They Do It At the 7-11

My aunt once gave me a book inscribed by my favorite author. It wasn't to me, the inscription: it was to Dave, Dave Hardy. Whoever he was. "Dave Hardy – keep up that writing; I would love to someday call you my contemporary." Aunt Laura never saw the inscription; she knew that I was missing Night Walkers from my Buddy Brown collection. She likely picked it up at a thrift store – who must have also been unaware of the little gem tucked in the flap.

Brown wasn't exactly a prolific, or famous writer. He was a local, a little bit of an eccentric old bugger. He was my post-teen answer to Erich von Daniken. I needed a little laugh now and then. The difference between dear Erich, and Buddy, was that Buddy wasn't serious. He wrote his alien conspiracy theory stuff in jest. It was fictional, and he claimed it as such. Actually, I bet von Daniken was the reason that he started writing what he did.

Night Walkers was his only non-scifi book. It was a comedy about werewolves. At first, you'd think it was about prostitutes, right? "Night Walkers" sounds more fitting for vampires, too. He was never good at titles. No, Buddy-boy's forte was the unreal; the unreal, and fictional applications of such. It's probably his best. Unfortunately, Buddy Brown died before he could pump out his follow-up sequel, Night Stalkers. I hear it was to be about the main girlfriend, Dawn, of Dick Richards – the werewolf that ate his girlfriends. She survived, obviously. I think she was going to be a werewolf, too, having been bitten, and all.

How did Buddy die? It depends on who you ask; being an obscure figure, that leaves few sources to tap. The internet claims he "went home, to Mars"; the newspaper suggests foul play. The locals like to say that he had a heart attack, after tripping on too many mushrooms – he was a notorious tripper. That may or may not explain his choice in literary output…

All that I know is that Night Walkers contains a little passage, one that really describes my adoration for the man:

He stepped out of the shadows, revealing to Dawn a body riddled with knotted fur. He was mid-change, still half in control. She stood there, body slackening, her face blanching. "Dawn," he howled, frowning as best as his contorted face would allow. "Run – while you still can." She was too dazed to comply; it was always the same, these girls. No wonder he had such bad luck keeping them alive. His presence alone was toxic, yet compelling; girls flocked to him – probably his animal magnetism taking over. He was bad for them, but – they still came by the droves. Ah, poor Dawn, she was a good one. He was struggling to keep contained; the Change was soon to complete. He growled lowly, the Wolf affirming itself internally. Too late, sweet Dawn. Far too late now…

It is with that alone that seals my want to write like the guy. He writes like a 1950s horror. I have a suspicion that he lifted heavily from stuff like The Wolf Man for this piece. I can almost picture that stop-motion transformation, the hair quickly spreading, the wolfishness developing drastically. I see it. I really do.

I feel bad for Buddy Brown, the little bundle of talent he was. He was certainly overlooked in the 80s, when he was the most productive. I guess something about the overload of scifi in that era kind of swallowed him whole, and prevented him from gaining popularity. But then, would von Daniken-styled fiction REALLY have caught on? Maybe not. Dani liked presenting things as a documentary-in-a-book, with shitty example pictures. He was the Charles Berlitz of aliens. And Buddy? I guess you could call his work 'mockumentaries', but, they don't call books documentaries, do they? That's more a thing for movies. What do you call sorta-historical books? I have no idea.

Aunt Laura would love for me to tell her all about this book. I kind of don't want to disappoint her with my taste in reading material. I kind of want to mislead her, and make her think that I'm reading something a little less tacky. Why tell her that the book she'd bought me was about a werewolf's comical misadventures?

I doubt Aunt Laura would understand Buddy Brown. Similarly, she's never read any of my work. My stuff is mostly campy crap about alien abductions. I think that I need to work on my genre more. Maybe get outside of it sometime, get some fresh air. Maybe I'll show her a story, when I finish one about something heart-wrenching. Maybe when I write an opus. Yeah. Right.

Ah, but now it is time to go to the 7-11; my boyfriend works there. It’s so late that no one comes in. He doesn't understand my kinship with Brown either, but, he tolerates it. My endless nattering about how I want to read stories on stage, with my best imitation of Brown's voice. I think it would be funny, and a great homage. He thinks it's cheesy. He thinks maybe I'm a little crazy, sometimes. Can't blame the guy.

I like going to the 7-11 late, because we can fuck in the fridge, behind the stock on display. He likes the whole risqué deal behind it. I like it because I kind of enjoy being cold during sex. It kind of gives me motivation to move faster. We had one guy come in, look around – but he didn't steal anything after spying us on the go. He boogied right the fuck out. Never came back; which was good, because he was notorious for lifting Hustlers. Dirty prick.

Ah, fun times, fun times. I wonder, as always, what would Buddy Brown have to say about it? Would he chide me, or, do you think he'd sneak it in, as an anecdote for Dawn's book? Dawn, the dirty ho – getting it on, on the go. He wasn't fond of sex scenes, but, I have a feeling he could sneak this one in. Somehow.

I wonder what Buddy Brown's sex life was like, tripping on shrooms. Maybe he finally got to fuck one of the nubile alien princesses he was so fond of writing about, maybe that's how he got off: on shrooms, pretending his wife was a squirmy pile of protoplasm.

Well. Time to go, gunna be late. Good night, Tiffany. Thanks for letting me rant for a while.