just for laughs, Mom e-mailed me this photo of Mr. Huggins from my high school yearbook:

She says he's heavier now and the graying at the temples has spread to his whole head. God, I wish I could be back home to witness all this. I feel so detached from my life here. This isn't really life, but some play of which I am a mere player, to swipe ol' Bill Shakespeare. Speaking of playing, Mr. Hommecornee contacted me Wednesday night and wanted to arrange a more intimate conversation via Skype. I was worried about "breaking the third wall" as it were, but I needed to do whatever it took to get face-time with him and/or his boss. As is usually the case, my image of him in my head did not match his actual appearance. He was quite large, like a body builder, and rather stern looking. The conversation was all business, and by that I mean of a non-sexual nature. He just wanted to firm up plans for me to meet with his boss at their suite. Operating on his turf was not ideal for me, but Hommecornee was insistent, "for security reasons" he claimed.  I agreed.

My next step was to formulate a plan by which I could apprehend his boss, the arms dealer, as surreptitiously as I could. Unfortunately, this is not a strong point for me, so I contacted The Colonel. He told me to make contact with Stephen again. After the last debacle, I didn't want to go there, but The Colonel made it an order. Obviously, he doesn't trust me to pull off such an operation alone. For me, Stephen's the untrustworthy one.

Anyway, we met yesterday for lunch at a noisy buffet to discuss a possible sting operation. I have to give Stephen credit, he's an imaginative guy. He rattled off at least a half dozen possible scenarios we could play. Frankly, I think the guy would make a better screenwriter than a federal agent. Stephen told me he would investigate the feasibility of each plan and get back to me with what he thought was the best way to go.

So here I sit, waiting in limbo until the plan can be implemented. The waiting is the hardest part - damn, now I'm swiping Tom Petty!